For you guys that are thinking of trying Liquid Pro stop and think about this for a minute. When you go to spread Liquid Pro to the chips you will see it takes a little work to get it to cover the chip. Once you have a thin layer on the chips and you apply a little to the center you will see it flow across the chip. So what's going to happen if you don't apply it to the water block also? Its going to push the Liquid Pro off the sides of the chip instead of flowing between them like it should. You need to break the surface tension on both the chips and the water block by spreading just enough to cover each then putting a drop in the center off the chip before assembling it. Measure out where it needs to be if you can't see the outline of the chips on the bottom of the water block. Last thing you want is for the water block to push it somewhere its not supposed to be. Not sure where this applying it just to the chip came from. Liquid Pro is NOT like regular thermal paste it HAS to be spread!
That's a good point. But ...
1. The first machine I did this with is working flawlessly. Maybe I just got lucky.
2. The second machine was running fine, until whatever episode happened that led to my current situation. But when I re-applied LP to the 2nd machine I did have it on the water block too.
It could be that the damage was done once the LP oozed out past the chip die edge and shorted or caused whatever havoc.
I'd generally agree with you though. If anyone goes down the risky LP road they should apply it to the cooling block too. It doesn't need much. Just "paint" enough on there to break the surface tension so that, as you observe, it will bond with the LP on your goldstrike chips.
However, a little bit of LP oozing over the edge of your chip should not wreak such havoc with the motherboard.