What the hell is with Arctic silver 3?

Ok i added this stuff to my cpu and it was nice, cpu never went over 49C ever. Now all of a sudden my temps are up 5C with the same case fans etc and when i look i have no arctic silver on the cpu anymore :x , does it dry up or something because i aint keep pulling my comp apart every month to add the damn stuff. Got me anoid really when its £5 a tube.

If it is supposed to dry up i will buy some paste instead.

that sucks

here is an alternate to thermal grease if any peeps have the gumption.
when u lap both hs and processor very very flat they will wring together.
hold the 2 together and twist 90 deg or so and the hs will pickup the processor (by creating a vacuum)
when this works then u dont need thermal grease.

safeguard your machine until u get good at this. also it's very hard to do with the processors that have clips instead of 4 screws (like the secc type) because it's very easy to break the seal.

i ran a p3 700 @ 800 for 2 years that way
temps stayed around 110f at load (had a giant hs/fan on it though)

just a fun fact

Its prety normal for it to dry up. It normally dries within a day or two so if it is a month later look into compressed air and keeping your fans clean first.

-skeep

This stuff is the worst i have ever bought, i think i will go back to good old thermal grease that looks sort of like toothpaste and is a 1/5 of the cost. Anyway i think Arctic Silver is $*** to put it nicely. May reduce temps but i dont wanna have to be in my comp every month to replace it.

That happened to me too with AS2.
I didn't know what was going on until I realized that AS "separates"
The only solution that I could find was to squeeze off some into a paper towel first to get to the "good" stuff.

Now my CPU is 102 idle and 109 under a load. (With a Swiftech MC462)

Before it was 120 idle and 131 under a load.

I meant that AS separates in the applicator...I.E. before you try to apply it. It is some type of clear liquid that comes out when you try to squeeze some on the die of the CPU. Kind of like real peanut butter, the oils separates from the solids.

If you let the clear liquid stay on the die it causes higher temps.
(And some strange bubbling of the AS paste on the die too after a while of usage.)

I have not had temps "creep up" on me with AS once I got it applied correctly without the "clear liquid" on the cpu die.