should I be concerned ?

[jtgizmo]

Hey, I have now bought the parts for my PC and it was built this weekend, all good, everything booted up and I have installed the drivers and the temp programs as well.

I had a mate helping me, who had been building pc for quite some time. Now only thing that really kind made me worried was that, we had to remove heatsink, as we had to reseat the ram, and when I saw the CPU, I saw thermal paste all over CPU and even a little over the edge, he just applied bit more into center when placing heat sink back.

Now the pc is running very very cold 30-33 in idle (same for GPU) and when under load it goes to 45-55 (same for GPU again). This seems all fine. But what I am worried about is that bit of paste I saw filling over the edge from first time - will it be a problem in long run, should I address it or is it ok?

[Deleted]

You should ALLWAYS remove thermal paste when you take off the heatsink, also the less thermal paste used to cover it all the better, because it's used to transfer heat not absorb it.

But with those temps, and if you can't see anything in the edges when it's seated it shouldn't be a problem

[jtgizmo]

You should ALLWAYS remove thermal paste when you take off the heatsink, also the less thermal paste used to cover it all the better, because it's used to transfer heat not absorb it.

But with those temps, and if you can't see anything in the edges when it's seated it shouldn't be a problem

nah he didnt wipe it off, just added bit more (i take to remove any air pockets again?) and just left it there, I didn't want to say anything at a time...

[Deleted]

Possible removeing air pockets yes, but eventually dirt or dust got into the paste which can reduce its heat transfer ability - but with those temps, you dont need to worry

[Erous]

My understanding is that it should always be wiped clean and reapplied so that a THIN sheet covers the area between the CPU and heatsink. If it's oozing over the sides and you see it all squished pouring out the sides, there's something wrong.

[shoebox]

Some thermal pasts are highly conductive with electricity, some are not, personally i like to make sure not overflows, its fairly simple to apply thermal pasts and re-seat the heatsink, however if you dont have 70% alcohol it can be annoying to remove the old thermal past, i used 40% once and it was a bitch, but doable.

edit: also try not to get any on your fingers or anywhere else, in-case you transfer it elsewhere.