said by thephantom
The only thing I messed up on was not wiping off the old stuff with the alcohol as you previously mentioned. It looks like they also "painted" the entire surface. Maybe this time I'll try being a bit more conservative with the application.
Yes, you definitely need to thoroughly clean off the old TIM first.
I do not recommend painting or trying to spread the new TIM manually. The weight of your tightened heatsink will do that more evenly and better than most of us can do by hand.
"One small grain of rice in the center for single cores."
"Two small grains of rice separated by 1/4" for multi-cores."
That has worked extremely well hundreds of times here.