[CentOS] died again

[Louis Lagendijk]

On Tue, 2013-12-03 at 15:16 -0600, Michael Hennebry wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Nov 2013, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
> 
> > Michael Hennebry wrote:
> >> On Wed, 27 Nov 2013, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
> 
> >>> One thing I've never done, or thought of until now, was whether the
> >>> thermal grease between the CPU and the heat sink had dried out. If it's
> >>> running hot, that's a possibility, so you might clean that off and put
> >>> on some new (a buck or so at any computer parts store). Doesn't need
> > much -
> >>> the force of tightening the heat sink will spread it much farther than
> >>> you expect it to, and you don't want it coming out the sides.
> >>
> >> "the force of tightening the heat sink" frightens me silly,
> >> but I suppose that would be better than a dead CPU fan.
> >> My recollection is that that does not come off.
> >
> > Not to worry. It will probably be a lever that you push down and it
> > catches. I doubt it's like in some servers, where you screw it on... and
> > even in that case, you screw it till you feel it stop turning.
> 
In any case: check the fans first. There may also be a lot of dirt on
the heat sink. These are much more likely culprits than the thermal
paste. 

> If thermal grease is the problem,
> how do I find out and how do I clean off the old stuff?
> I've read that just adding more is not a good idea.
> If I add to much thermal paste, what do I do about it?
> 
If everything else fails you can try to replace the old thermal paste. I
It seems unlikely that this is the cause of your problems. I have seen
quite a number of issues with fans and dirty heat sinks. None that I can
remember of bad thermal paste. I may have seen one case where there was
none at all (assembly mistake).  
Remember that the paste is only to be used to fill up the really small
unevenness between heat sink and heat spreader on the processor. Unless
you are overclocking I would not expect much difference from a new
thermal paste

As mark already pointed out a little alcohol is very helpful to remove
old paste. Use a lint free cloth to remove it. 
Then just put a little new paste on in the middle of the processor and
use a credit card to spread it out as thin as possible. The credit card
is flexible enough to follow the surface accurately. And don't let the
paste spread out from the sides of the heat spreader. 

Louis