What is flash?

Flash is like a flip book you may have made as a child where you draw a picture then slightly change it on every page so when you flip the pages it makes a short animation. Except flash is all compressed into a computer program. This program has many different tools to help you draw each frame of your animation. The animation you make is made up of a timeline which is made of frames. Each frame would be like each page in a flip book.

Requirements

There are a couple things you need to be able to make these animations and games

1. A computer
2. A flash program
3. Ideas and ability to draw
   

If your reading this you must already have a computer so we can check that one off.  Now for a flash program, there are many different ones, but Adobe Flash is by far the best. You can download a free trial for 30 days from Adobe.com. Just go to there website and go to there downloads tab and click trial downloads. then look for Adobe Flash CS4. Thats the newest one they have. If you would like to buy this program you can, but it's a little pricey. You can pay up to about $700.00 it. Now you need the ability to draw on a computer. (not literally draw on your computer) 

How to make your animation

Im going to tell you how to make a ball move across the screen for an example.

1. Open Adobe Flash 
2. Create a new actionscript 2.0 project
3. select the oval tool (o)
4. draw a circle on the left side of the screen
5. Insert> Timeline> Keyframe or press (f6)
6. now on your second keyframe move the ball a little bit to the right from its location in frame 1
7. continue making keyframes and moving the ball across the screen
8. test your animation by going to control> test movie

Now that you have the idea of how to make an animation, make a new file and make your own animation. When your done making it, go to file> save and compact. Then go to www.newgrounds.com and sign up for a free account. Once you've done that, sign in on it and upload your animation, and if other people give it a good rating, while its in the process of being submitted onto the website, your animation will end up being part of newgrounds and other can go watch it.

Pros and Cons

Pros -

1. Building your PC is usually cheaper than buying it from Dell or another PC manufacturer.

2. Building a PC will give you knowledge on how your computer works.

3. Building a PC will bring your "geek" out. : P

4. If you already have some parts you can re-use them. This helps with the cost also.

5. The PC you build will most likely be of much higher quality parts than if you had bought them.

Cons -

1. You are your own problem solver. This is not a major con, as any PC forum would be willing to help you out. Then again, it's not as good as having a dedicated phone support (in some cases).

2. Again minor- but you have to pay more shipping as you are ordering each part separately , but on the upside, you don't have to pay tax (in most US states).

3. Sort of related to no.1 but - if there is a problem, you are the administrator. You have to go and see what's wrong.

In the end, I would recommend building to an at least a semi-power user who would be willing to/knows a little bit about hardware.

Now let's move on to the main thing - how do you choose your parts?

First of all, you have to know where to buy your parts, there are a variety of sites I like to choose from, there are:

Sites to Shop from

Newegg - Newegg is definitely one of the best. Cheap prices, great customer support, highly recommended. They also have very nice wish lists. www.chiefvalue.com is essentially identical to Newegg.

Google Products - Found a product you like on Newegg? Look it up on Google products to see if you can get a better price. (Just make sure the company is reliable.)

Now the main part - how do you select the parts you are going to buy? Well let's look at each part in-depth, to determine how to buy them.

How to Buy the Parts

CPU

Usually, the first component that I look at is the CPU. The CPU is the main part that determines how fast your computer will run (although you still need to have a good amount of RAM.) Here are the main things I look at when determining a CPU.

No. of Cores -The number of cores is the number of "CPUs" a CPU has inside it. Basically, they are two CPUs combined in one, except they share some things, like cache which we will talk about later. The advantage of having multiple cores is that multitasking is faster, especially for applications that support it. Let's say you have DVD encoding software. If they optimized it for multiple cores, then instead of just one CPU doing the work to put the DVD on to your computer, you will have two cores simultaneously be working on the job, so technically it would be "2x faster".

Of course this is not completely true. Let's say you have a single core versus a dual core. They are the exact same, except one of them has two cores. Well usually the dual core one will be more expensive to make, so it'll be marked higher in price. So to get the price even, when you have a lesser-core CPU and a similarly priced higher-core CPU competing, the higher core CPU will have a lower clock speed (and in some cases less cache, which we will talk about later).

