Thermal paste issues?

[ruld14]

Hey guys I'm new to the forum, so be nice. My problem is that my CPU is getting real hot lately, and I've been getting a lot of BSOD and freezing when playing CPU demanding games, it also occurs sometimes while I'm browsing, at first I thought I had a graphics card issue, so I updated and downdated my drivers twice and still got BSOD while playing, I removed my graphics card and used the motherboard's integrated graphics chip and still got freezing, I even thought it might have been my RAM so I removed one stick at a time(I have 2 sticks) and still got freezing and BSOD, so that led me to the last piece, the CPU which for a long time I hadn't monitored it's temp. On idle i'm getting around 50 celsius (123 farenheit),So I took a look at my heatsink and it was clean and all, but the temps where still high,so I removed my heatsink and the pre-aplied thermal paste looked dry and uneven. Could this cause my CPU to heat that much? Or is there any other issues you might recomend looking at? By the way, when I run prime 95 it takes about 10 seconds to reach peak CPU temperature, so I never really run that test to long(I want to avoid frying my CPU). Should I buy new thermal paste and apply it?

 

PC Specs:

 

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1055T, 2.8GHz

Motherboard: ECS A885GM-A2, ChipSet AMD 880G

RAM: Kingston HyperX blu DDR3 PC3-10600 (1333Mhz) CL9, 4GB, Kingston DDR3, PC3-10600 (1333MHz), CL9, 2GB

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 250gb SATA III

Graphics Card: ECS NVIDIA GeForce GT 520, 2GB DDR3

PSU: 500W

Operating Sistem: Windows 7 Home Premium

[KenB]

Hi and welcome to ExTS

 

so be nice

We always are .................most of the time :)

 

thermal paste looked dry and uneven.

If it is uneven then this is the likely cause of your problem.

 

As you have removed the heatsink - and presumably replaced it ? - this will have disturbed the thermal paste and you will not be getting the contact you need for the heatsink to do its job efficiently.

 

You need to take it off again and clean both surfaces with rubbing alcohol ( get this from a pharmacy )

Then apply a very small amount of thermal paste and spread it evenly ( you can use an old credit card to do this )

You don't want too much paste as this is just as bad as not enough.

 

See here:

[ruld14]

As you have removed the heatsink - and presumably replaced it ?

 

I haven't replaced it, but I removed it once or twice in the past, I assume that must have caused the problem.

Thanks, hope it fixes my issues.

[KenB]

Keep us informed :)