Originally Posted by Dridzt
Assuming no overclocking,
- make sure there is conductive paste between the cpu and the cpu fan heatsink.
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QFT. When I originally built my system, it came with a small pouch of thermal grease. Seemed OK at the time, but after a few years, I noticed the CPU temp slowly rising. Not thinking much of it, I ignored it. Fast forward a few more months, and I began to have random shutdowns due to overheating.
After dismantling the system, I found that the thermal grease had almost entirely been squished out the sides from the application of the heatsink's mounting screws, and hence, not really providing it's required function.
I picked up a bottle of Zalman ZM-STG1 Super Thermal Grease, which is nice in that it has an applicator brush. After applying a layer of grease per the instructions, my temperature went from around 78C down to under 50C at high loads.
This definitely has prolonged the life of my aging PC, and was the best 10 bucks I've spent in a long while. I'd check this out if I were you.
