If i were to spray the heatsink with uv paint would it mess up the cooling? I was thinking that as long as i dont get it on the spot that touches the core it would be ok but i dont know much about how metal dissipates heat and if paint would adversely effect it.

if you use the wrong type of paint the heat won't disipate off the heatsink as well. I wouldn't do it. you could make things pretty bad

I would advise against it.
Rob

Id only do it if you could take the fan part off and cover the bottom, I know you can do that with some fans. Other wise yeah you can realy mess things up.

btw im not talking about my slk-800, i was refering to my zalman cooler and maybe my heatspreader on my corsair. I heard that the heatspeaders do basically nothing so im pretty sure thats safe as long as i cover all the leads and pcb on the ram. How about just the top side of my heatpipe cooler (the side away from the core)?

the uv kinda paint aint good for heatsinks period... it will defeat the purpose of buying that zalman or that corsair mem w/ heatspreader... if you really want to paint it (although wont be uv) you could use the transparent color paints aka anodizing paint. Looks kool, but dont glow... possibly someone sells a uv kind.

I wouldnt do it near enough any kind of paint will insulate your heatsink/spreader
and stop it doing its job of radiating heat properly, maybe you could just paint the edges of your memory pcb and just the tips of your fan blades on your HSF
its what I did and it looks pretty cool

What I would try, would be get a paint brush.. and like just make a line around the side of a heatsink.. but not actually cover it.. just make like a design around the side of it.. it shouldent affect it much at all.. and it would look neat.. just dont cover the sink in paint..

you have to remember the purpose of the heatsinks are too cool. the memory heatrsink do get use but if u put that on it it wont help. As far as the zalman heatsink it is meant to be a quiet solution for vid cards. If you are using it withough the slim fan with it or any other fan attached on it then i wouldn't recommend it. It already gets pretty toasty without paint on it.

anodize it like a car amplifier.


I had painted one of my old Orion amps and ended up stripping it because of the shut off protect would kick in after about 5 minutes of hard bass'n. (sure it didn't help it was pushing 6 dual voice coil 12" subs...but that's a different forum)


I'm sure a cpu heatsink would act the same, the paint puts a (believe it or not) thick solid coating on the metal, which seals in the heat.

Even powder coating isn't advise for car audio amps, anodizing is the best way to go. look around in your area

just dont do it. its not worth the risks involved and if you mess up you just wasted 15-25 bucks

i would say dont, but if you do, definitely get it anodized. okthanks