Thermal pad AND paste?

scrape it off with a straight edge razor, and then clean it with rubbing alchohol to get it all off.
make sure it is competely dry before putting the thermal paste on.
and a neat little trick that can help with thermal paste.
put a little on the bottom of the heatsink, and then take a CLEAN, LINTLESS cloth, or piece of notebook paper, and rub it until it is barely there.
that will fill in the small crevices on the heatsink...
then put a small ammount of the thermal paste....like half of a grain of rice.
then spread that with the straight edge razor, a clean one...like clean it with a little alchohol.
dont touch the cpu core, or the heatsink base, or the thermal paste...
that will contaminate it with skin oils, and reduce the heat dissipation.
then just set the heatsink on the cpu, and clip it down.
this will assure proper heat dissipation.

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

People get a little crazy about applying paste, trying to get it as thin as possible Most paste are thin enough that any reasonably small amount will flatten out completely when the clip is applied. And some of those tricks don't work, I've had a "dry spot" form before, where heat increased do to not having enough paste!

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

I'm cheap, I usually get about three applications out of one of those free packets.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

I usually have to lay the package on a flat surface and rub it with a hard object to work out that last drop for the third application!

What's the frequency, Kenneth?