So then you need to make a decision. Right now you still think - well yea, two CPUs are still going to be faster than one lesser core CPU, so I'm still going to go for the higher cores, duh!

But that isn't the only thing. A lot of applications (a lot of times you will hear gaming being cited) still are usually not optimized for the higher core CPU. Later (maybe in 2 months to two years, depending on the application) the application will be most likely able to work with more cores, but not right now. And even then, you don't know when, or maybe even if, if the company thinks it's too much work to integrate more cores.

This is a highly debated topic. But what I would do is usually go for the higher core CPU, assuming they are at the same price. If you are doing this just from a gaming point of view, or you are just doing CAD work or basic web surfing (if you are just doing web surfing, this doesn't really apply to you), then get the dual core, because it will be faster. If they are not the same price (the one with more cores is more expensive), then it depends. If you are doing any amount of CPU work, then the quad might be worth it, as you will get a substantial performance gain later when the vendor gives an update that uses multiple cores. Of course it depends on how much you do and your budget.

Speed and Overclockability:The speed is the operating frequency of your CPU, usually measured in GHz (Gigahertz). The higher CPU speed, the faster your computer, obviously. CPU speed determines how fast applications will load, how fast it will take for that encode to take, and more. Of course, this isn't the only thing. A lot of the times the real speed of the CPU will be seen when you overclock. Overclocking is when you deliberately make a chip go faster than it is supposed to run. THIS WILL void your warranty, but it is a good way to make your CPU go a lot faster, especially if it is known for its ability to overclock. You can see how different CPUs overclock by searching them on the internet (using Google or a similar search engine). Also, if you overclock, you're going to want to find out the Multiplier and the FSB. The multiplier multiplied by the FSB of a CPU determines the clock speed (usually measured in GHz). The more the multiplier and the FSB, the easier it will be to overclock the CPU. Usually you cannot increase the multiplier directly, but you overclock by increasing the FSB speed in the BIOS. On special CPUs, it is possible to change the multiplier speed, making overclocking virtually painless.

Cache:The cache is basically extremely fast RAM. The three types of cache are L1, L2, and L3, with L3 being the fastest and L1 being the slowest. This helps with a lot of applications that need fast memory, like Photoshop, booting of the system, and more. Cache size won't matter usually if you are just doing gaming. It depends on the game, if it is a little more CPU intensive than most games, or extremely graphic intensive. Toms Hardware did a really nice article about it. Look at that and other resources to see if cache size would benefit you or not. I would imagine it would help a lot in photo and video editing though ;).

In the end, I recommend using these things to determine what CPU you want. Also look at different websites and forums to see which CPU is fastest, because even these things alone will not determine if a CPU is faster than another. There are also more abstract things like architecture that can make a CPU very fast.

RAM

RAM is much more straightforward than a CPU, but there are still things to consider. RAM are the chips in your computer that are temporary, they hold the things that you are doing at the moment. RAM is classified by amount, speed, and memory timings.

Amount:So, exactly how much RAM do you need? Well the truth is, I don't know the answer to that question. Usually the standard changes a lot. Remember the more you have, the faster your computer will be whenever you run multiple applications at a time. Also remember that hardcore apps like Video Editing and Gaming will require a lot of RAM. Also remember that you can never have too much RAM, because the amount of RAM you need will always increase over time. But at the same time, you don't want to lose money. Usually there are RAM standards though. Like right now a hardcore gamer and heavy multitasker would get 4 gigs of RAM, the heavy gamer/average Joe would get about 2-3 gigabytes of RAM, and the most low-end PCs would have a Gig of RAM. (Although $200 PCs feature about 512mb, but sometimes they will have a gig as well. Even if you are not a hardcore user, you probably have a set idea of how much memory you want in your computer

Standard (e.g. SDRAM, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, DDR4, etc.) -Usually, this is pretty straightforward. At other times it's not. Get the highest standard recommended by your motherboard that you can afford. If there are two standards of ram at the time, like DDR2 or DDR3, and you are not sure whether to get the newer version, always look at your budget to see if you can afford it. Usually an upgrade from ddr2 to ddr3 will not result in a mass increase in performance (like a CPU or video card upgrade).

