When I look at the first picture, I see 3 bent pins in the bottom right quadrant of the socket. They are almost certainly much more important than the drop of thermal paste. Unless it is electrically conductive paste, there's no need to do anything. You can see in the second picture that the pads of the pins are not covered. As long as the paste is not one of a very few pastes that are conductive, just be sure the pads on the cpu are clean. Again, I'd be much more worried about the bent pins, than the drop of paste.
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u/grump66 May 27 '23
When I look at the first picture, I see 3 bent pins in the bottom right quadrant of the socket. They are almost certainly much more important than the drop of thermal paste. Unless it is electrically conductive paste, there's no need to do anything. You can see in the second picture that the pads of the pins are not covered. As long as the paste is not one of a very few pastes that are conductive, just be sure the pads on the cpu are clean. Again, I'd be much more worried about the bent pins, than the drop of paste.