8800GT idle temps at 80C with fan at 40 %

Ok so i was curious about the bolds it had on the back of the card and i decided to remove them and i came to find out that i had removed the copper contact with the GPU itself and the silver heatsink compound might have dried out a little.

so i decided to replace the silver heatsink compound with some crap silicon base heatsink compound that i had around. I figured that the temps might go down. I will replace the compound with arctic silver later on.

now my 8800GT is idling at 80C with 40% on the fan. the max temps of the card say that it can reach upto 105C but i sure dont wanna find out. I dont know how high the temps reach so i have the fan on a 100% playing games.

is the 8800GT going bad or will the arctic silver help bring the temps down to my old idling temp of 55C OR should i just get a VGA cooler?

I made sure to clean it with that 90% ispropyl alcohol. as for adding the silicon base compound--i added a pinch to the center (rice sized) and i moved it around bit to let the compound spread. I've already done it twice and still the same.