Scott, I bought the desktop PC I usually use in July of 2011. It has
this motherboard installed. There's an AMD Phemon II X4 CPU installed that runs at 3.2 GHz. No offense, but the person who put the system together
may not have utilized TIM between the heat sink and the CPU. I
seemed to notice in 2013 that there was no TIM between the heat sink and the CPU. I can't say that I recall seeing any TIM residue on the CPU. I don't feel like opening my system up right now to confirm that there's no TIM involved. In any case, it's 2016 now, and the system in question seems to run OK. Scott, do you think a possible lack of TIM would hurt the system
that much? (
This link is worth checking out.) Also, does the gentleman in
this video use proper procedure when it comes to cleaning TIM off of a CPU?