Believing my motherboard to be faulty, I removed the CPU and I cleaned the thermal paste off. Now it turns out that it's the PC-speaker that is faulty. I'd like to put the CPU back in its place, somehow connect it with the heatsink, test if other ideas like changing the ram can make the PC start. But if they don't, then I'd need to remove the paste again and to put some new paste there once I get a new motherboard.
Just the fact that I'm going over my initial budget because I have to buy new paste is making me nervous. Having to use new paste every time while I make blind tests to understand what is going on feels like adding insult to injury.
Is there anything I can use that's easier to remove and commonly available in a house, instead of thermal paste (of course without risking to ruin components, including overheating the CPU)?
In case you were asking, no, I have no idea what I'm doing and I think I'm going to end up giving it to a repair shop and spend more than I would have spent by asking them to provide and mount me the parts to start with, which is infuriating.
Best Answer
There are claims that the CPU can do modest work without thermal paste and you may read about it in the post Can I run my PC without Thermal Paste?
However, I'm not going to go along with this post, since what happens depends a lot on the CPU involved, the kind of work it's asked to do, and how good is its contact of metal-on-metal (more efficient than thermal paste but not enough).
Here are some pictures taken from a Tom's Hardware video of what happens almost immediately in such a case, that may convince you to wait for the paste.
AMD Athlon 1400, Temperature 370 C / 698 F, Application crashes, CPU board up in smoke
AMD Palomino 1200, Temperature 298 C / 568 F, Application crashes, Thermal diode fails, CPU up in smoke