Accidentally applied thermal paste

[samanz]

After applying thermal paste on my cpu, and mounting my cooler, I found out that the cooler already had pre-applied thermal paste.

Is this going to hurt my pc? Do I need to do something about it?

 

[Faktion]

You probably have far too much thermal paste on there. I would get everything cleaned off and do a fresh application of paste.

Too much paste can be equally problematic for temps especially if you are using preapplied paste (that stuff is a bit sticky sometimes). You are probably completely preventing the cooler from contacting your CPU.