I have just received my Rock64 SBC. I ordered a Premium Aluminium Casing and am just wondering if anyone has had any experience installing the thermal pad onto the Heat Sink that comes with the case?
It seems to have tape on both sides of the thermal pad; one is blue tape, the other is clear. How do I install this? Which side gets stuck onto the heat sink? Unfortunately the case didn't come with any setup instructions. I have created a ticket with Pine64, but have not hear back.
Thanks 
without seeing the pad i can only guess. but if the thermal pad itself is blue which is usually what i work with are you sure its not got a clear protector on both sides?
i buy thermal pad in 12"x12" sheets in a couple of different thickness's and the pad itself is blue but it has a clear protector on both sides that get peeled off and it doesn't matter which side goes to the cpu or heat sync.
Thanks for responding buzzmarshall. I think that i'll just peel both protectors off and stick it on. As both sides have the protector and are therefore "sticky" does that mean that once I install the thermal pad I won't be able to remove the lid on the case? The heat sink is attached to the lid, so once I install it, the thermal pad will be attached to both the lid and the cpu...
I've put some photos of both sides of the thermal pad and the lid of the case with the integrated heat sink
normally that stuff comes apart fairly easy if you don't just rip it fast when taking it apart. so you should be ok if your carefull when removing the lid.
ya thats not really the best thought out approach but seems typical of a lot of makers.usually it only breaks and tears if its getting old and been overheated alot.
I usually see that type because you can buy it in various thickness's where they are trying to use the heat sync on more then just the main cpu and it will be applied to help make up for the gap between the other chips and the bottom of the heat sync caused by the main cpu sitting up higher then the other chips once the heat sync is sitting down on the cpu.
eg: i notice on my rockpro64 that the heat sync once on leaves a small gap between the tops of the memory chips and the bottom of the heat sync and if i was worried about heat it would be ontop of the 2 memory chips that i would apply a small pad of the right thickness of that type of material.
i didn't buy any of there cases for my board as it i now have a couple of different sbs and other boards that are slid into a 19" rack mount case with a back plane board on it that i built.
sofar from what i have seen with the rocks i recently bought is that they are actually running pretty cool compared to some of the other things i have seen sofar. last week from wed night to sat night i continually streamed a wide variety of movies in various formats and sizes continually from my san cluster in a cue and found the heat sync (25mm one) never went any higher then 43.6 C . that was just based on streaming movies but seemed pretty reasonable to me on something like that.
