I've got an old AMD XP 2000 that I want to reuse to put into a shuttle pc. Two of the processor pads feel off and are intact and one split in half. I've heard that I can glue the two intact pads, but I'm not sure what to do about the split one. I found that there are some shims available still on the market for this processor: http://cgi.ebay.com/Thermaltake-Cop... http://cgi.ebay.com/COPPER-SHIM-FOR... Although I've heard shims might hinder the performance of cooling, especially in shuttle PCs. Heres my case that I'm using: http://www.apevia.com/product.php?p... If I get a shim and glue it to my CPU will it hinder my cooling in this case? Should I just try fixing the split pad? Can I get pads online of the appropriate size? Also, are there shims for Barton core processors? Say for example AMD XP 3200's? -DeathKnight Sniper

Hmm coper shims holds heat against the processor, and conducts electricity. Mabye thats a bad idea maybe I should look for non coper shims... -DeathKnight Sniper

What do you guys think of this: http://www.casecooler.com/nonconshi... -DeathKnight Sniper

the idea of heat distribution is to take the heat away by transferring it away from the cpu into either metal (heat sync) thats spread across a large area and puts the heat into the air or a water cool system the puts the heat into the water... but either way you go (water/air) copper conducts heat better so unless it makes contact to 2 connections and causes a short, copper is better for heat distribution.

'heat sync'? Is that the technical term? I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter.

Status update. So far I just glued the pads back on. I am going to order a mica shim and I'll let you guys know how that turns out. -DeathKnight Sniper

The pad's are not really necessary, providing you take extra care when clamping down the heat sink. The pad's do have one advantage if you're using thermal compound, however. After applying the compound to the core, you can easily center the heatsink prior to clamping it down, without disturbing the application (i.e. the heatsink doesn't make contact with the core yet). This allows you to center the heatsink without smearing the compound all over the place when lining up the heatsink clips with the socket clamps. I took the pad's off my XP 2000+ 4 years ago, and have swapped heatsinks at least a 1/2 dozen times. Never had a problem. Of course, I would have preferred to leave them on the chip, because it does reduce the chance of smearing the thermal compound when installing the heatsink. In the end, it's entirely up to you whether to use the pad's or not. It does lessen the chance of chipping the core. But with such an old cpu, it doesn't really matter.