Why does my friends chip hate dielectric grease?

[Master_G]

My friend recently bought an LS, so i lent him some dielectric grease to use in the socket rather than the sticky white Asetek stuff.
He's a methodical guy, so he filled the socket up, and then tested the system on air, and for some reason it now doesnt prime95 on air. It lasts about 1hour, maybe less.
He asked me to check it out, so i went round there, set his system to run toast, and it ran it fine for 2 days, so the stock heatsink must be cooling ok.
I think took out the CPU and reinserted it into the socket several times to make sure the pins were making good contact. No change.
He thought he might have screwed up the board or something, so he cleaned all the grease out, and now the CPU works 100% again, it will prime for over 3days with no probs. He did the grease again, and now the CPU can only pull an hour of prime.
I'm lost on this one guys, any ideas?

G

[Wstinkbait]

First question I have is why put dielectric grease in the socket if your going to run an air cooler. Dielectric grease is to isolate moisture in very cold cooling systems, above 40c or so it starts to melt and turn to a liquid. It will run and spread all over the place. This may have something to do with it but I can't see it causing any electrical problems, just make a mess. It could be inducing some sort of capacitance when melted that effects the chip I don't know. I pack the socket full of it to run TEC at -6 to 10c and it stays hard and works fine.

[Master_G]

He's going to run an LS, but wanted to test the CPU with the dielectric grease in the socket first. I didnt see why i shouldnt work, but should i get him to stick the LS on it and see if that sorts it out?

G

[STEvil]

A64? Winchester?

[Master_G]

No its a newcastle so it shouldnt have any problems with negative temps.

G

[Rabidmoose171]

The one thing i can think of is that it actualy conducts more heat, while its melted at the high temperatures. But once putting the vapo on, it should work fine.

[STEvil]

maybe he put too much in and the CPU isnt seated correctly

[Master_G]

Is there any way to check that? He said he took the CPU out and reseated it in the socket a couple of times, and pushed it down as hard as he dared when pushing the socket lever down.

G