Scrached HeatSink causing problems?

I have a friend that used a razor blade to scrape old paste of a HS. It is scratched now. Can this cause cooling issues? Its A Zalman 6000 HS and cpu.

Also, will artic silver 5 really show alot of improvement from shitty paste that is given to you?

Thanks for the input.

 

answer to questions
1. no, a heat sink works by its design, all those little bars work to dispers heat, so unless he drasticly changed the entire shape of the sink itself, no problems will occur.
2. yes, the higher quality pastes contain more silver (somtimes all it means is that it actually contains silver, some dont). silver is a very good condicter of heat. so the heat goes from the processor to the heat ink more quickly and efficiently

 

Hmm... Welll this hs seems to be not working right or something. I had it for a while, but al of sudden its not producing like it used to.

 

a smooth contact surface is the ideal heat exchange. Gaps don't allow the transfer of heat properly. Thermal paste can help with that but a smooth surface is recommended. If he really scratched the bottom of the Heat Sink bad, then it could cause it to not perform as expected.

 

If they are shallow scratches, careful lapping to a smooth surface can probably remove the scratches without lowering the heatsink so far that the spring tension is reduced. If they are serious deep and wide gouges, it may be time to retire it. You've got less than 1 square inch of radiating surface to work with. If 10% of your heatsink isn't mated directly to the CPU core, you've lost 10% of your cooling ability. Heatsink compound is designed to couple the two surfaces, but all heatsink compounds are insulators (compared to direct metal-to-metal contact) so wherever there's a thick layer of compound, you're not transferring heat efficiently.

Arctic Silver is better than the cheap junk. Temperature drops of 3 to 5 degrees are common when switching to AS.

But AS isn't a cure for a gouged heatsink.

 

On top of what GT and Kodo said, there's also the fact that a new heatsink will set you back less than twenty bucks for a generic one. I'd rather go spend that cash then be worrying about whether my CPU is going to be unhappy and overheat on me.

Edit: Just checked the price on the Zalman 6000 heatsink. It's $30 for a new one from newegg. Not quite $20 like I said, but still not outrageously expensive.

 

Oh and a quick word on the difference between AS 5 and Ceramique. AS 5 apparently gives better temperatures by 2 to 3 degrees comared to Ceramique. However, AS 5 is very VERY thick and ive had lots of problems trying to apply it. Its very viscous apparently to AID appication, but for me its harder. you have to spread the paste over the whole CPU rather than just ploping a blob in the middle and squishing the heatsink on top, like you did with AS3 and other thermal pastes.

Also, AS 5 has a 200 hour "burn in period" when it thickens yet more, improving heat transfer, which drops temps by up to 3C. Ceramique has a 25 hour burn in period, and temps can drop the same ammount. Bear in mind that this period is taking into account turning the machine on and off over the day, rather than just leaving the PC on for 25 hours straight. Its the heating and cooling action that breaks it in.

Linkage :
Arctic Silver Ceramique
Arctic Silver 5