CPU freezing due to thermal paste dried up?

[JustDunny]

I have had my PC for about 3 years now and I have never replaced my thermal paste, but recently my PC has been freezing most times when I play games on Steam such as Football Manager 17 When it freezes the game stays on my screen, but I have to manually turn off my PC. After this I had checked my PC and I had figured out that my CPU's thermal paste had completely wore off and was not sticking to my heatsink, so I was wondering if I was to apply more thermal paste and clean the CPU with rubbing alcohol would stop my PC from crashing/freezing. Also would this be freezing due to my CPU overheating because of the thermal paste drying up? Thanks

My PC specs just in case:
Processor AMD FX(tm)-6300 Six-Core Processor
Manufacturer AMD
Speed 3.5 GHz
Number of Cores 6
RAM 8.0 GB
Video Card AMD Radeon R9 270x

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

It's not the paste causing freezing.

 

[clarkjd]

Freezes tend to be memory related.

 

[Danra]

Download CPUID HWMonitor, http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html , and run it while playing games, check CPU and other maximum temperatures, none of them should be over 80 degrees C. 60 C to 70 C is much better maximum temperatures for the CPU.

The TIM [thermal paste] should not be dry or powdery. Replace the TIM with something good, such as GELID GC-EXTREME [it will never dry up]. Use a thin line in an X pattern across the CPU lid [or 5 small dot pattern], that will provide full coverage on the CPU lid.

While it is true that faulty hardware cause problems, such as Ram [as clarkjd mentioned] or failing RAM mosfet. If, after applying new TIM, you still have the same problem you have a hardware issue, anything from a failing power supply to bad motherboard. However, **Do not run a computer with dry or powdery TIM**.

If you still have a problem:

First, enter BIOS and increase RAM voltage by .02 volts, if that solves the problem you RAM or mosfet are faulty or failing.

If that does not solve the problem, enter BIOS increase the CPU volts by .025 volts.

If neither solve the problem reduce the volts back to normal. There are further checks you can do and it would be best if I could get my hands on your computer to diagnose it.

No matter what the problem, you need to replace dried TIM.