ph4s3 wrote:
PS - Thermal paste is non-conductive so you didn't screw your board/cpu as long as you can get enough of it cleaned off that you can make good connections at each pin between the board and cpu... I would assume that it'll fail to post if one isn't good, but it may post and just fail intermittently or something depending on chip design... haven't ever heard anyone do that before, but in theory it's fixable and even if you powered it up nothing is fried... Make sure you know your board post failure codes (should be some series of beeps or onboard LEDs to signify why it fails to post).
Dude, thermal paste is basically silver/synthetic silver goop. Silver, the last time I checked, is conductive. It has additives to minimize electrical conductivity, but it
can conduct electricity if you use enough of it.
I've heard of people doing a poor job applying thermal paste to video cards and small unprotected chips like that, and they made a mess and stuff didn't work. But, once they cleaned it up it works again.
Of course it depends what you use, too...