Motherboard

I usually determine the motherboard after I've figured out which CPU and RAM I want. It's pretty much the brain of the computer (or the heart; however you want to think about it).

First of all, think about what CPU manufacturer you want. After that look at what type of RAM you want to get. If there is a new type of RAM just released, depending on your budget, you might want to hold off until the new one gets cheaper. You could also consider a motherboard with both slots. Make sure it has all the necessary PCI/PCIE and SATA ports that you need as well. Use that to determine your chipset.

Make sure you get a high-quality motherboard manufacturer. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! Never skimp on motherboards (even though they might look tempting in a budget build). Instead, you could get an OEM or Recertified/Refurbished ones if available.

Remember, you might have to change your motherboard if it does not meet the standards you need.

Hard Drive

If you are looking for speed definitely get the velociraptor line of drives. Of course that's only if you can afford them, but that takes care of that. Otherwise, just look at the capacity that you want, and get the best manufacturer for your budget, because in the mainstream, speeds don't differ very much. If you are looking at high end drives, then look at online reviews to see which ones are the fastest. Seagate and Western Digital is what I recommend most of the time. There are also some drives called “SSD” drives. 99% of people won't need this, only use this if you are looking for a lot of speed and durability (they last a long time).

Case - I would say look on Newegg in your cases that are in your budget, and look up reviews on them. All cases are not the same! Some are tool less, some require lots of screws, some can give you a hard time, and some will make installation really simple. Then there's also the look. I personally think looks aren't that important (especially considering anything is better than a boring dell box), but it is really important to some people. This isn't a crucial choice but it's underestimated. And gaming builders have to make sure that the video card will fit in the case, because some cases (especially cheap ones) are too small or not sturdy enough.

Power Supply

This is one of THE most crucial components in a computer. Many people severely underestimate it, and just pick the cheapest one they can find. But that is not how things work. ALWAYS make sure you get a good power supply. I'm not even talking about the wattage. You can find a $35 power supply that is 585 watts. But usually, that power supply will not hold up. Wattage is extremely hyped, and you don't need that much of it, as long as you have a reputable manufacturer. Some good manufacuterers are Corsair, OCZ, Seasonic, Antec, Enermax (some of them), and more. Also make sure to get one that is 80+ certified, ensuring energy efficiency.

Well that's how you atcually buy the parts. If you atcually want to see how to assemble one, then take a look at this guide! (Older parts, similar method ;-)

http://www.corsairmemory.com/systembuild/report.aspx?report_id=78237

Let me list this out for you.

Macs claim they have

-Great surfing ability

-Awesome software like Garage Band and such.

-A webcam with fun distortions and effects

-Easy to use editing software

The list goes on but at what price are you willing to pay for 512 megs of ram a single core possessor and a sleek black casing? Well be willing to shovel out about 2ooo dollars.

Now my alienware m15x comes with every single one of those features but double the ram/prossessors and graphics capabilities but for 200 dollars less.

Not to mention for having such great software Mac actually uses Microsoft office programs rather than developing their own.

Ill be the first to admit i hate vista but a PC with windows XP is a sound investment in my book at least until about 4 years from now when vista will be required and even then will still be better money on Mac's who only slander PC rather than boasting on their great units, well I suppose they really cant do that because they have nothing to boast about.

You will need:

• Your Motorola V3r phone
• A USB cable to connect phone to computer
• A fully charged battery in your phone

Before you start, backup everything on your phone. Flashing may remove all your contacts and all your music, photos etc. It is safe to have a backup.

You will need to download RSD Lite. It can be found here. Unzip and install it. Next you will need flash or flex files. Monster packs include both, therefore easier to handle. Monster packs can be found here for the V3r. Flash is mainly the software of the phone, flashing will adjust the features and menus of your phone. The flex is the system files. You could gain new programs, or lose some. Flexing will remove branding, or change it, depending on the flex file. Flexing will remove all personal settings like contacts, but flashing won't.

