Damaged thermal paste causing GPU throttle?

A couple days ago I decided to try and clean out my laptop's fan. As I was removing the fan, I didn't realize that it was directly connected to the heatsink overlying the CPU and GPU. It wasn't until I had partially lifted the whole unit that my brain kicked back in. After that I've noticed my GPU is throttled while playing games when prior to this my games played smoothly without any slowdown. Did I damage the thermal paste layer, causing poor heat distribution from my CPU and GPU to the heatsink, and, as a consequence, have my GPU throttled due to overheating?

 

It is possible, especially if the paste is hardened already.

Monitor GPU temp if you want to be sure.

 

Yeah, that's what I figured. Although I don't know what the GPU temp was before, it was in the mid-80s after only about 5-10 minutes of game playing. The game becomes unplayable at that point with constant slowdown.

 

Typically thermal pastes will become useless once you lift the heatsink off of the GPU/CPU, because it would tear them apart and allow many air pockets to form should they be compressed together again.

I'd suggest repasting the CPU and GPU.

 

Absolutely. Damaged/Dry/ replacing heatsink without repasting WILL cause extreme heating. I had that happen to my intel chip, i had temps reach 105 C
Repasted the CPU, never breaks 82 now. Repaste with a quality thermal compound

 

DO NOT use your laptop or even turn it on until you get more thermal paste applied or you could kill your card and do a lot more damage.
once thermal contact is broken its useless and needs cleaning off and reaplying.