Found out why one of my units was not hashing and having X's on the chips. Paste was everywhere on the inside. Even the screws holding the heat sink on had thermal paste on them.
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Messy paste wont effect anything but poor cooling, unless your units are overheating, that's not the problem
His look far better than mine did... lol. I had paste on the chips, on the pcb, on the connectors... everywhere.
please tell the motherboard tinkering noob (myself)-where the paste is supposed to be and where it isn't?
I ordered some in case in my batch 2 I would need to clean it up and reapply, but have no clue where it supposed to go-under the chip, to the side of it or on top of it (judging by some posted pictures there are gobs on top)?