I have been shilling people into buying AMD Ryzen stuff, and today I literally got shilled by AMD. While cleaning up my very first and beloved tower, I decided to replace the 10 month old stock thermal super glue on my CPU, which was rock solid and literally ripped the CPU off of its comfy socket. It did not come off easily and was bending the motherboard every time I pull it. Thank God, I did not split the motherboard in half. So, after screwing up a basic thermal paste change, I wanted to ask you people: What did you screw up today? (=

"AMD VIBES"

I did heat up the CPU, but the paste was extremely dry and even crumbling in to pieces. Thanks anyways.

Not important. Help is my duty. I didn't know that thermal paste would be very effective on performance. I'd be happy to help you.

From what I understand, the processor stuck to the heat sink. With the help of something thin, you can turn it on.

@ Zen'siz olmaz. Thank you, bro. I managed to rip it off using a flathead. I heated the CPU up before attempting to remove the cooler. As I aforementioned paste was utterly rock solid with no way to liquefy for easy removal. Socket and the CPU appears to be intact. I reapplied thermal paste . It's in working condition now. Even got 300 more points on Cinebench R20. I was getting around 2600-2650, now I got 2900 points just by smearing some paste on. (= Edit: Sorry, I accidentally hit "Bring up Front" button instead of "Reply."

The adhesion coefficient of some thermal compounds on the market are really susceptible to temperature changes and to time decay. For the next time, I'd recommend heating up the CPU for a couple of minutes right before removing the heatsink.