Soldato
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I've put the original 1300x back in and it's booted into BIOS no issues, so the socket is OK. I've just recently bought the 3600 CPU so assuming it's the paste that's causing the no boot issue as I've never actually seen it working.
I'll get some tooling bought after Christmas and see if I can salvage it. Out of interest, does AMD do RMA based on serial number i.e. no requirement for invoice?
the paste in not conductive so wont hurt the CPU at all, Alcohol and fine brush you can remove it if your worried, i dont think it would result in a no boot though.
Did I miss where the OP told us what paste it is? How do you know it's a non-conductive one? Some Thermal Grizzly compounds and Arctic Silver are two conductive ones that spring instantly to mind; and there are certainly others.
I was thinking the same thing. But chances are it will be fine.
Did you buy the CPU new @Dirk Diggler
It's Arctic Silver I've used, but it might also be the stock paste from the AMD heatsink that was fitted to the previous CPU.
I bought from the MM so hoping AMD do easy RMA if the worst comes to the worst.