ADVICE PLEASE: Heatpipe installation and Artic 5

[BobDog]

I am finally putting together my HTPC and it is just chock-full of heatpipes(scroll down the link a bit to see all the pipes). My friend is helping me, and he came up with an interesting suggestion for my Artic Silver 5: he said why not put the stuff on the heatpipes and heatpipe blocks (e.g. not just on the BOTTOM of the bloc here the block meets the CPU/GPU, but also on the TOP of the block where the block holds the pipes in place) to increase heat transfer into the pipes.

Then he reconsidered and thought that maybe Artic Silver only works when it gets really hot (as on a CPU or GPU) and that it might impede cooling if placed on the relatively cool block-pipe interface and thus might do more harm than good there. So now he is against the idea, but I thought that there might be something to it--even though I have never seen anyone do this before. Has anyone here tried that—or does anyone think that it will work/not work (I am sorry if someone has already answered this question, but I didn’t have much luck searching the forums for "Artic Silver 5" and "heatpipe"… too MANY matches)?

Thanks in advance for any help. We are hoping to finish hardware installation tonight, so any advice would be super!

[dfrost]

When mounting the Aerocool VM-101 to the 9600 Pro video card, I used AS5 on the interface between GPU and HS mounting block. Then I used the Aerocool-supplied TIM where the heatpipes are clamped, and between the two mounting block faces, as you can see in this photo. Seemed like it would be a good idea to enhance thermal conductivity between these surfaces. And there was plenty of the Aerocool TIM to fill all the gaps around the heatpipes. Would have been expensive to use that much AS5.

AS5 apparently has some sort of phase change associated with its break-in period, which suggests that your friend may be correct about needing high temperature for best results. Other thermal greases seem to be mostly thermally-conductive gap fillers, so they shouldn't need high temperatures to be effective. I've even seen a test that showed toothpaste to be very effective as TIM (but not very long-lasting).

[BobDog]

AS5 apparently has some sort of phase change associated with its break-in period [...]

Yea, my friend thought the same thing about the phase change (though he said something more along the line sof "... you know, it kind of melts 'n' stuff." Anyway, I am not worried about the cost really (AS5 isn't that expensive), but I don't see anything good coming of it if it is going to impede heat transfer rather than helping it.

I think I'll leave it off. Thanks.