Will thermal paste allow my CPU to cool enough?

Question

I've been using an Asus Striker Extreme motherboard for about a year without any complaints. Unfortunately, the memory banks started producing all sorts of errors for unknown reasons, so I had to replace.

When I bought the Striker Extreme, I believe I paid about $500 for it, this time I settled for a board I found for $129 on Newegg which had comparable features, actually slightly better with PCI-E 2.0 slots. One thing I didn't realize though is, compared to the Striker Extreme, this new board has no heat dispersion features built in at all.

According to the BIOS, which crashes soon after, my CPU is running at 185 degrees F, only seconds after start up, and crashes when it peaks at around 215 degrees F, which takes about a minute. On the Striker Extreme, I never saw it rise above 125 degrees F at start.

At first I thought maybe the fact that the thermal grease was dried and cracking meant that it was doing more harm than good, so I rubbed it off carefully using alcohol.

Now it rises to 200 degrees F very rapidly on startup, and crashes within seconds. This is after a 30 minute break, for your information.

My question, do you think maybe the thermal lost it's effectiveness before I even rubbed it off, and that I am underestimating the capabilities of properly applied fresh paste, or am I better off finding a motherboard which has dispersion built into the board and sinks and pipes surrounding the CPU like the Striker Extreme? From what I've read, it seems like I can expect about 15 degree C reduction in heat, but that doesn't seem nearly safe enough when it's running that hot, after 30 minutes of cooldown, seconds after startup.

Thanks for your time and opinion!

Answer 1

WHOA! That's is insanely hot for CPU! I wouldn't touch the power button until you have it fixed!

Did you check the fans? Is the CPU fan plugged in? Thermal greese is a needed thing when building a computer but it should be the difference of over 100 degrees! I'd definitely check the fan, and apply new paste and if that doesn't do anything, buy a new fan and see if that helps any.  

Answer 2

You absolutely need the paste. It needs to be applied in a thin a layer using a thin credit card or something similar. Those temps will destroy your quad in no time at all without it. There are plenty of sites with instructions on applying the thermal paste with pictures, etc.

It is true that too much can be harmful, but none at all will fry your investment even faster. After thermal paste is applied correctly, the next thing to check is your fan. The chassis that holds the fan has to be tightly (thumb tight, not screwdriver tight) affixed to the top of the cpu (and paste) in order to properly convey the heat away from the cpu, to the fan.

Answer 3

thermal paste alone is not enough its a conductive and disperses but with out  aheatsink and or a fan its nothing you need  to put some coolers in there fast before you fry  your  mobo  

Answer 4

Having too much thermal paste is probably worse than not having any. It's only purpose is to help establish a firm contact with the heat sink. With too much, the heat will not transfer to the heat sink fast enough.