Liquid Metal Cooling review and IHS removal

[Fuzzy_3D]

After a few rather unsuccessful water cooling threads, I realized that I would have to wait until at least my next system refresh before I'd be delving into water cooling (Probably around the release of AM2 or Conroe). Meanwhile, I still felt like popping the case and tweaking something.

So I proceeded to scour the www looking for ideas. Besides discovering that I could remove the IHS (Integrated Heat Sink aka Shim) on my A64 (Socket 754), I had also heard rumors of thermodynamic defying feats of a particular Liquid Metal thermal compound out of Germany. And if I know anything about Germans, it’s their marvelous engineering finesse.

After some further research I had come across some very impressive graphs, all of which plainly conveyed the conclusion that this stuff was far beyond what Arctic Silver 5 and Céramique could muster. I decided this was worth looking into and would tide me over for the next few months.

I then tracked down a seller for a syringe of this mystery substance on eBay and ended up paying 7.80 Quid (GBP) ($14.80 USD) ($16.50 CND to me).
While I was waiting for it to arrive from Germany, I thought I’d try my hand at removing the IHS on my CPU and lapping my stock CPU heat sink. As the chip was already out of warranty, I had no qualms in voiding anything, other than the functionality of the hardware.

After following This Guide, bending a few bent pins back into place and 15 minutes with the dremel tool, I was left with an unmarked A64,



And a rather heavy (30g) IHS, which up till now I’d thought was composed of aluminum.


(Yes, this IS also a good opportunity to showcase my digicam)


Once that nerve racking procedure was done with (Somehow, I was still a bit nervous) I moved on to lapping the heat sink, using wet (and water proof) 400, 1000 and 2000 grit sandpaper. After a half hour of sanding (mono dimensional) and polishing, I had a somewhat reflective base.



I then proceeded to reassemble my system using the same Céramique I had always done.

After running Super PI to 8 Million digits (which took just over 8 minutes) it turned out that all the preceding effort netted me ZERO improvement, not a single whole degree, I was still at 47 C on Load.

In hind sight, I should have used CPUBurn or Toast. They say that IHS removal only improves temps on overclocked chips, and maybe there was a slight improvement but my onboard sensor wasn’t sensitive enough to pick up the difference as it would occur beyond the decimal. Either way, I did not achieve nearly the improvement that the author had.

All I could do now was wait for the miracle German compound.
It arrived the very next week, in a small paper envelope, along with the instruction leaflets and a shameless plug for the product I had just bought.

Before I applied the thermal compound, I ran a few apps (with all the settings I could find set to max) to get some “Before” temps. I use Motherboard Monitor and ATI Tool to collect data and came up with the following results.



Obviously, Hitmam Contracts stressed my system more than Super PI or Oblivion in both CPU and GPU temperature, and since temperature is directly related to power consumption, I would use Hitman 3 as the yardstick for my “After” results.

It should also be noted that I am not using the stock cooler on my X800 Pro -> XT.



I proceeded to read the provided instructions rather inattentively, as I’ve applied thermal paste on at least two dozen separate occasions, so I knew what I was doing and the best way to do it.

The one thing that I did take from the instructions, and that the manufacturer had gone out of their way to note, was that this substance should NOT be applied on aluminum heat sinks, or any aluminum at all for that matter.

Being overly curious by nature, I thought I would do just that and see what all the fuss was about. For this I used an old aluminum 486 heat sink that I had earlier cut into pieces and lapped, to attach onto the ram chips of my TNT2. I would apply one as just a drop to rest on the surface, and the second would be squeezed between two more heat sinks.

After taking the tube out of its packaging I was presented with a syringe filled with what could be best described as mercury. Removing the cap reveals a regular skin piercing needle, very much like the ones doctors and addicts are accustomed to.



And since this stuff is toxic, you would be well advised to take care when handling the syringe and store it somewhere your parents or little kids won’t find.

I applied a small drop of the compound to my CPU and GPU, as those were the only copper heat sinks in my system.



The compound handles just like molten solder and does not stick to metal with ease. This was somewhat of a concern as it would not spread very well when squeezed between the core and heat sink. Regardless, I reassemble the system (Leaving the case cover off), powered it up and fired up Hitman 3. After a half hour of senseless violence, I went back to check on my temps, which read as such:



I could not believe this, it’s not the money that pissed me off, but the thought that I got conned.

Once I had regained my composure, my trail of thought lead me to the source of the treachery. I went back to all the reviews I had browsed over, and realized that none of them were English. I couldn’t understand a word, but what I could decipher were all the pretty graphs. How could a no name company bribe 10 separate sites to place their product ahead of the rest, and not by a small margin either, were talking 8% ahead of Arctic Silver 5 in some scenarios.

So I decided to look a little further over the reviews with the use of a translator and see what they did that I “did not do” to achieve their remarkable results, and a few interesting points caught my eye.



They all enjoyed spreading their compound, the way you never should, in order to avoid air pockets once the heat sink comes down. Well, I thought I’d check the instructions to see if this is what Zee Germans had actually instructed.

“Now spread out the "Coollaboratory Liquid Pro" evenly across the cooler's surface from center to the sides.”

I was a bit confused as to why they’d instruct anyone to do something like that, but since that was the only glaring difference between my method and theirs, I figured I may as well pull a kamikaze and reapply it “their” way.

So I open my case up and begin pull off the CPU heasink.




What is interesting, is that even though 3/4 of the CPU core had no thermal compound, the core temp only rose 1 degree.
My mistake was equally as glaring on the GPU.



In my defense, it was an easy mistake to make… and the print on the instruction sheets was very small.

Needless to say, I went on to clean up the mess and redo everything as instructed.





After all was said and done, the following results were updated.




As you can see the results are very convincing. The CPU temp dropped by 2 degrees and the GPU dropped by 6.
Looking at the advancement of thermal compounds over the past few years, this could almost be called revolutionary.

It’s just a matter of time before this becomes the new standard compound for enthusiasts, unless Arctic silver can counter with something as impressive.

As for its main draw back, here is what happened to the aluminum heat sinks.

Before:



After:



I don’t know what the thermal conductivity of the Black Crud is, but I bet its lousy.
Here is a shot of the previously undamaged heat sink 30 minutes after applying the compound.



This stuff seems to grow and crystallize as it reacts with the aluminum. Not something you want inside your computer.


Here is the link to the Official Coollaboratory Liquid Pro Site


And if anyone else here has/gets some of this stuff, if would be interesting to see your results.


Hope you found this informative.


MR- In the future please refrain from any vulgar comments