Every thermal paste vendor application is a crime against the laws of thermodynamics.
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Gosh, on a 2+ years old laptop with these low-quality pastes all dried up you're looking at a 10-20C temperature difference under load versus a proper application.
@gabrielesvelto One old computer has so much thermal paste that the CPU cooler is effectively glued to the motherboard. It keeps overheating badly, but we could not figure out how to remove the cooler without damaging it. Have you had similar issues with other computers?
@autiomaa yes, I saw machines where the paste was so dried up that you'd pull out the CPU from the socket if you tried lifting the heatsink (with a very big chance of ruining the pins, or cracking the package if it was soldered). In those cases you shouldn't pull at all. Start by gently rotating the heatsink left and right several times until it comes off. It takes a bit of patience but it always works without risking damage.
@gabrielesvelto a while ago the Gamers Nexus people did some chemical analysis and found out most of the “silver” thermal pastes contained no silver at all and were just making everything worse.
@mhoye I remember that TIMs with metal particles were all the rage a while back. I've always used quality-but-fairly-pedestrian pastes, like the Arctic Silver Céramique or the Arctic Cooling MX-2. They last long enough that a machine will usually irreparably break down before they dry up.
Getting it out of those tiny capacitors on the side of the die is a nightmare. I soak the thing in TIM cleaning solution, let it dissolve it for a minute then soak it up with an old toothbrush. There's no other way to remove it from those dents without leaving traces of other materials.
OK, now we're talking
That's more like it.