To find the right flash/flex/monster pack, press *#9999#. It will come up with the S/W version (software version) and Flex version. When choosing flash/flex/monster pack, make sure it is newer than your current version. The higher the number at the end, the newer it is. The ones given in the link are R4515, so your phone's version must start with this.

Once you have your flash/flex/monster pack, plug in your phone. Make sure it is fully charged. Open RSD Lite and it should detect your phone. Browse for your flash/flex/monster pack and open it in RSD Lite. Press start. If a message comes up with something about the chip type, it means you have the wrong flash/flex/monster pack. The most likely cause is that the first few numbers/letters aren't the same. If not, it should start the process. Your phone will come up with the boot loader version. Wait for it to finish. If anything happens; loss of power, crashed computer etc. the process has failed and it is most likely that your phone is ruined. There aren't many ways to fix this, so make sure that the phone is fully charged, just to lessen one factor of failure. Once it has completed flashing/flexing, restart your phone, and you are done.

If you have separate flash and flex files, repeat with the flex after the flash.

Go to your local computer hardware store (Intrex, Tigerdirect, Best Buy etc.), and find the section with the graphics cards. If you are to be using your computer for movies, videos and low-end gaming, I would reccomend buying an XFX 8600 GT (XXX edition if they have it). If you think you will be doing some gaming, I would reccomend an XFX 8800 GT (Again, XXX edition if they have it).

These are really good cards for their price to performance ratio; the 8600 will run you up about $80, the 8800 about $160.

If you have an older computer, then you may have a different graphics card 'port' in your computer. Before you go to the store, see if you can find out what type of motherboard you have, or what computer model you have if you can't figure out the mobo. Then, when you go to the store, tell them what type of motherboard / computer you have, and they should be able to tell what graphics card 'port' you have. If you do not have PCI Express 2.0, then let an expert at the store pick you out a graphics card.

Now, once you get back with your brand new card, you need to open up your case (The case is the metal box that holds the insides of the computer). This is fairly easy. First unplug ALL of the wires coming in and out of the case, and then remove the two large screws in the back of the case. After this, you will need to give the side of the case a good shove backwards (away from the front). You will now have your case open.

At first glance, the inside of the computer looks pretty intimidating.

A typical Computer with case opened (Image Source)

If you can see, below the fan and they light-grey heat sink there is something sticking out from the Motherboard. That is the graphics card. You are going to need to unscrew this with a phillips-head screwdriver.

Here is a close up of a graphics card (Different picture, different card).

Image Source

Do you see the screw in the red box? That is what you are going to need to unscrew.

Now that you have unscrewed the card, look around the port that the card is in. If you see any little levers, raise these to unlock the card. Now, just gently pull it out.

You will need to put in the new card now. Basically, repeat the instructions to remove your card, backwards. Place the card in the slot, push the lever back down (If there is one), and screw it into it's slot.

We're almost done! Now you just need to install the drivers, and then you're ready to go.

Close up your case and re-plug all of the wires. Then press the 'On' button on your computer. At this point your computer might 'freak out' a little bit. It all of a sudden has this brand new graphics card running everything without the proper driver. Starting up might take a little bit of time, but don't worry because installing the driver is quick and painless. Once you have booted up and logged on, you need to fish out the driver CD that came with your graphics card and insert it into your CD drive. Then just follow the instructions on the disk to install it. After this, just restart your computer.

Well Done! You've replaced your graphics card, and you can start playing games or watching movies as soon as you want!

I hope you've found this guide informative and easy to read. Please drop a comment below!

One of the most obvious reasons is when you see something that asks for bank account numbers. It will ask for credit card numbers. (don't get me wrong some good things require it but be cautious.) Don't give it to the scammers. Some will try to entice you into it by telling you that they will give you part of a sum of money for you bank numbers.

