New PC Build

Almost There

Applying Artic Silver 5 (AS5) Thermal Compound

I’m really keeping my fingers crossed that I didn’t apply too much thermal compound. Mainly because the instructions said to place a thin line across and it was really hard to do that. They should just make the opening of the AS5 dispenser smaller! I had to remove some using coffee filter (lint-free cloth) and it got slightly messy. But pressing down on it with the heatsink spreads it out anyway. I really hope I have decent temperatures.

Mostly Everything Inside the Case

Everything is pretty much in the case. I just have to move my floppy drive from my current PC to the new one because I need it to update the BIOS for the motherboard. Other than that I just have to connect all the power cables to each component and I’ll be good to go. Hopefully everything boots up fine – I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

White Goo Inside Power Supply Unit (PSU)

There seems to be white compound scattered kind of sloppily on various parts inside the power supply. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be normal but I’ve found nothing about it online so at the very least no one has complained about it. I’m thinking it’s some kind of cooling gel or something but I’m not sure. Anyone know if it’s normal to have that in the PSU (OCZ GameXStream 700W)?

Okay, after a lot of searching I found a thread at [H]ard forums about this. Apparently the goo is normal and helps keep parts inside the PSU from loosening. I found another forum thread that said it’s also some kind of thermal paste. So it’s supposed to be there – whew.