Thermal paste touches the green edge on the bottom of CPU?

[s1nk0]

So I think I applied too much Thermal Paste and some of it is on the edge of the pins (green part). I don't think it's touching any of the pins. I discovered this after I took off the fan and cleaned off the paste. I didn't clean the edge and re-mounted the CPU and turned the machine on again. I've been turning it on and off for an hour, but only a few minutes of it being on each time. I did all that because my motherboard was not posting and I thought the CPU wasn't installed right. Is it bad? Did I destroy the CPU?

 

[s1nk0]

If you destroyed your CPU? That depends on the paste you used. PC components are extremely sensitive, so you wanna make sure you're doing it right.

I would highly advice that you turn off your system and clean the cpu, the heatsink and whatever it leaked onto the best you can. Only use a tiny blob in the center of the cpu heatspreader when applying thermal paste and let the heatsink (the cpu cooler) spread it out as you attach it to the moherboard.

Thermal paste is designed to close microscopic imperfections that is in the metal of the CPU heatspreader and the CPU heatsink so there's no gaps between the heatspreader and heatinsk. So less is more. Always.

I have the Hyper 212 Evo and used the paste it came with. When I did turn on the computer, I didn't see or smell smoke (that's happened to me before). I was just scared there wouldn't be enough. I used to spread my paste, but I tried the pea size method instead. I guess next time I'm gonna use way less paste.

Is the paste that comes with the 212 evo conductive?

 

[s1nk0]

No it's not conductive, its ceramic based and not very good to be totally honest =) It seems no harm is done, but do be careful in the future. Less is more Curing time for the regular stuff that comes with CM coolers is unknown to me.

Still though, I'd clean it up and re-apply. You don't want thermal paste leaking anywhere.

Okay, I definitely will. But still, I will RMA the board and CPU since it is still not posting and the CPU is not compatible with my old mobo. I hope they don't cancel the RMA for a little paste on the PCB. 😛

Thanks, though.