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Interestingly:
Arctic Alumina Thermal conductivity: >4.0 W/mK
IC Diamond Thermal Compound - Thermal Conductance: 4.5 W/m-K

Doesn't seem like it is any better than the regular stuff, and isn't the same stuff as this guy is using.

...but instead I'll add to the clamour pointing out how dangerous your suggestions are.

It shouldn't really damage tin solder or chip packages but who knows. You're probably better off with distilled water and bleach for mold. Maybe give it a wash with isopropyl afterwards, but use the 50-70% cheap stuff.

99% Isopropyl alcohol is the preferred method of cleaning chip packages. If you ever remove the heatsinks from your CPU/motherboard/gfx card then it's what you use to clean away all the old gunk. Don't use bleach, as everyone else says. It's corrosive. Don't use the 70% stuff, it's no good. It leaves water behind.

To clean electronics, you use 99% isopropyl alcohol. Wipe down with a non-static cloth until it evaporates without leaving any marks. The item will then be clean.

When i ordered my Artic Silver compound, the website had some instructions on how to apply the paste depending on what type of CPU you own. These instructions can be applied to any kind of thermal paste.

here's a link.

http://www.arcticsilver.com/instructions.htm

Dunno if the Arctic Silver thing would work. I'm pretty sure that one of their big selling points is a lack of conductance, at least that's what http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm says. Sweet idea though.

The problem right now is lack of surface area. My poor little switch is a prime example of this - the heatsink it shipped with had so much glue underneath it and so few fins that it was a nice toasty 70C! Heatpipes are no good also, because you need a large heat difference between the heat source and the outside, so you'll usually end up with about 50C on the cpu and 60C outside. Also, while peltiers are great, as mentioned many times before, they only MOVE heat, so guess what that means? That's right - you better have a heatsink the size of a radiator to dump all that heat out.

The reason he got similar results with all the compounds is probably that in all but one case he measured the temperatures straight after applying the paste. Almost all thermal transfer compounds need to 'cure' before they work at their full efficiency. So unless you allow each different compound to cure in between tests the study is somewhat meaningless.

From ArcticSilver.com

Due to the unique shape and sizes of the particles in Arctic Silver's conductive matrix, it will take a up to 200 hours and several thermal cycles to achieve maximum particle to particle thermal conduction and for the heatsink to CPU interface to reach maximum conductivity. (This period will be longer in a system without a fan on the heatsink or with a low speed fan on the heatsink.) On systems measuring actual internal core temperatures via the CPU's internal diode, the measured temperature will often drop 2C to 5C over this "break-in" period. This break-in will occur during the normal use of the computer as long as the computer is turned off from time to time and the interface is allowed to cool to room temperature. Once the break-in is complete, the computer can be left on if desired.

Err...

Some thermal pastes can be electrically conductive, especially older ones containing silver. Arctic Silver 3 is said to be conductive in a thin layer under extreme compression, slightly capacitive, and "might cause problems if it bridges a gap between traces".

The famouse Artic Silver But I guess thermal paste has it's uses (too.)

Have a look at the instructions for Arctic Silver 3 to see what kind of steps are needed.

2. ONLY Arctic Silver thermal compound should be between the processor core and the heatsink. Remove any thermal pads or other interface material from the heatsink before applying the Arctic Silver. Thermal pads can be scraped off with a plastic tool that will not scratch the bottom then the remnants can be removed with a xylene based cleaner, (Goof Off and some carburetor cleaners) acetone, mineral spirits, or high-purity isopropyl alcohol.

...Never use any oil or petroleum based cleaners (WD-40, citrus based cleaners and many automotive degreasers) on the base of a heatsink [emphasis mine --ed]. The oil, which is engineered to not evaporate, will fill in the microscopic valleys in the metal and significantly reduce the effectiveness of any subsequently applied thermal compound.[2]

Any dish detergent (Dawn, Lux, Palmolive, Etc.) Do not use soap for an automatic dishwasher to clean a CPU. WD-40, citrus based grease removers (Goo Gone, Etc.) Xylene based products (Goof Off, some carburetor cleaners and many brake cleaners) Mineral spirits. (Be careful to keep the mineral spirits away from the core.) [3]

That's news to me and about everyone else using it.

This is the Arctic Silver AMD's talking about.

Arctic Silver produces a thermal adhesive, but they produce thermal compounds as well.

How 'bout dab of Arctic Silver Epoxy? I'd hazard a guess to say that it's electrically conductive.

1) ASUS A7N8X Deluxe nForce2 chipset motherboard
2) Fastest Athlon XP you want to spend money on, Athlon XP 2400+ at minimum
3) Pair of Corsair DIMMs, PC3200C2 or higher, 256meg or 512meg each
4) Thermalright SK7 or SLK800 copper heatsink
5) Arctic Silver 3 thermal compound, follow the application instructions on their website
6) Fastest GeForce4 Ti (or Radeon 9700 Pro) that you want to spend money on, I'd go with one of the new Ti4200 8X cards and save up for the GeForceFX (next year)
7) Seagate Barracuda V 120gig IDE HD, the SATA version if it's available and has Linux drivers by the time you're ready to buy, alternatively a Seagate Cheetah 15K.3 SCSI drive and controller if you have way more money than me
8) Lian Li aluminum case of your choice
9) YS Tech rheostat (adjustable) 80mm fan for that Thermalright heatsink, or the highest RPM 80mm fan your ears can tolerate
10) Pioneer DVR-105 4x/2x DVD-R/RW drive, just because.

Substitute an ASUS A7M266-D and pair of Athlon XP 2400+ chips modded for MP operation (until the real MP 2400+'s are available) if you like. That's what I did. It's soooo nice. Make sure you get 266MHz FSB CPUs if you go this route as that's all the board supports.

