Fear no more skorchem! Although I will be switching my Tim to this thicker "blue goop" type material from Mouser, it wasn't the graphtek after all. The ideal chip lok holder has a small flange on the edge where the cob is supposed to rest snugly inside. We discovered when I tightened it down, it was on top of the cob and caused it to CRACK along the entire length of the back, concaving the LES. This is why the cob fried.
2 of them fried. The other had a cracked on the LES but is still working fine. We do however, have a replacement should it fail in the future. And no, no smoke. Just no light all the sudden upon checking things out like we do frequently.
Hi! Sorry so late to the party. I'm just shopping around for a TIM for my first 3590 build and I am wondering what this "blue goop" material is that you went with. Right now, my first choice of TIM is the Sur-Seal thermal pad they have at PLC, but they don't ship internationally. Having a low-fuss, effective TIM would be ideal, wouldn't it?
Yes, but any type will do man. You could use cutter.com.au they have graphtek but it's very thin graphite and hard to apply. I actually never switched it to the blue TIM. I personally am still using graphtek.
I have posted this before. The pads are garbage and I wouldn't use anything but arctic silver 5 unless you have a way to check temps. I had a CLU058 hit >270*c during thermal testing. But it still works, slightly domed though.