stock thermal paste crap reuseable?

[Foz2001]

I just put together my computer yesturday and the mobo fried on me. Anyways I took the cpu off along with the stock heatsink and the paste stuff is not hard yet. Can I reseat the heatsink on the cpu when I get my new mobo or am I forced to buy some arctic silver 5? The cost is going to be 20 bucks (CDN$) along with shipping for the arctic silver so hopefully I dont have to do that.

The computer was running for about 3 hours.

Thanks,

Foz

 

[ghost6303]

forced to? no. should you? absoloutely

alot depends on what hardware you have. if this is a pentium III its wont matter as much as it would if you have a core2duo. if you want to risk heat damage to an expensive component or are just too cheap then reuse that garbage paste all you want.