Help a newbie out?

[akcorr]

I had to remove the heatsink from my CPU and wanted to put it back on. The small square with adhesive on it on the bottom of the heatsink is not all screwed up. Can i just scrape the rest of the residue off it and apply something else to make it stick to the CPU? What should I use?

 

[bgeh]

that square with adhesive on it on the bottom of the heatsink is Thermal Interface Material(TIM).
jusr clean it off with isopropyl alcohol and then put some thermal paste on your chip(arctic silver 3 is preferred)

 

[rogue1979]

That is not an adhesive to make it "stick to the cpu core". That is thermal transfer material to make sure the heatsink surface is mating perfectly to the cpu core for needed cooling. If you are running a socket A cpu you're gonna burn that sucker up if you don't take precautions. Carefully scrape off the square of material from the bottom of the heatsink without gouging it up. Get some 600-grit sandpaper and on a level surface use a figure 8 motion to smooth the bottom of the heatsink until level with no scratches. Then repeat the procedure with 1000-grit until shiny and polished. Then make sure to use an approved thermal grease (artic silver would be best) to apply to the core only. Do this by wrapping your finger in plastic wrap and smearing a thin coating on the cpu core, careful not to make a mess on anything else. Always use rubbing alcohol to clean the bottom of the heatsink and cpu core before applying thermal paste.