Make sure to ignore all get rich fast options. People try to get you to do it. Remember there are professional scammers. Make sure when you are looking into something that you look for complaints against the website or company. Make sure to note the terms of privacy and the other terms. If repairs or something like that is happening make sure that you have a guarantee on it.

Know that all pictures on items are real. Check people who are selling things to see if they have a good rating. Be careful online when attempting to buy something. A great way to do things is to deal locally like craigs list and other local dealers.

I hope you don't get scammed after reading my guide.s

You will need two programs:

• RivaTuner: Download

• ATI Tool:Download.

It doesn't matter which card you have, the programs will work with any cards. Once you have installed the programs, run them. RivaTuner can be used to overclock and to change fan speeds, and ATI Tools can be used to overclock and test for artefacts. I personally think ATI Tools is better for overclocking, because it has an easier interface to use. You should start off with RivaTuner to change the fan speeds, because overclocking makes your graphics card run hotter than usual. So first open up RivaTuner, and under the heading "Driver Settings" click the little box next to customise.

Then Click on the first icon.

Then Click on the tab labelled "Fan."

I would recommend setting it to 60% first. Once set to 60% click "Apply." If you want RivaTuner to load the fan speeds when the computer starts up, then check the box "Apply fan settings at Windows startup," and click the "Save" button. Click OK and close RivaTuner.

Now open ATI Tools. This part can take a long time, so you need to be patient. You can see on the left of the window there are "Find Max Core" and "Find Max Mem." DO NOT CLICK ON THESE. ATI Tools pushes the card a lot, and may cause permanent damage to your graphics card. Under the columns labelled "3D perf," increase the numbers, only by five at a time. Pushing too much at a time can cause the card to overload. After increasing the clocks by 5, click on "Scan for Artifacts." This puts your card under stress so it can test if there are any flaws in the graphics.

Do it for at least 20 minutes before stopping and increasing the clock. If there are artifacts then it means the clock is too high, so you need to decrease it. Once there are artifacts found and you decreased the clock, do the artifacts scan for 30 minutes or more, in case it finds anything new. If the temperature goes too high during the scan, stop it immediately. A temperature above 80-90 degrees Celsius would be high. If the temperature is too high, increase the fan speed with RivaTuner. Once you find a stable clock, save at the top and create a profile name. You can make ATI Tools run this on startup if you want. Click on "Settings" in the bottom right corner. Click the drop-down menu, and then click on "Startup." Check the boxes "Every time ATI Tool is launched, load profile;" and "Load on Windows Startup Via." Under "Every time ATI Tool is launched, load profile," select the profile you saved earlier, and under "Load on Windows Startup Via," select "Registry Key." You have successfully overclocked your graphics card.

Checking iPod Touch / iPhone Firmware

To check if you have the correct Firmware to do this, simply plug your iPod Touch / iPhone into your computer and open up iTunes. You should see something like this:

(View Full)

The part highlighted in red (on my screenshot, not your screen) entails your Firmware version. If it is not 2.0 this will not work.

Taking the Screenshot

Taking a screenshot on the iPod Touch / iPhone is very easy. Simply press the Home Button and the Sleep / Wake Button at the same time. You should see a flash when the screenshot it taken.

Note: Make sure you don't hold the buttons down, if you do for too long you could force shutdown your iPod Touch / iPhone.

Emailing the Screenshot

Now that you've taken the screenshot all that is left is emailing the picture to either yourself or your friends. It is a pretty simple thing to do, and I've got a lot of pictures to guide you.

