Quite a bit of time has passed. I've cleaned the cpu [again.. I was a bit nervous about it] and the heatsync with alcohol (yes.. 2 cans of Milwaukee's Best), and have applied the thermal paste to both.. which was a little touchy, as I didn't really know what the hell I was doing. Anyway, you can see the paste on the slug of the processor now. There's not much on there, but it stands out, I guess.