Generally when it comes to thermal paste, basically you're fine if you don't disturb/unsocket the heatsink. If you do, and the thermal paste is dry and crumbling (quite often the case), you will need to re-apply it before you re-attach the heatsink.
If the heatsink was just slightly dislodged and the thermal paste was still goopy, then you may be ok to simply re-attach the heatsink.
As you don't have historic temperature readings to compare your current performance to (Nude says 52 is high, but that actually might be 'normal' for your CPU in your computer case in your climate), at this point the best thing to do would be to get the computer running at 100% for 2 hours or so and then check the temperature, and post here to tell us what it is. I'd say anything 80+ is a concern and should be remedied. I would do this before taking the heatsink apart, you may have gotten lucky and don't need to do anything, but if you take the heatsink apart to inspect it then you are 90% likely going to need to put new paste on.
Probably all that you will need to do is detach the heatsink, scrape off all of the old thermal paste, clean the surface with iso-propol alcohol (or vodka or something would work in a pinch) and a paper towel and then apply some new paste, and re-attach the heatsink. Make sure you clean off the top of the CPU too if there is residue there - you want both surfaces to be clean before you apply your new paste.
You don't need to replace the heatsink with a big flash aftermarket one made from copper (especially if you're not overclocking). You also don't need to buy fancy silver-based thermal paste, the simple white 'ceramique' stuff will work fine and is much cheaper.
Note that stock (standard) heatsinks that come with processors generally have thermal pads rather than actual thermal paste. This is because it's much easier to ship something already attached to the heatsink, rather than shipping a separate tube of goop and then having clueless people ruin their CPUs because they didn't apply the paste. Thermal pads basically work the same as thermal paste - once you've put your computer together and turn it on, the heat from the CPU will melt the thermal pad into a thermal paste and have the same effect. Generally thermal pads are quite likely to eventually dry up and flake off, so it is quite likely that you will need to replace it with some real thermal paste.
When applying thermal paste, don't put on too much - it is supposed to work kind of like a lubricant with just a thin layer between the CPU and the heatsink. If you put too much paste in, it starts working like an insulator and actually makes the CPU hotter. There was a problem with macbooks a few years ago where the slave labourers in China were applying huge gobs of paste which caused the CPUs to burn out (laptops are quite susceptible to heat issues, obviously). Google around for instructions and directions on applying thermal paste, there will be a lot of them around as it is a common rookie mistake when assembling computers.
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 1 2011, 11:54 pm by Lanthanide.
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