[Solved] Phenom II 955 Thermal Paste

Hi, when I was building my computer, I didn't know much about thermal paste, and assumed that whatever came on my heatsink/fan would be good enough. Well, now I have a problem. My fan runs at a steady 5200 rpm, and sometimes reaches 6500 rpm! That's like a jet engine, and It can't be good for the fan's lifespan. I'm thinking the thermal paste might be the problem. I did some reading, found out how it worked, and how it seals heat pockets, and evens out the heat concentrations ets., and I remember looking at my heatsink and seeing a few bald spots, or spots that were not completely covered by the paste. Could this be the problem? My temperatures aren't too bad, idles at 41C constantly. But I think that's because the fan is working itself to death. In the future, I'm going to pick up a Corsair H50, and use that instead, but for now I'm going to look into Arctic Cooling Ceramique, people say it's less conductive (lower risk of shorting something out), and it has some great reviews on temperatures.

I was wondering how to install this product also, since the thermal paste was pre applied on my initial installation. I've heard of people using a coffee filter and rubbing alchohol to wipe off the cpu and heatsink, is this what you all would recommend? What do you all think I should do? Thanks.

Haha, nice! How has that worked for you?

I'm using a zalman9900 on my 965be. I use artic silver 5 thermal paste (very thin coat). My idles are at 32C and running full out never over 49C

The corsair h50 is not anythin special at idle, but under load it shines since the temps never went above 48 C full load (stock) or 50 C full load (3.8ghz). Ambient temp is 68 F

I'm not sure, but I wouldn't worry about it. The paste on there was pretty hard, clay like stuff. No drip. Oh and yannifb, would you suggest getting an H50? I m not concerned with temperatures as much as noise, I really hate to impede the noise of my Bose speakers :]

Alright, well I guess I just might have to get one when I can get enough money haha. For now though, I'm going to change out my thermal paste.

Which motherboard do you have? There should be something in the BIOS setup called "CPU smart fan" or something similar. On my MSI 790FX-GD70, there is a "target" temp, and a min fan speed. Right now I have the target set to 50C and 37.5% fan speed. When not gaming or under a heavy load, this really quiets down the fan. Of course, when gaming, it revs up like you said, but since I have headphones, it's not really so bad.

As far as changing the pre-applied thermal paste voiding the warranty, I'm not so sure about that. I mean, there are times when in fact a person needs to remove the heatsink, and it is highly recommended that you clean the CPU and heatsink and put on new TIM when you do this to insure a good application. It would suck if AMD didn't at least have approved TIM that wouldn't void your warranty.

Maybe BIOS ain't ready?