I have not tried to re-apply thermal paste. I came here to figure out the first steps I should be taking. Is thermal paste the first one? The cooler came with thermal paste applied.
Sorry, i am just saying, i don't have air conditioning so there isn't much cold air entering the computer intakes so my tempers are higher than most people. Also, my office gets VERY hot. So i am trying to cool down my PC as best as i can.
I have been using the stock AMD cooler on my Ryzen 1700 and it performs like crap, sometimes getting up too 95C+. After talking to my friend who has the 7700 who has temps of 85C+ on the stock cooler and switched to the D15(dropping his full load temps by 20C+/-) i decided i wanted to have better cooling. Also, I live in the PNW and don't have air conditioning, which isn't needed really where i live but i don't need my computer heating my room to 80 degrees in the summer and want it to cool as well as it can, especially with that power hungry/hot GPU.
Originally i was going to get the 5800x and a GTX 4070. Then, after a lot of vodka and youtube videos i decided that i wanted to try out DDR5 and the newest Ryzen 7000 series CPU's. I had the Ryzen 1700 since release and EVERYONE said to just use the stock cooler, which i have been but it isn't really great at all and i have seen it peaking at 95C many times so i wanted a better cooler. The problem is, the cooler i picked doesn't fit in my old case so I chose the Corsair 4000D purely because of that reason. I also have been an Nvidia fanboy for years but i decided on trying out AMD cards so i picked the 6950XT for $40 less than the 4070 was going to cost me. The MOBO I chose because I have had problems with my current ASUS ROG STRIX B350-F and after looking into it, the new ASUS MOBO's are having the EXACT SAME memory issues i was having in 2017 so i am jumping off the ASUS ship.
That worries me because my four thumbscrews can be tightened all the way down.