Moneythenerd

i bought an intel the other day and while installing everything, out of no where I see some grey like puddy like stuff on the bottom of the fan the sliver part that touches the cpu under it. any info on this is it suppose to be there for cooling or something? or what thanks

TheOrteganator

Yes, it is thermal paste. It goes in between the heatsink and CPU to help transfer heat. If you are installing the heatsink, you should clean off the old paste and apply new thermal paste to ensure good heat transfer.

jonrice

yep I had the same problem, clean the lot...my cpu was running at 60c+, cleaned it up and know it runs at 45c...although there was a lot of dust in the heatsink itself.?

computermaineack

You cleaned off the thermal paste/pad? You can't have done that, your CPU would be constantly overheating, and you probably would have fried it by now.

Moneythenerd: As stated, it is required that you use some sort of thermal pad or paste to transfer heat from the processor to the HSF...you see, although the processor may look smooth, it's got really tiny depressions in it that, in the absence of thermal paste, fill with air. Air isn't too good of a thermal conductor, so much less heat is transferred from the CPU to the HSF. So the thermal paste helps to fill those dips, and transfers more heat. The stock thermal pad will work fine if you don't plan on OC'ing, but if you do, you should really get aftermarket thermal paste...Arctic Silver 5 is the generally accepted best.

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meanman

i think some of the comments refer to just replacing the heat sink ,
if you have bought a retail cpu with heatsink then leave the past on it is needed if you have bought a heatsink for your existing cpu then you need to clean off the old thermal past and reaply new past something like artic silver 5.

Mankz_91

Basically, thermal paste or TIM (thermal interface Material) fills in all of the microscopic gaps between the CPU or GPU and the HSF. If you don't have any TIM, you'll be lucky for your PC to even turn on. Its reccomended that when you buy a new cooler for an older CPU, you always need to clean off the old stuff from the CPU.

However, with a new CPU and cooler, don't do anything, unless you're planning on swapping for something with greater conductivity, like Arctic Silver 5, or Arctic Cooling MX-1.

Hope that helped.

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Moneythenerd

Thank you people, I got scared for a second wasn't to sure.