Is my new thermal paste faulty?

I recently took apart my old laptop and redid all the fun stuff (new paste on the cpu , oil in the case fan, cleaned out all the dust etc) and I am unsure I have done well enough with the thermal paste and here is why: 1) when i checked out the temps , I maxed out just from browsing. 2) at first the fan stayed on low and only let out cool air, but now it is always going full throttle and is STILL only blowing cool air.

So I think I must have botched the application of the new paste. I used the good stuff and I thought I used enough but I dont think I got good enough contact on some of the ancillary chips that were also hitting the heatsink. Could my symptoms be caused by poor application ? Id take it apart to check, but I dont want to if I dont have to.... it wasnt as fun as I thought

Some pastes have a burn in time meaning the paste works better after its set up. Sometimes takes a day or two.

If it is still blowing cool air while the fan is cranked, it has nothing to do with the couple of C one may get from 'burn in' on the paste. It is more than likely a mounting issue as you are not getting heat transferred from the cpu to your heatsink... hence the cool air while the fan is cranked and CPU is hot.

EarthDog said:

If it is still blowing cool air while the fan is cranked, it has nothing to do with the couple of C one may get from 'burn in' on the paste. It is more than likely a mounting issue as you are not getting heat transferred from the cpu to your heatsink... hence the cool air while the fan is cranked and CPU is hot.

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Thats what I thought as well, but Ive never really heard of that happening. I just didnt want to take everything apart again unless there was more than my misbegotten hunch behind it. Thanks for answering my question.

Im not sure but I dont think my paste has a burn in time either, and the problem has gotten worse after the burn in period. Cool air and low fan for the first few days and now fan is always going full bore. Now that I read the title I see I should have made it clear I was questioning the quality of my work not the quality of the paste

Ill take it back apart and make sure Im getting appropriate contact at all points and let you guys know if that fixes the issue. Thanks for the help !

Well I pulled it all apart and there was descent Co tact between the sink and the cpu ( I do t know if it is standard or not but no IHSon this cpu) but iI think the problem might be in the vrm (?) when I switched the paste I lost one of the thermal pads and replaced it with straight paste. I wonder if the past just isn't making correct contact ( BTW I removed all the pads that were the same height as the first, 3 in total) . The only other think that I can think of is that I clumsied the sink a bit and dented the pipe, Ireally ddon't think in a major way that would affect cooling though. So I made sure to properly apply a coat of paste in the missing thermal pad areas and broke my case fan while I was at it so I can't test it until the new one gets here

Alrighty then, I got my new case fan and installed it so I was up and running again. Checked the tim and made sure there was proper contact (this one doesn't want bare tim, must use pads to ensure contact I guess) but I'm getting a confusing result : temps are the same as with bare tim and once I applied the pads the fan kicks on ALOT sooner. I'd like to know (if anyone is still looking at this thread) what you guys think.

1) better conduction is causing the sink to heat quicker causing the fan to kick on sooner

2) worse conduction is causing the CPU to heat quicker causing the fan to kick on sooner

BTW I still have cool air from the fan exhaust, no matter how good of contact I get with the CPU/vrm /other chips

Thanks in advance

What is "bare TIM"???? And what pads are you talking about? What TIM did you get?

When I say pads I mean that stock came with a jellyish contact pad to accommodate different height of chips. This sink covers the cpu and has an almost Olympic platform (3 Heights with 1st place being tallest second place being in the middle and 3rd the shortest?) set up for the surrounding chips (which I believe to be the vrm , but am not sure). If you follow the copper pipe around a bend it leads to another smaller plate which is situated over another chip (the Southbridge?) lead to more pipe and then to a set of fins by the cpu fan. The stock paste was pretty much just that jellyish pad as well, which was also on the other chip. Originally I had removed these pads and replaced with Antec Series 7 ( lack of the pads is what I meant by "bare tim"... Just the chip/sink/and tim) but when I saw my temps hitting the ceiling just from browsing I replaced the pad with some that I saved from a mobo I cleaned up (I'm actually kind of nervous with my laptop's performance if it was okay to replace this pad on my mobo with tim) . This pad was under the sink over the vrm and I had to cut it to size.

Wouldn't you know it the old saying of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is true. I was just trying to do routine maintenance and seem to have really made a mess of things ( I should mention that maybe it's not all the routine of maintenance for me because I'm still on my first build )

Edit: Lomg story short I was worried anot nothing. Furthur reading showed that intel and AMD have different temps specs (whereas my AMD chip would be burning up at the temps I was seeing its still livable for an intel) and even furthur reading (which I should have already done ) shows that I wasnt at the ceiling at all. I was in fact 20C shy of the ceiling when I complained! All is well in KnooberLand. Rest at ease good citizens! Thanks for the help as welll