OT: CPU heat-sink problems

[Vaughn Treude]

A question for the build-it-yourselfers out there:

It seems I always have trouble with heat when reinstalling a CPU.  Since
it's a used heatsink I have to  put on new thermal compound.  I bought a
tube of Arctic Alumina thermal grease and followed the instructions from
the company's website as closely as I possibly could.  Still, the BIOS
says that the CPU (an AMD 2600+ or something similar) is heating up to
60 degrees C.  Assuming the BIOS is right, I did something wrong.  I've
already redone this twice.  This is the heatsink that came with the
CPU.  And yes, I cleaned the old thermal pad off the heatsink with
carburetor cleaner as recommended.  The problems, as I see it, are:

	1. It's extremely hard to get the thermal grease in a thin even layer. 
The directions say you can use a razor blade or a clean credit card. 
I've tried both.  I never get the layer quite even and if I try to fix
it, I always make it worse, producing gaps and whatnot.

	2. The directions say you shouldn't twist or slide the heatsink when
mating it down on the processor.  Makes sense, but with those tiny, tiny
little plastic nubs on the sides of the CPU socket, it's very hard to
mate that with the heatsink's mounting hardware exactly right the first
time.  Seems like it's always a millimeter or two off.  Unless I want to
take it off and reapply the goop, and do this about 50 times in
succession, I need to slide the heatsink over a tiny bit.

Has anybody had this kind of trouble, or am I some kind of idiot?  Is it
better to just by a new heating with that meltable thermal pad on it?

Vaughn