Thermal pad on motherboard cooling (EP45 UD3P)

[wendigo4700]

Hello all.....
I've managed to acquire a "Gigabyte GA-EP45 UD3P" motherboard (used) for my E8400 CPU.
The problem is the two mosfet standard cooling on this board.

It seems like the previous owner have used some MX-3 thermal compound. So I took of all the motherboard cooling, to check for 100% contact.
To my fear only 3 out of 18 mosfet had contact with the MX-3.

So now I've cleaned the entire cooling, and I'm gonna use thermal pad for the two mosfet cooling units.
My question is, how thick does the thermal pad needs to be? I've ordred some that are 0.5mm thick. But is that too thin?

[Dark Mantis]

I don't understand why the previous owner had even had the original heatsinks off unless he was water cooling the mosfets. But for whatever reason I take it that you have the standard heatsinks that came with the board originally. I would suggest fitting the coolers with nothing underneath and then see how close the contact is. Try with a thin piece of card or similar.

Personallly I would have gone for 1mm rather than 0.5mm because it will compress.

[wendigo4700]

Hi, and thanks for reply.

It is beyond my knowledge why he removed it too. He said he applied MX-3 for better cooling performance  

Well its fine he applied other stuff. But rule number 1: check for 100% contact after  

If I go with 1mm instead of 0.5mm thermal pad, wont the temp. raise? I mean the heat would have a longer travel on the 1mm, since its thicker?

[Dark Mantis]

Only in theory. In practice it will flatten down and probably end up at approximately the same thickness but any irregularities will be taken up.