Question Laptop heatsink and white goo

[slippyjim]

Hi,

So this MSI gaming laptop was overheating, I took the heatsink fan unit off, cleaned all the dust and stuff out the heatsinks and then reapplied new thermal paste, so far so good....

Around the GPU there are RAM chips and other IC's that were making contact with the heatsink, they were all covered with this white goo (different to the grey thermal paste), I thought it was a thermal pad that had broken down.
I put new 0.5mm thermal pads in place but it is too thick as it stops the GPU from contacting the heatsink then.
I removed the thermal pad and applied some thermal paste to the RAM chips but then when I've fully screwed the heatsink down and then removed it to check it, the thermal paste on the RAM chips hasnt been spread out so the heatsink can't be making contact.

Any ideas what the white goo was?
I forgot to take a photo before cleaning all the white stuff, this is what it looks like now

The pink thermal pads on the right are 1mm thick
It is GPU on the left and CPU on the right

This the GPU and all the IC's that should contact the heatsink

Thanks

 

[slippyjim]

Arrhhh I've just been doing some more research and I believe it was thermal putty but from the photos I've seen it looks like there was not enough applied on mine originally.

Does this make sense?