do I have to apply thermal paste?

[EirePlane]

do I need to apply thermal paste?

I have an old computer in the corner of my room that I want to get up and running but since the last time i used it I have cleaned out the inside of it and during that I removed the heatsink and processor

will I need to apply thermal paste to the processor before I use the computer or should it be ok?

 

[EirePlane]

the processor is an intel celeron from ~2001
it doesn't look like there was ever any thermal compound on it tbh and i know it was working fine before i cleaned it. Even when I cleaned it I never rubed anything off the underside of the heatsink or the top of the chip.
there is a silver square on the underside of the heatsink. I read before that some heatsinks come with a thermal patch on the bottom, would this be it?

 

[EirePlane]

i wont be overclocking it so it should be fine then.
if should something go wrong and the processor overheat, is it likely to shut itself down before the chip burns out or will it make some unusual noise to warn me?

 

[EirePlane]

i read that you have to clean the old paste off with alcohol. I don't reckon stella would do the trick so is there any particular type I should use? and where could I get some? OcUK? electronic store? chemist?

 

[EirePlane]

might get some of that stuff then as well as the arctic silver. shall see what i have after crimbo
might get a few other things too. shall see if i can butcher some ram from another computer for this one lol

 

[EirePlane]

i got the box up and running nicely. works fine without the thermal compound.
installed fc5 server on it last night and playing around with it now