Corrosion between heat sink and processor?

[Cam]

I was vacuuming out my computer this morning, as it had gotten pretty dusty in there. There was a lot of dust on the processor's heat sink, so I popped it off the fan to vacuum it too. I noticed there was a medium-grey, fine, powdery substance between the heat sink and processor. I can only guess it's some kind of corrosion, as those parts are tight together when assembled. The top of the processor appears to be a light-silver metal and the part of the heat sink that touches it appears to be copper. I carefully wiped the substance off both parts with a lens tissue (I didn't have anything better) and there does not appear to be any visible damage. I put it all back together and it's working fine. Should I be concerned about this? Any guesses as to what it could be? It does not appear to be a big problem. I'm just curious.

[Random]

I would have guessed it was the remains of the heatsink paste?

[Cam]

Dang, guess I should not have wiped it off then?

[Alan P]

Yes and no. It is supposed to be a liquid paste so removing it isn't so bad but put new stuff on when you replace the heatsink.

[thesameguy]

Indeed. And you don't want to run the system for very long without thermal paste, or you can develop heat relates issues. You don't need anything special, whatever Amazon can ship you cheapest is fine.

[Cam]

Cool, thanks for the tips.

[mk]

Download HWMonitor or similar and don't use too much paste.