Matt wrote:
The emphasis is on the description of relevant details, especially
brands and characteristics of materials and components used.

I installed a retail-boxed XP 2500+ Barton with stock heatsink and fan
on a Biostar M7NCD Pro mobo maybe eight months back. The heatsink had a
gray patch of wax-like thermal transfer material maybe a half to a
fourth of a millimeter thick. Hooking the HS clamp onto the motherboard
with a screwdriver required considerable force. After running the
machine for a few days, I removed the heatsink from the CPU and found
IIRC that I could see the surface of the heatsink through the layer of
thermal material, at least in some spots. Definitely I could see a
ledge of material that had been surrounding the die: I could see the
imprint of the die in the material, and the imprinted area had a very
thin layer of material. Also I could see the purple surface of the die
through the remaining thin layer of thermal material. All of this is to
say the material appeared to have been almost all squeezed out.

I used 91% isopropyl alcohol and coffee filters to remove the used
thermal material (easily), and reinstalled the heatsink using Arctic
Silver 3 and following as well as I could the AS3 instructions. I seem
to recall removing it again to check whether I had used enough AS3,
found that I hadn't and reinstalled using more AS3. I did observe a
breaking-in period for the AS3 installation, which is to say that the
CPU temps did improve a bit (1 to 3 deg C? I forgot how much) after a
few weeks of use. Sorry I don't recall many details of the AS3
application, except that the recommended amount was not enough, meaning
that the die did not the first time make a complete AS3 print on the
heatsink.