Managed to drop the elderly PC that does file serving duties the other day and caused the CPU cooler to ping off. Clipped it back on but the thing is now overheating on a regular basis and shutting down.
Fan still works and mechanically the heatsink is fine - but the thought occurs to me that the thermal compound underneath might need to be replaced.
Is the stuff "good for life" or does it set and need to be replaced every time the heatsink is removed?
probably gone crusty and the shock broke the seal, cheap as chips just get it clean and reapply some.
Yeah, it dries out.
Get some "TIM cleaner" - lemony stuff that removes it, it's a sod to get off otherwise - and some new paste. You need the thinnest of thin slivers, put it one and then scrape off pretty much all of it with an old credit card; too much paste is worse than none at all.
If you don't have any thermal compound handy, why not use mayonnaise?
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermal-Compound-Roundup-October-2011/1396/3
Right, on the subject of paste then - my PS3 is still causing problems. When I got it it was mostly silent, then over time it got a little noisier, but in the last few months it's blowing a moderate level of fan even when sat on the home screen, and playing any game or wtching a DVD causes the fan to come on relaly loud.
I've cleaned out the dust, I replaced the paste with a really thick layer, then I cleaned most of it off and used a tiny bit scraped off with a credit card as above, still no better. I couldn't get the layer really thin though so I might have to try again.
There's one other thing though - the mobo is covered in a metal.. cover.. and that's acting as a heatsink for some smaller chips, via what seems to be a thermal pad, although it's quite thick. Can these degrade too?