What are yours at idle and 100%?

My setup, kind of old, AMD 62 X2 2GHZ and AMD ATI 2600 XT 512RAM (GDDR2 i think).

I recently replace the stock fans.

Before replacing fans,

My cpu temp used to be 60C or higher at idle.
The VGA temp at 50C on idle, none 3D.

When I play games that requires the graphics card to do its job, my screen would black out and just crash. This has been a long while and kind of ignored problem since I hardly ever game on PC due to lack of time and such.

My first "fix" was actually buying a better computer case, which didn't remedy the problem. It just lowered the temp overall at idle due to more ventilation. Expensive case :/

Then I finally decided it's time to mess around with the fans. Spending another $100 for 2 fans, 1 each for cpu and vga.

My current cpu temp is at 36C - 40C. (idle - 100%)

My VGA temp temp at 39C - 46. (idle - 100%)

Now that the history is done. Let's move to the questions.

Thermal grease was dried when I was replacing the fan, do they turn "liquid-ish" when computer is running?

Could my problem have been just the thermal grease being dried and not the stock heatsink/fans?

If not, why the hell the stock heatsink/fans suck at doing the crucial job?

How often should I replace thermal grease, if neccessary?

I have a AMD Phenom X4 940 (Quad Core) Overclocked to 3.7GHZ and it idles at 50... I think I have a thermalright ultra 120 cooler for the cpu.. I forgot... been years since I bought it.

I have a 460 MSI GTX cyclone (big cooler) Overclocked

it idles at 47

My setup doesn't crash except when I use PCSXE which is a ps2 emulator... and it's likely its fault

High idling temps aren't really a bad thing, besides heating up your house by being inefficiant... and indicate that your load temps could be insanely high and then cause crashes.

For example... I'm not sure about your card... but Nvidia 8800gt's used to idle in the 80-90 C. I don't know about ATI.

Crappy thermalgrease can harden... which is why some ps3' ylod over time, cause sony was cheap... Don't use crappy thermalgrease. If you buy good thermal grease like arctic silver or a gazillion others... you should never have to replace it unless you take the heatsink off.. THEN you should  replace it.

Other problems can be virus, or a card that's crapping out. Lots of things.

The reason why your cpu and gpu were overheating could have been the thermal grease, it happened to me also.
Another reason could be that both cpu and gpu heatsinks gathered a lof of dust, and reduced the airflow.
Your temps now are excellent! I agree about the stock coolers on the gpus. They suck and keep temps near at the cards limits. I have 2 geforce 8800gt's and i have changed both their coolling.

Always clean the previous thermal paste when changing your coolers.
The best thermal pastes to use, are arctic silver 5 and arctic cooling MX2 or MX3 i think is out now.

Weird that they cut cost on 1 of the cheapest part...

So, if I lift the heatsink and it feels like it's stuck, that indicates the grease has dried?

If so, that means AMD uses cheap thermal grease.

I know, they usually use cheap thermal grease for consoles and its not logical at all. Since consoles are made to last and never to be serviced.
Stock thermal pastes like AMD's or Intel's are usually low quality. If your heatsink feels stuck it also can be that the thermal paste is liquid and sometimes is hard to lift it up. Try and see if it moves left or right.

normally it's low quality like westplay says, but that isn't always the case.

If it's stuck it doesn't mean anythign I think. I'm not sure quality has anything to do with that. Because the same event can occur with Arctic Silver too (whcih is good quality). The grease/compound hardens when it's cold. (think ice cube)

1) Did you recently have the computer on... when the computer's on it heats it and becomes more uhh liquidy like you said so you can pull it off. (Arctic silver does this too and it is a good quailty compound).

Also don't pull it straight off to slight twists left to right... instead of up and down. And be sure to unclip the clip.

You can also use a hair dryer to uhh liquidize (sorry I can't think of the word) the compound before pulling the heatsink off. I however have not tried it... So I'd google it if that's the route youd like to take.

Interesting. Perhaps, it is 1 way for wear and tear to happen sooner so you'd buy new cards?

The one came with my gpu is tiny.

When I bought mine, I thought it'd look like this,

But I was quite surprised to have found it like this,

(Can't find the exact match but that's quite close)

I even went as far as paying a lil more for the original ATI brand...

one thing you can do to lower card temps. if you haven't done.

Is take all the PCI slots out of the case... granted, this can also have a negative effect if... it sucking the air it shoots out. But just an idea.

When I took the heatsink off the cpu, the thermal grease was dried and powdery when scrapped off, like those that girls put on their faces.

Maybe I should have tried the thermal grease fix first rather than just outright buying new heatsink/fans :)

I always have an air can handy to blow stuff away.

I actually had the fan off for my new heatsink/fan and it still crashed.

The fan does make a huge difference.

So far, it seems the thermal grease is the killer.