I am installing my heatsink/fan onto my AMD XP CPU...I applied the thermal compound as Arctic Silver suggested...when I put the heatsink on the CPU, these 4 soft circles on the CPU keep the copper on the heatsink and the core of the CPU from touching....are they supposed to touch?

It is designed so that the core (with the very thin film of thermal compound) JUST touches the heatsink.

you only need to cover the core of the CPU, not the entire thing. that would be a waste of thermal compound :)

the core of the cpu is the rectangular metal part that is smaller than a dime. That's all you want touching the heatsink.

thank you guys....with the help of a friend...I finally realized that I had to clamp down the HSF first which would apply the pressure for the copper and CPU core to touch... so I have it running in the BIOS...it had been running for about 50+ minutes...the CPU temp began at 41/42c...then slowly worked its way up to 45/46c and stabalized there for about 45min straight...but that is WITHOUT overclocking which I plan to do eventually (not now, only once I see how everything plays out when I add additional hardware)...no other hardware was connected...so is 45/46c good for the 1700+ TBred core without overclocking and without ANY additional hardware (PCI soundcard, AGP videocard, hard drive) installed?

The four rubber standoffs are there to keep the heatsink from tilting to the side and chipping the CPU die during installation or rendering the heatsink ineffective during operation. The pressure of most heatsink clips will compress the rubber standoffs so that the heatsink fits snugly against the CPU die. If the heatink's base doesn't touch the CPU die even after you've mounted it with the clip, you've got a problem. You should make sure the heatsink isn't backwards (the recessed part should be over the raised plastic next to your CPU). If it's on correctly and still doesn't touch, you can remove the rubber standoffs--this is dangerous if the clip's fulcrum isn't located directly over the CPU die, though. You would be better off buying a new heatsink that fits properly. Here's my favorite for hot socket A CPUs.

Oops. 14 seconds too late.