Thermal Paste Necessary?

Quote:
lolfail.

Shortanswer:
yeah you need fresh TIM.

Longanswer:
I'm too tired for this one. sum1 else give him the long answer.

yes u need more, atleast u came in and asked

my girlfriend's dad took out her CPU for no reason, couldnt get it back in, tried to push it in, bent pins /facepalm!

so she bent the pins back, put it in and latched it down.

i told her i need to reseat it properly (waste of AS5 on a non-OC'ed CPU) and her dad got all pissy cause he thinks he knows what he was doing..

her dad said... get ready.... "Its just glue"

ROFL FAIL!

surprisingly, it still runs and is stable... i might replace it when she upgrades cause she decided she wants to play games

Yes you most definitely need some paste. Grab some cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol to clean the old stuff off (please do a good job of cleaning it) and then reseat and apply a very small amount of paste to the raised part of your cpu. Use something stiff and flag like a credit card or razor blade to spread it smoothly and very thinly over the surface of the cpu and then reattach your cooler. If you arnt going for high end cooling, any paste will do - I suggest arctic silver ceramique as it is very easy to apply, works just about as good as any of the real high end stuff, and a cheap tube will last you for quite a few builds. It also wont fry your computer if you do a sloppy job (try not to anyway). Try to properly seat the cooler your first time so you don't mess up the paste. If you have to mess with it too much, clean and reapply paste. (if your cooler or cpu are warped you may need to add slightly more paste or lap the surface - I do not suggest lapping the surface unless you really know what you're doing) Hope this helps.

Quote:
Arctic Silver 5 is ok paste. Its a bit dated and the 200+ hour cure time is just ridiculous. Not to mention it HAS to be heat cycled in order to cure properly otherwise that 200 hours just turned in to more. If you add it up 200 hours of operating time is better than a week. It can take up to 2 weeks to cure it properly. I dunno about you, but I've got better stuff to do with my time than sit around waiting for my TIM to cure so I can OC.

IC Diamond 7 is WAY WAY WAY better than AS5. It dropped my idle temps 3*C and load temps 7*C, over cured Arctic silver 5.

I've also read really good reviews about OCZ freeze and Tuniq MX2 pastes.