[SOLVED] Will old thermal paste on a CPU socket damage it?

[Ojama_]

I was in the process of removing old thermal paste from my cpu and I accidentally dropped about a grain of rice worth of solid thermal paste on the socket. I've removed about half of it now and the rest is impossible to remove. Will my parts be damaged if I put my cpu back on it?

 

[Barty1884]

How much paste was on your CPU that you could 'drop' a grain of rice worth? That's a substantial amount of paste anyway, probably pretty close to 'enough' for most consumer CPUs...

I'm assuming this is an AMD socket? If so, because the pins insert through where to paste has secured itself, you shouldn't run into any issues - unless the paste in question is conductive (most are not, but it's still possible).

An Intel socket is different, as the paste may impede the contact between the socket pins and the CPU pads.