Hmm, it appears Newegg doesn't stock MX-3 yet.

I have Arctic Silver 5, but I haven't touched it since I put together my tower. I should probably reapply it.

I did the same to my 60gb. I wasn't going to open it all the way to the mother board but it was so dusty I went ahead. Cleaned it with dust blower and replaced the thermal paste but put the thermal on tick and my fan was more quiet.

You aren't planning on also putting a mod chip in there, are you Mr. George Hotz?

Reapply the AS5 to your PC or your PS3?

Better to leave the AS5 in place until you swap CPUs or heat sinks considering that it takes a while to cure and works better after curing. Unless you're reading higher temps, why bother?

As for the PS3, same thing: unless your fan has been running faster/louder, no point in pulling it apart to reapply TIM unless your warranty is expired and you just feel like breaking it down to clean out the inside. The fan test actually blows out most of the debris, if that's the main concern. I'm sure using a vacuume does the same.

I didn't quite find the giant dust bunnies inside the 40GB SKU I just pulled apart that I was expecting (after a fan test). Unfortunately, cleaning it out and reapplying TIM did nothing; I need my heat gun and some flux to reflow the solder joints. Mainly I just want to get the game save data off the HDD and transfer it to a new Slim.

I wasn't clear, I was talking about reapplying it to my PC. Then again, I don't want to open it up anyway since I'd have to deal with the pushpin design of the cpu cooler.

As for my PS3, I'd rather not open it up unless I had to. I use an air compressor to blast the air out ever now and then so I don't think globs of dust will be a problem.

I would end up breaking it

Never had any problems since release day.

With a vacuum you wont get the seal needed to even spin your fan let alone fast enough to damage it.

(for a PS3)

Screw mounts are easier, but once you figure out how the push pin mounts actually work, they're not as bad as everyone makes them out to be; they're just easier to misalign. The Scythe Ninja was a lot scarier to mount; it uses tension clamps to hold the heat sink to the mobo brackets and you can literally hear crunching as you bend them into place.

Not sure if using an air compressor is the best way to clean out the PS3. While it may be coincidental, my 60GB died after I started using compressed air to clean it out although in all fairness, it already had a lot of 24/7 continuous use logged on it. A shop vac is probably safer at drawing the debris out.

Makes one wonder if the next gen of high powered consoles will have some sort of self cleaning feature or user serviceable dust trap.

Keeping your console nice and clean so it stays running nice and cool can't hurt.These consoles are basicly PCs anyway just made for games only. I have had my PS3 for about 4 years trouble free, I keep very clean, I have never taken apart, but keeping it clean does keep it running nice and cool, also quiet. I think the better you take care of your stuff the longer it should last.