Welding the heat spreader of the P4 with the heatsink requires at least 1000C temperature. You'd burn the house down with that kind of heat. It's the themal paste you applied, maybe you used too much. When it sets, it will bond the two surfaces together. Ohh, don't use thermal epoxy. You'll permanently bond the heatsink and the CPU.

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As a result of alot of frustration and little help from this board on the subject I thought I would post this in the hopes that it will eventually help someone. The CPU was in fact stuck to the heatsink bigtime...it was not because I actually attempted to "weld the CPU to the heatsink" as has been implied. The heatsink came with a layer of thermal tape that usually creates a mild bond with the CPU. The chip I have....and you can look it up... is an Intel P4 2.5ghz./400 fsb...yes 400 not 533. The chip was adhered to the heatsink with some weird phenom that creates a suction when the heat tries to dissipate out of the chip when you fire it up out of the hole in the back. Apparently the goop on the heatsink (when it melts) clogged the hole on the chip that facilitats the heat dissipation. The result was an incredible amount of suction/vaccumm attaching the CPU to the heatsink and was corrected by a razor blade and an exertation of force that was to say the least un-nerving...(with a brand new chip) If you read the original post you would know that this happened exactly the same on two CPU (same model) so on the first one I put it in the freezer (inside a ziplock) with hopes that the temp diff between the two metals would weaken and/or if the bond was created by a thermal compound that it would crystallize somehow and I could "pop it off" somehow. After a good hour in the freezer it still seemed "welded" but encouraged by how cold it was and also to the point where I thought the chip was toast anyway...I decided to get more aggressive with it and using a credit card as a shield...tried to pry the cpu off the heatsink...after about 10 minutes I decided to get nasty and really cranked on it....result was that the pin connector portion of the chip separated from the metallic portion of the chip. I was using extreme pressure with a wide blade flathead screwdriver and the "CPU still did not release from the heatsink" But the chip is def.. TOAST Round 2:Decided both chips may be toast and tried to cut the bond between CPU and heatsink hoping that the bond was only that strong on the edges where heat dissipation might be the most. Using a razor blade I cut along the edge and then pryed to no avail. Laid the blade almost flat against the heatsink and on a corner edge of the CPU and using "A LOT" of pressure the CPU (with a loud "POP" flew off the heatsink... The thermal compound that seemed to be "welding" it to the board scraped right off with my fingernail. I still cannot believe that so much pressure/vacuum/suction was created that quickly. I went back to chip #1 still firmly affixed to the heatsink and "Walla" same results...loud "POP" and off the heatsink it came...thermal compound the same ..a little thick but very pliable with minimal pressure... Scraped goop stuff off heatsink & chip #2 with acetone and isopropyl then reinstalled and....using Artic Silver 3 thermal compound...(drum roll)...in memory (no pun intended) of chip "1" ...chip "2" survived and is operating at 28c-29c at BIOS idle speed.

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That's weird. Does anybody know if the installation manual of the CPU mentions anything of not blocking the hole?

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The problem is not about your CPU it it the thermal paste intel created. Here's a tip, if anyone buys a P4 processor detach the thermal paste and use Silicon Grease instead. Silicon Grease is a better heat absorber than the thermal paste intel created. You can buy them at a general hardware store.

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I thought all the Pentium 4 CPU's had some sort of thermal overload protection to prevent this sort of scenario? I read an article on Toms Hardware site, and they compared the Pentium 4 CPU with an Athlon XP CPU. They turned off the CPU fan on both computers to see what would happen. After a few mins, the AMD went up in smoke (no thermal protection) however the Pentium 4 downclocked to 100MHz automatically to prevent damage. James

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I've seen this happened before. It was actually funny, I was at Fry's returning something & one guy tried to return a combo Intel CPU & Mobo. He told the guys at Fry's that his cpu was stock together with the HSF and they started laughing when he took it out of the bag. One guy tried to take them apart, then another, then another, to no avail. I asked him what happened and he said he had no idea. I wonder if this is a common problem and if anybody reported this to Intel? Anyways, to make the story short, Fry's didn't take back the return, poor guy.

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