i pulled my new processor from the heatsink, is this gonna cause damage?

Solution
Only that Arctic Silver is not that great a product. Get Prolimatech PK-1 instead.

And "wet", well no, that paste is supposed to remain a paste so it better conducts the heat. Usually it is some sort of grease actually. Nonetheless it must be replaced every time you take the cooler off the CPU. This does include carefully cleaning away the old stuff. Use isopropyl alcohol or, even better, chloroform to do this.

bobmanuk

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separating the CPU from the heatsink shouldnt cause any damage, presuming you dont bend any pins or damage contacts on the CPU or socket. if you see thermal paste you should be fine. just be careful that the metal spacer (heat spreader cap) on top of the chip is intact and not lifting off the pcb
 

KiloWolf

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No, they are not one solid piece. But now you should clean the paste off of it and re apply more thermal paste. Any time you remove the cpu and heatsink from each other you want to clean and re apply thermal paste
 

KiloWolf

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I would still apply new thermal paste. you can get ARCTIC SILVER from radioshack or bestbuy or most computer places.
 

DeathAndPain

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Only that Arctic Silver is not that great a product. Get Prolimatech PK-1 instead.

And "wet", well no, that paste is supposed to remain a paste so it better conducts the heat. Usually it is some sort of grease actually. Nonetheless it must be replaced every time you take the cooler off the CPU. This does include carefully cleaning away the old stuff. Use isopropyl alcohol or, even better, chloroform to do this.
 
Solution

vmN

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This right here, I wish I had some chloroform leftover from my "date" yesterday-
 

KiloWolf

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You do run a risk of damaging the cpu by not applying thermal paste and even re using thermal paste. A very high chance for the first
 

KiloWolf

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Agin, you still run a risk. I will not say to try it because I will not be held to blame if something goes wrong, but it's up to you. You never know how long the computer has sat with the thermal paste on the system, or anything like that. If you want to try it it's on you but you are running a high risk by doing it. Not saying it is 100% going to frag your system or overheat but it very well could hurt.
 

DeathAndPain

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There is no need to excuse towards us. It is your CPU you are endangering after all. We can only tell you that it matters not whether you took it out for one second or one hour. What counts is that you broke the paste connection between CPU and cooler, and once that is done, the paste needs to be replaced, because there will be air bubbles when you simply put the CPU back in place, and the cooling effect will no longer be what it used to.

Now make your decision as you like, but do not ask us for absolution, because there is none. The paste needs to be replaced, and you can decide not to do it at your own risk.

I would like to remark that I find your behavior pretty childish. First you panically create a thread asking whether you damaged your precious CPU by pulling off the cooler, and when we assure you that everything will be fine if only you go to the nearest computer store and purchase a new thermal grease for like $6, then that is too expensive, and you rather want to risk your machine. How silly is that?!?
 

KiloWolf

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Look at the two brands me and the other guy said. I like artic silver but he more then likely knows more about the paste then me. So I would go with what he said in his earlier post.
 

DeathAndPain

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There are quality differences between pastes, and you will probably get as many different recommendations as there are people responding. My personal favourite is the Prolimatech PK-1, IMHO an outstanding paste and beating the Arctic Silver hands down.

That being said, you are not looking for some high-end overclocker paste. Important is that you get some fresh paste between your cooler and CPU at all. So yes, any brand should do. A better paste will keep your CPU cooler, so it is less likely to run into its temperature limits on high load (where it would throttle down its performance to protect itself from overheating), but I believe you will get a satisfactory result with any standard paste.
 

thequn

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LOL- i cant help but laugh. at this thread.
personally i use arctic silver ceramique 2 it my test is always been top 3 and i mostly use it because is designed for sub ambient cooling.
 




if your going to use a paste mx4 thermal paste is fine stuff.

as for arctic silver 5 its electric conductive so you have a chance of shorting the motherboard if you get any of it anywhere else.

the mx4 doesnt have this at all