Film on Power9 CPU?

[Woof]

I took some photos whilst building up my system and it's only on looking at the photos I noticed what appears to be a film on the CPUs?

I could take the heatsink back off and take a look a guess but wasn't sure the indium pad would still be good after doing so (or can I remove/refit the cooler as often as I like?).

Is it a trick of the light, my imagination, or is there a film that needs removing?

[ClassicHasClass]

I can't read the model number. How many cores is this?

I don't recall a(n obvious) film being on my 4 or 8-core chips, but all of them are in service, so it's not easy for me to check. You don't need an indium pad for the 4s, by the way, and they don't even need thermal compound. The 8s really only need one if you're using it in a warm environment with the 2U cooler instead of the 3U HSF.

The indium pad can be demounted if you haven't powered the system up. However, once it gets up to a certain temperature, it may fuse to the cooling assembly (this is expected and normal for them). I don't know this for sure because I don't have any systems that require one, but the film may serve a purpose to prevent the pad from fusing to the chip so that you can separate the chip from the cooling assembly. deepblue in this thread may be able to tell you more: https://forums.raptorcs.com/index.php?topic=99.0

If in doubt, ask Raptor first!

[Woof]

These are 18-core chips. I didn't see anything when fitting the chip, only on the photo.

I have spare indium pads, since I'll be going the water-cooling route eventually and expected I wouldn't be able to reuse them.

I've not powered it up yet, should do either tomorrow or next week. I guess I'll see with the temps!

[Woof]

Temps seem normal, hovering around 50C. Running stress-ng for a few mins the hottest parts are the VRMs (60C).

[ClassicHasClass]

Excellent! Looks like it's doing its job. P9s are pretty heat-tolerant, also, I'm told.