Ok so a few of you may know I've been having troubles with my newly built computer.

conclusion was that the motherboard was screwed and I'm waiting for it to be collected now for an exchange.

My new question is that will I have to re-apply the thermal paste to the cpu/heatsink.

If so, what do I do, do I clean off the existing paste? or just add a bit more? or leave it as it is?

If I have to clean it what do I use?

This is what state it is currently in:

 

I use a pencil rubber. It gets it off quite nicely. Always apply fresh paste when you remove the heatsink from the chip

 

yes, as above chap

Whats the full spec of this computer your building? i can see its amd athlon so thats a good start

I bought a new computer the other day which is also an AMD Athlon, its the "64 x2 4200" model and fook its lightening

 

ok thank you, it's Athlon 3000+ 1.8GHz, Radeon 9550 256Mb GFX, 80Gig SATA HDD, 19" TFT and 1GB Kingston RAM

should run well!

especially as i've been using 1.3GHz, 32Mb GFX, 40Gig HDD, 15" CRT + 1GB RAM for 4years! haha

 

Oh yeah you will see huge improvements in performance mate

Before i got my new pc i was using a celeron 2.6Ghz, 1 gig ram, 64 on board graphics and 40gig for 2 years and it just wasnt very upgradable and was getting cheesed off, so i bit the bullet and bought a new base unit, and its fantastic
Get some pics up in the computer section when its done mate

 

tbh i didn't think there was a computer section

lol

but i will do, if i ever get it running

same situation, old pc not AT ALL upgradeable so off I trundle with my 9 month interest free credit card. haha

 

Yeah there is and i see you found it you can post pc stuff in here aswell, doesnt really matter, just the fact that in here is much busyier so obviously the post will get pushed down quicker.

So yeah, same story as me then, except i had some spare cash burning a hole in my pocket

good luck with the build