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heat sink grounded, problem?

A

artificialj

n00b
Joined
Jun 11, 2005
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would it be a problem if my cpu heatsink was somehow connected to ground? As in touching the grounded case? What about other heatsinks (e.g. NB, SB, ram sinks)?

thanks.
 
I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't want to try it unless there was some sort of insulator between the CPU die and the heatsink. Now that you mention it, I think just about every mounting method I've seen uses plastic somewhere in the mechanism.
 
It would be a safer bet to insulate it from grounding, just to be safer than sorry. Theres no harm in insulating it, but who's to say that grounding it will hurt it? Would you take that chance and TRY it? not me :eek:
 
Could always try it with an older CPU. If a P2 doesn't short out when you connect its heatsink to ground, then odds are there's some sort of transparent insulation between the die and the heatsink....and P2's are dime a dozen nowadays. You could probably find 10 of them in the perpetual freebies thread and only have to pay shipping cost to test your theory.
 
Won't hurt anything. The heat spreader on top of your CPU is 99% of the time electrically isolated.

Lots of heatsinks, eg. the Vantec Aeroflow line, effectively ground themselves through their power cord.
 
thanks, was hesitant to test it on anything, as i really would hate to destroy some hardware.
 
Doesn't a heatspreader come into direct contact with the core though? I don't recall seeing anything holding them on except for the glue-type substance between the edge and the PCB. What about a bare chip with no heatspreader?
 
MjrStryker said:
Doesn't a heatspreader come into direct contact with the core though? I don't recall seeing anything holding them on except for the glue-type substance between the edge and the PCB. What about a bare chip with no heatspreader?
Click to expand...
Bare chips (P3, Athlon XP) are FCPGA "flip chips". The back side of the chip touches the heatsink, which is electrically insulated.
 
Ah, so even without the heatspreaders there is definitely something there that is electrically insulated between the actual chip and the heatsink. That answers a lot. In that case, there shouldn't be any risk from grounding the heatsink.
 
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