Redoing paste

[Aleksandrs]

For the first time in my life, I now have to redo the paste between the cooler and the cpu, and I am worried as to what I have to do.

I thought the paste would be soft and gooey, but its kinda hard and stuck pretty well. I need to do this because I took the cooler off so I can put it the right way (fitted wrong way round).

I'm so worried about this I am even considering just getting a new cpu cooler to save the hassle. I am completely cack-handed, so while I enjoy building computers, I always struggle with the most basic things

Anyway, what's the best course of action? Any tips on how to get the goo off, would I need to take the cpu out or can it stay there and be cleaned? Will any old goo work? I wanna spend the least amount of money as possible! Thanks

 

[Aleksandrs]

So leaving the current stuff on there would be fine? I didn't really get much of it off and only tried the cooler heatsink, not the cpu.

It just seemed a bit thin and dried up.

 

[Aleksandrs]

Put it all back in with the paste it already has. Been watching the temperature increase, currently at 50c slowly rising after about 8 minutes, started at 41. This is without overclock. I set it back until I sort the overheating problem out.

edit: Another 10 minutes have passed, now at 55c. I'm taking this reading from the bios at the moment as earlier when the bios said 70c (yes it said 70!), osx was only telling me 40! I can't find any sort of decent temperature readers etc for osx at all.

 

[Aleksandrs]

http://download.cnet.com/Temperature-Monitor/3000-2094_4-41089.html

No idea if it's a "good" one or not, but It's probably better than nothing

Good luck matey

Cheers running it now. Got the same temperatures as the other app, yet my bios tells me a far different story.

Right now the temps are around the low 40s on idle according to both temperature monitor and the other temperature widget thing

Now I will just restart into the bios... and it says around 56c - 57c

On my mac i'd believe the temp, but on this *cough*other mac*cough*, i can't always be sure if what im seeing is right.

 

[Aleksandrs]

Might wanna take that competitors link down

The chip isn't idling as such when in the bios, as none of the power saving functions are active. It should be cooler once in the OS. The other issue is that the bios may be reading a different temperature to the software, or calibrated differently.

It doesn't look like reusing the paste is going to be sufficient in this case, I'm sorry for steering you wrong.

Thanks though Was worth a try anyway. It's not my main computer so no biggie. Would buying http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=AC-000-AC be a bit overkill if the computers only real use is going to be like surfing the internet and stuff like that? Or do they have more than 1 use?

 

[Aleksandrs]

Iirc MX2 and MX3 both outperform AS5 for less money.

Less money? The mx2 isn't even on the store any more and the mx3 is like 40p more.

But as you say it does a dozen applications, I guess it's something that wouldn't hurt to buy.

So you'd say the mx3 is worth the extra 40p?

 

[Aleksandrs]

Cheers guys! Will get to it


I've had the computer on all afternoon at the moment. OSX was saying I was in the 40s, but bios reckoned I was at 68c! :/