I own a asus H97 plus http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/H97PLUS/ witch has a horrible gold heatsink .
I would like to repaint it , but I don't know if it is safe , I have black spraypaint ( for "hobby's" i don't know what that means , but probably plastic ) and a grey one ( for aluminium ).
The heatsink itself never gets hot even when stressing my 1231V3 , so would it be fine if I was to paint it black / grey ?
And should I remove it from the mobo to paint it or just isolate the rest of the mobo ?
Well i think its not going to be easy in the first place, cause paint does does not realy stick that great on bare aluminium in the first place.
It also will be tricky, cause basicly spraying paint over the heatsink, will insulate it, which mean that the heat dissapation will get worse. Unless the paint is specialy designed for heat dissipation, Definitely not use Glossy paint.
Possibly, Powder Coating usually leaves a heavy plastic coating, which it is good on wheels on cars (less chipping), might not be great for heat dissipation.
If you can find a place that does it the very best option would be to strip the old coating off (probably acid dip or sand blasting) and anodise it in a new colour.
As for how you would do it? Definitely try to remove the heatsink if you are going to do this, you will have better access to all sides and less change of messing it up and zero chance of messing the motherboard up along with it. I will tell you now the acrylic paint is not want you want at all. This is for painting it, if you find somewhere that will anodise it you will have to remove it anyway.
Are you talking "will this fail horribly if I do this" safe? or "If I do this will I leave a burning hole in my room" safe? It depends on the paint. ANY paint will somewhat hamper the thermal wicking properties of a heat sink. AND some paint will chip off if it gets too hot. Engine paint will work, just do not paint any part that is connecting to bare metal. Whatever you choose, be sure you look at the thermal rating of the paint. also, do not coat too heavily and be sure to fully dry between coats. The heavier the coat, the less the thing will cool.
I have a 3D printer , so I'l just print a piece of black plastick to go over it , too mutch risk ( and I think they use thermal tape instead of pads , so I don't want to rip stuff out )