about my heatsink

[silentwrathhh]

so I want to clean the dust out completely out of my i3 4170 stock cooler, and I was wondering if I should reapply thermal paste after removing it from the cpu even tho i just want to clean the dust out of the heatsink

[minibois]

Just now, silentwrathhh said:

so I want to clean the dust out completely out of my i3 4170 stock cooler, and I was wondering if I should reapply thermal paste after removing it from the cpu even tho i just want to clean the dust out of the heatsink

Probably, yes.

You could maybe get away with not changing it, but I can only 'safely' recommend that if your thermal paste is pretty new and still 'plyable'. Over the years, paste get harder and removing the cooler and placing it back can cause air bubbles in the paste.

[less_pointy]

I usually use pressurized air (compressor, or canned air) to clean dust from my heatsink. Usually there is no need to remove the heatsink from the system.

[LogicalDrm]

16 hours ago, yaboistar said:

if you lift the cooler, change the paste. it's not worth the hassle if things don't go smoothly with re-mounting it

I wouldn't be this picky. More like "if you let paste be at mercy of room air more than few minutes, change it". Just lifting cooler doesn't do anything. Paste will set again once cooler is mounted. However room dust will have time to settle if paste is left under air too long and that will have actual effect.

[LogicalDrm]

6 minutes ago, yaboistar said:

my reasoning is that it's such a quick and easy thing to replace that it's just worth doing it to save the bother if anything does go awry

As someone who has both cleaned multiple pastes and also twice lifted cooler and put it back again, once because I turned it to other way, other time to check if I put too much paste; cleaning takes more time with no benefits.