# RAM heatsink



## carsey (Aug 19, 2006)

Hi

Is there a easy way to remove a heatsink from RAM. I just got 2 new ones today and put them on my 2x256MB sticks. 

Once i get my 2x1GB sticks i will want to remove them from the old and put them onto the new.

Is there a method or technique to get them off??

WOuld ordinary thermal paste used for processors be ok or would I need the substance already on the Heatsink. I kept the back thermal protector thingy?

Thanks 

Chris


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## UncleMacro (Jan 26, 2005)

Are we talking about something which looks like these? Those things are usually stuck on with some kind of thermal tape. You can probably just pry them off of the old sticks but reusing the thermal tape is really difficult. I haven't used thermal tape very much but it looked like it could only be used once. It sticks on pretty well and get chewed up when removed. These kinds of heatsinks don't cost very much. If you used tape and they're not coming off (or the tape gets ripped up) then you'll need to buy another pair. If instead of tape they used some kind of heatsink grease then you would need to use non-conductive non-capacitive heatsink grease to replace it. That's basically every heatsink grease except for the ones made with silver (Arctic Silver being the best known).

It's worth pointing out that heatsinks on conventional RAM sticks are largely ceremonial. They make overclockers feel happy and make the sticks look cool but they don't really accomplish very much for DDR RAM sticks. If you're using the type I linked to above then they're more properly refered to as heat spreaders. What they actually do is spread the heat from one RAM chip to another. They were originally created for RDRAM sticks (remember Rambus?) which were used some years ago by some Intel motherboards. When accessing RDRAM, accessing a certain range of memory only accesses a single chip on the memory stick. You could end up with one very hot chip and a bunch of cold chips. That's why they're called heat spreaders. Their real job is to spread the heat from one RDRAM chip to the others so that you end up with a bunch of warm chips rather than one hot one. Then all the chips can dissipate heat into the circuit board. Plain old DDR RAM sticks work differently than RDRAM. When you access a DDR stick, all the memory chips on one side of the stick get hot. There's no point in spreading the heat from one chip to another.

If you really want to lower the temperature on your RAM sticks (which is rarely necessary) then improve the airflow over them. Having a slow fan inside the case blowing air on them will drop their temps quite a bit. But when it comes down to it, RAM sticks very rarely need (or benefit from) heatsinks. Only the frighteningly fast RAM on video cards go fast enough to get very hot. Some of those benefit from heatsinks but they run at _much_ higher rates.


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## carsey (Aug 19, 2006)

Cracking answer. Deserves a reward of some sort.

Yes they were those in the link bar mine are made by akasa and are blue.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

they are cheap enough to replace I wouldnt mess with them once they are installed. My luck I would damage the stick gettign them off while trying to save $11.00 :upset:


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## Doby (Jan 17, 2006)

That is one great answer UncleMacro you do deserve a reward!


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## Cellus (Aug 31, 2006)

RAM Heatspreaders are a little weird that way - they're only semi-useful. I think UncleMacro hit it on the nose where he said it makes overclockers feel better, knowing that they've added that extra millimetre to system cooling. It's like the current idea of adding an extra layer of PCB to boards to help spread heat - it helps, but honestly not that much.

It should be noted that, without good airflow in the case (and specifically near the RAM), the heatspreaders become shiny ornaments as they need the improved airflow to help do their job.


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