Replacing CPU cooling paste

Hi! I have just disasembled and cleaned, (to the best of my abilty), my SONY SZ2XP comp using compressed gas. Hopefully, it will yield some results getting rid of all the dust, although i did feel like i could have done better if i managed to disassemble it further to reach all affected areas.

I'll continue to my question though, I unscrewed the heatsink and noticed that the thermal paste on the cpu looked really misapplied. It has some big lumps of paste and seems very unevenly applied. I have owned this computer for about 2 years or so, and i have never disassembled it until now. Would you say that cleaning this and applyin some artic 5 or other good thermal paste would be worth while? Any input appreciated. Also, I have heard mentioned undervolting, could this also be applied to this computer?

Would greatly appreciate any input!

 

Since you have removed the heat sink, you cannot just put it back in. You really need to clean it up (with isopropyle alcohol from a drug store). Apply artic 5, but only with about the size of a grain of rice (maybe even less, since these are small cpu's) onto the middle of the cpu. Put the heat sink on and give it a hard press and twist and then secure the heat sink. Some people spread the acrtic 5 before putting the heat sink on, if you can do a good job spreading it evenly.

 

Big thanks for the input and quick reply, appreciate it. I went with the artic 5 paste and everything seems to be working great.

 

Why must you reapply the paste if you took off the heatsink? Is air bad for the paste already present?

When my warranty goes out, I'm thinking about putting some AS5 on the 3450 because the heatsink in the Studio 15's have pads for the GPU. These pads suck and cause the GPU to idle in the mid-50's. I've had it hit 91 after TF2ing for an hour or so.

 

Once the heat sink is off, the thermal paste becomes uneven, besides unsure if the paste had already hardened. So, it is best to clean it and use new paste.