• peltier coolers to achieve low CPU temp.
• watercooling to cool the hot side of the peltier, watercooling blocks are generally in copper, or in silver (beware werewolves), the lot is affixed to the CPU with dielectric grease. The cooling liquid is distilled water, which does not conduct electricity, not alcohol, nor liquid sodium.
• neopren pockets to protect the mobo from condensation

A very good point indeed. Always RTFM.

Here are some more points for would-be computer-builders.

- You need a thermal interface compound between the heatsink and CPU. Don't just assume you can get by without one. Some heatsinks come with wax on the bottom which is slightly better then nothing. But it you want to step up a notch, get yourself a Thermaltake or Thermalright as opposed to the silly "Cooler-Master" HS that came with your machine and some Artic Silver 3 thermal compound. If you want to go hardcore, get an Alpha 8045 HS for Athlons or a Thermalright SLK-600/800 for P4's plus AS3.

[I fully expect 1-2 followup posts from people who cooked their CPUs by not using a thermal interface compound.]

- Don't put one hard drive right on top of the other in 3.5" mounting slots. They generate too much heat unless you've got a fan right on top of them.

- Always set the master/slave jumpers of CD/DVD and HDD drives BEFORE you install the drive because it is hard to access/see the jumpers when the drive is mounted in the machine. Make sure you plug in CD-Audio cables before the drive is mounted.

- Don't immediately install the motherboard into the case. It is often easier to install the CPU + heatsink, plug in the HSF (heatsink fan power cable) plus set any jumpers and check for any cable orientations BEFORE you install the mobo. (The necessary connections may be behind the power supply after the mobo is installed.

- Remember that in some cases, you have to flip the orientation of the data cable for the a-drive floppy and use the IDE cable that has the twisted wire in it. (You'll know it when you see it.)

- Bundle up the wires in twist-ties and keep them out of the way so that they don't vibrate in the breeze from fans. It only takes a small touch to disrupt an HDD power cable. Some, but not all, also say that this will improve airflow. It will definitely make your case look tidier and make later work inside it more easy.

- The first time you turn the box on, be looking at the heat sink fan and make sure it starts spinning, otherwise your CPU may come to a quick death. If it spins, immediately enter the BIOS and check the temperatures and make sure they are not insane.

- Don't close the case when you're done setting up the system. This is because you probably forgot to do something and it's annoying to have to remove the screws again.

...DO NOT follow this guy's instructions! He ended up making a total mess, and risked frying his CPU.

While it's improbable, it is possible that spreading thermal paste on anything other than the CPU core could cause the system to short circuit. The author at macopz got the adhesive all over the freaking CPU, which could lead to problems down the road. Please read Arctic Silver's instructions if you've never applied thermal paste before. This guy DOES NOT know what he's doing, at least when it comes to installing processors.

The site was down, owing thanks to /. effect. I could only read the leading page so bare with me.

I had my focus on building a silent computer when I did my hardware upgrade plans. It still amazes me, that some people don't bother to check the noise levels of their gear prior to purchase. I spent some two to three weeks browsing through stuff, reviews and user reports.

In the end, I got myself a Q-Technology (sold to new owner now, unfortunately) silent power, NoiseControl processor cooler, and a tube of Arctic Silver thermal compound. The cpu cooler did not have the best of contact surfaces, so additional help was required there.

My case didn't have enough space to fit a Silverado MkII, so I settled for even quieter model. After putting the components together, I was happy to find out that the absolutely noisiest part of all this was the fan on the motherboard chipset. Which I promptly unplugged. Now the loudest sound I get from my computer is the sound of the hard drive spinning.

All this required only some thought and a little effort to try to find out things in advance. Why more users never bother to do this, I can't even imagine. So much post-purchase whining could be averted, if they only did at least some research... Yes, this was far from the cheapest of solutions, but I was prepared to pay some extra for silent quality parts.

As my mom used to say, 'poor people can't afford to buy products that are cheap and lousy in quality.'

I agree -- 64C sounds too high. Here is a good article on the subject from Via Hardware.

I recommend the following three steps to cool it down:

1. Run H.ODA's WPCREDIT/WCPRSET and set the ACPI HALT cooling on, if your processor is running at under 1.33 GHz or if you're not running Win2K. This will keep your idle temperature down. See the end of the VIA Hardware article for the admonition about CPU speed and Win2K stability.
2. Use Arctic Silver II thermal paste. I bought some at Fry's and it's pretty cheap. It brought the temperature down 2-3C under load.
3. Try the NoiseControl Silverado fan, if it fits in your face. North Americans no longer have to buy it from Germany, as Plycon sells it in the US now.

I have a 1.2GHz Athlon which I run at about 1.35GHz by upping the FSB. My IWill KK266 board claims that it idles at 26C, and it gets up around 41C during heavy use, and 49C in a tight loop.

I have a shutoff at 50C, which it last reached when Outlook went into a tight loop overnight. I ran a program called MBM to check on it, and it recommended a program called Shutdown Now to shut down and power off in case of alarm. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed that Shutdown Now was nagware, and my system was up all night at 50C, sending me pages every 5 minutes. When I got to work in the morning, there was a pop-up dialog saying to please send in $15 to them before it would shut off my computer. Talk about lame! It would have been fine to nag a boot time, not not at shutdown time! I'm just glad the program didn't fry my CPU. Anyway, I replaced it with the NT Resource Kit program called shutdown.exe that took a little bit of mousing around to get into MBM's configuration, but no way was I going to give money to the guy who almost fried my computer.