Go to the Photos Application on your iPod Touch / iPhone. It should say “Photos” under it. When you get there you should see something like this:

(View Full)

Click on the “Saved Photos” Album, you should now see something like this:

(View Full)

If there is only one photo in the album just click on that image, if there are more, click on the image that looks like the screenshot that you took. You should see something like this now (a different screenshot though, of course):

(View Full)

You'll want to push on the bottom in the lower left corner of the screen (the button is shown in the screenshot above). You should then see a menu; select the “Email Photo” option (shown below):

(View Full)

You should be redirected to the Mail Application. Note: You must have an email account setup on your iPod Touch / iPhone, if you don't go here for a guide on how to set that up. This is what you should see if you have an account set up:

(View Full)

Type in the email address(es) of the person(s) you want to email the screenshot to. If you have their email in your Address Book on your iPod Touch / iPhone then you can just type their name as I did (shown below):

(View Full)

Hit send and you're done! Whoever you emailed the screenshot to should receive it in their email soon. Note: If you're on the iPod Touch you'll have to wait until you have WiFi to be able to email the photo. Here's my screenshot as I received it in my email:

(View Full)

I hope you enjoyed my guide! If you have any other friends curious about how to do this, make sure to refer them here.

If you have read my Dual boot Ubuntu onto XP guide. This one will be similiar.. To get started boot up in Windows Vista and go into the Disk Management (right-click My Computer, go to manage, then Disk Management). Again, right-click on the main Vista partition and hit Shrink Volume.

The Shrink tool tells how much space can be freed up. In the menu type how much space to leave open. Try and give each OS atleast 10 GB of space to work with. Hit shrink and the tool will reduce the volume of Vista partition.

Installing Ubuntu

The first thing you should do before fully installing Ubuntu is deciding if you like it or not. You can do this by obtaining a copy of the Live CD or by downloading the ISO. You can do this by going to Ubuntu's website. If your internet speed is really slow and you do not want to bother with the time you can purchase the Live CD and it will be shipped to your house in 2 , to 4 business days. Remember you are just paying for the shipping. Or you can get a free Live CD by mail, but the downside is that it will take 10 to 20 business days to ship.

Now if you are going to download the Live CD from the website continue reading (If not skip this section). You are now at the download screen where it is asking you what version of Ubuntu do you want. You should check 7.10 under the desktop edition. After that is done, under what you just chose it should be asking you, "What type of computer do you have?" I run on an AMD 64 bit processor but for some reason it doesn't recognize the install disk correctly. So it is highly recommended you choose the first option, Standard personal computer. After this select the closest location near you under the drop down menu below the previous option. Then click start download. You will be redirected to a page that starts your download and asks you where to save it, just save it to desktop. Now go relax and wait for your download.

Supposing you have downloaded the ISO file of the Live CD and you are ready to host it. Go download Infra Recorder if you do not have a program that burns ISO files. If you are using Infra Recorder, insert your blank CD into your drive and if it auto loads select cancel, next open up Infra Recorder and select Actions > Burn Image, from here select your ISO file and hit open and it should begin to burn. After your image is complete you are ready to do a live boot of Ubuntu Gusty Gibbon.

Whether method you used to get a Live CD you should be ready to boot up in Ubuntu now. Insert your Live CD into your disk drive and restart your PC. When it gets to the screen where it displays your disk drives and memory amount you can either start mashing F9 or if you have timing just hit it once when you need to, to get to the boot menu. From here select boot from disk and a screen with multiple options of Ubuntu should pop up with the first option being "Start or Install Ubuntu", Select it and let Ubuntu load. The first time it loads off the CD it may take three or four minutes so be patient.

After the Live CD is done loading mess around with the Live session and see if you like it. After you decide that you want to install it (it is recommended that you back your window's portion of the guide) click the install icon on the desktop.

A welcome screen will come up and ask you what language you would wish to use. Then after that it will ask you what timezone you live in. Just select one that is relatively close to where you live. After this choose your appropriate keyboard layout.

Ubuntu will then load the disk partitioner to determine where it's going to be installed. Choose ,Manual - use the largest continuous free space. This will automatically select the unpartitioned space we created earlier using the Shrink tool. Click Forward. If you feel brave you can can edit the portions manually. After you have selected all of your needed information, Ubuntu has enough knowledge to install itself. Now go relax a second time if you have downloaded the CD, if not it will be your first!

