Super glue?

A little dot of superglue in each corner of the chip, with regular thermal compound over the rest of the chip surface. That's what I do. The four little dots of glue are enough to hold a 486 heatsink solidly, while still leaving the possibility that you could remove it at a later date if you wanted.

Thanks, now I can finally use those scrap heatsinks.
😁

I'm not sure how long superglue will hold, or if it will interact with the heatsink compound causing a weak bond. This seems like something I've attempted unsuccessfully.

Something else you might consider, which I have done in the past, is to use thermally conductive epoxy on just one corner of the CPU/Heatsink, and heatsink compound on the rest. With just one corner, maybe a dot of about 2 mm in diameter, you will have plenty of torque from the diagonal corner to remove it with a slight jolt.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/thermal-adhesive-tape … abid=1&doy=14m5

Thermal Adhesive Tape, double-sticky-sided, worked for me on an old 486. When I ditched to board I just pulled the heatsink off [it was an am2 one iirc, all I had at the time] and it pulled the cpu out of the socket. So it's reasonably strong stuff.

TheLazy1 wrote:

Has anyone found a way to attach a heatsink without clamps or clips?

There are 486 HSF's that attach directly to the CPU. No idea where to get these these days, but I got a couple from old computers I scrapped.

Only problem is, they can be very noisy (depends on the fan also and how it's mounted. At least for me) and they are of course really tiny, so not great for overclocking adventures.

Socket 3 boards with socket clips ftw!

I'm not sure how long superglue will hold, or if it will interact with the heatsink compound causing a weak bond. This seems like something I've attempted unsuccessfully.

If you do it right, the superglue won't be touching the heatsink compound, so it shouldn't really interact much. The method I described has held a heatsink on a Voodoo3 for a couple years now... and worst case, if the heatsink falls off you can always put down a little more glue and stick it back.

True, a thermal glue/epoxy would be more ideal, but personally I'm too cheap and lazy to bother with the 'proper' method. 😁

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

and worst case, if the heatsink falls off you can always put down a little more glue and stick it back.

Unless you have the chip overclocked to the point it actually needs the extra cooling just to function and it burns up when the heatsink falls off.

This is a 486 we're talking about... and furthermore, the nature of the original question would imply that it's a 486 in a board old enough not to have heatsink clips on the socket. I don't expect heavy overclocks to be much of a factor here.

And that's assuming that the heatsink would fall off in the first place, which from my experience, is quite unlikely.

ratfink wrote:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/thermal-adhesive-tape … abid=1&doy=14m5

Thermal Adhesive Tape, double-sticky-sided, worked for me on an old 486. When I ditched to board I just pulled the heatsink off [it was an am2 one iirc, all I had at the time] and it pulled the cpu out of the socket. So it's reasonably strong stuff.

Ugh. I tried that stuff the last time I was messing with heatsinks. It was less than useless and didn't seem to stick at all! Is there some trick to it?

There's always Arctic Silver Alumina or Silver adhesive. But these are permanent.

There are some tapes that work. Look up Chomerics Thermattach for example. Some of this stuff held ramsinks to my 8800GTX for over 3 years. An important step with tapes is to apply heat and pressure to activate the adhesive. I use a hair drier and my fingers (or a pen/pencil). 😉 Oh and be sure to clean the surfaces with isopropyl first.

swaaye wrote:

An important step with tapes is to apply heat

Aha! They don't seem to mention that.

sliderider wrote:

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

and worst case, if the heatsink falls off you can always put down a little more glue and stick it back.

Unless you have the chip overclocked to the point it actually needs the extra cooling just to function and it burns up when the heatsink falls off.

And right after it falls off, it lands on your uber $$$++ expensive ultra rare ISA expansion card, shorting it, killing it.

Jorpho wrote:

swaaye wrote:

An important step with tapes is to apply heat

Aha! They don't seem to mention that.

Hmm...wouldn't the chip itself provide sufficient heat anyway?

As I said, you need both pressure and heat to get the adhesive to grab really well. This is critical with ramsinks because they end up mounted with gravity pulling down on them.

If the heatsink is mounted to the chip with gravity pulling them together, like with a desktop case say, then pressure won't be important. But it might still improve thermal conductivity by compressing the tape and adhesive a bit. But this may also not matter considering we're talking 5W CPUs.

Tetrium wrote:

Jorpho wrote:

swaaye wrote:

An important step with tapes is to apply heat

Aha! They don't seem to mention that.

Hmm...wouldn't the chip itself provide sufficient heat anyway?

As I vaguely recall, the stuff was so flimsy and hard to handle that I couldn't even keep it place while I was screwing everything down.

Must be different tape to what I used. I found it very "sticky" and pressed it on firmly. Just something like put it on heatsink first, press down, peel off the second side and push it on. Obviously all surfaces need to be clean etc.

Probably a stupid question but I'll ask it anyway:

Early 486 board didnt have Zif sockets and levers.

But many later boards did....Why have I never seen a heat-sink and fan clip onto the side clips pictured below?

Is there any product available that allows you to clip a heat-sink on? There has to be something available short of manufacturing your own clips.

Are you guys really using super glue and or double sided thermal tape?

I find arctic silver can act like a glue and in a desktop I think that's fine but I wouldn't trust it in a tower.

Here's a pic of a fansink that is typical of what was available for 486 chips back in the old days

Notice how shallow the heatsink is and the fan isn't very powerful, either, so no overclocking with something like this because it doesn't look like it would circulate enough air under extreme conditions. It clips on around the edges of the CPU and not the socket.

heheh thanks sliderider.

yeah I have a couple of those fans/heatsinks.

but they don't do a cyrix 5x86 justice.

Im wondering what my other options are.