Spilled thermal paste on motherboard

[AFEADS]

I spilt a drop of thermal paste on mobo! Is it harmful? I attached a picture. In addition, the thermal paste is called cooler master! The same kind in the Hyper 212 evo CPU cooler!
Link to image of mobo. It's bottom left side of picture. Approximately 3 inches bottom left of cpu. http://i58.tinypic.com/15z5frl.jpg

 

[Traciatim]

Just wipe it off with a cotton swap and some alcohol. Depending on the paste it's probably electrically conductive, so it might make unintended contacts which could be catastrophic.

The sheer act of dropping it there shouldn't bother it at all as long as you clean it up properly.

 

[Shagos]

Some of the Cooler Master thermal compounds say they are electrically non-conductive, but the globs look like they cross over some of the circuits (capacitors maybe?) so to play it safe I would recommend removing it.. I found another article on Tom's for the removal of compound from heat sinks and cpu's : http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/333968-28-thermal-paste-removal-installation-guide . However you would probably have to use some ear cleaners or something instead of paper towels.

As a note, it looks like you have put a rather thick layer of paste onto the cpu heatsink. This could cause problems as securing the heatsink to the cpu will cause excess thermal paste to be squeezed out and land on the chip which could potentially damage it. I know I've seen some good guides on Tom's which showed different methods for applying paste based on what cpu you are using. Definitely worth looking up if you haven't already.

 

[Traciatim]

As a note, it looks like you have put a rather thick layer of paste onto the cpu heatsink. This could cause problems as securing the heatsink to the cpu will cause excess thermal paste to be squeezed out and land on the chip which could potentially damage it. I know I've seen some good guides on Tom's which showed different methods for applying paste based on what cpu you are using. Definitely worth looking up if you haven't already.

Oh yeah, I didn't even notice since I only looked at the drip, that's a MASSIVE amount of compound. This isn't like spreading jam on toast, you are trying to fill in the microscopic gaps in the metals so that they get better contact. Look at some examples from the Toms guides it a great idea.