After Ubuntu is done installing itself your computer will automatically reboot and will come up with the GRUB system select screen. Your very first option would be what you want to boot up in if you want Ubuntu, but if you want windows choose either the fourth or fifth option. After 10 seconds of no responding it will automatically boot up in Ubuntu. If you were like me and accidentally installed Ubuntu on your second HDD, you may have to reboot up into Vista for Ubuntu to recognize all of the hard drives and their space.

Now go out and enjoy your new operating system!

In a personal computer (PC), the biggest enemy of performance is heat. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of the central processing unit (CPU). Cooling for the CPU can be accomplished by either air or watercooling, but either way, the CPU is connected to the cooling system by way of a flat metal piece. No matter how hard manufacturers try, neither this metal piece (the bottom of the heat sink in the case of air cooling, and the CPU block in watercooling) nor the top of the CPU will be perfectly flat. The little imperfections in the surfaces of both of these components hold heat in, and in turn affect how well your cooling will cool the processor. Thermal paste fills in these gaps, eliminating the excess heat.

Some heatsinks have a thermal pad on them, furthering the cooling power of the heatsink. In these cases it is not necessary to apply thermal paste, but it will still improve the contact of the heatsink to the CPU. Make sure you remove the plastic cover from the thermal pad first, though.

For most people, the difference in how you apply thermal paste and which type you use will not matter, but for those who insist on getting the utmost power from your rig (and I'm assuming you are one of these people seeing as you are reading this article), the few degrees of heat you save will make a difference.

PASTE:

The most commonly used thermal paste by the end user is Arctic Silver 5. Specific instructions for the application of this product can be found on their website, www.arcticsilver.com.

There are, however, other brands out there, and the application process may differ from brand to brand. This guide is based on Arctic Silver 5, though, as it provides great performance at a low price.

CLEANING:

Before starting, you must remove the thermal paste left on from previous applications from both the CPU and the heatsink. NOTE: You may skip this step if using a brand new CPU and heatsink, neither of which have pre-applied thermal paste. Iso-Proply alcohol is highly recommended, although nail varnish remover is also acceptable. Arctic Silver also sells it's own cleaner in the ArctiClean if you feel this is necessary. Use a clean, lint-free cloth and wipe the surface clean. Be sure not to touch the surface after you have completed the cleaning, as you will then have to repeat the process.

APPLICATION:

This varies depending upon what type of processor you have, and whether it has an exposed core, or a heat spreader. The basics are the same, in that either way you apply the paste to the CPU and install the clean heatsink/waterblock as the instructions dictate.

EXPOSED CORE:

When applying thermal paste to an exposed core, simply put a small amount of paste on the top and spread it, ensuring you do so in a thin and even manner. Be careful not to use too much, as this will put more material for the heat to travel through before it reaches the heatsink/waterblock, drastically reducing the cooling performance. Spread it very thin and even. It should be no thicker than half of a grain of uncooked rice. After doing this, simply apply the heatsink/waterblock as the instructions tell you to do so.

SINGLE CORES WITH HEATSPREADER:

Heatspreaders are put in place to aid the heat transfer from the CPU to the heatsink/waterblock. These increase the size of the CPU, however, and as such it is not necessary to cover the entire CPU with thermal paste. Simply put a blob in the center of the heatspreader (the size of one grain of uncooked rice for an Intel CPU, slightly larger for an AMD CPU), and let pressure take care of spreading the paste as you apply the heatsink/waterblock.

DUAL CORE WITH HEATSPREADER:

The process is the same as with single core CPUs, but in this case you want a line as opposed to a blob. This is to aid in the cooling of both cores. To make sure you put the line in the correct direction, make sure the corner with the gold triangle is in the bottom left corner, and then apply from top to bottom.

QUAD CORE WITH HEATSPREADER:

For quad core CPUs, the process is the same as with dual core CPUs, except this time, the line should be horizontal as opposed to vertical.

FINAL NOTE:

Please keep in mind that, should the heatsink/waterblock be removed from the CPU, you will need to clean the heatsink/waterblock once again and reapply the thermal paste, as the airtight seal between them will have broken. Thanks for reading to the end, and I hope you enjoy this and other articles I intend to write in the future!