Long story short, a friend of mine over used thermal compound on his CPU (LGA 775), while trying to reseat his CPU he tried to wipe some of the Arctic Silver 5 off 'cause it was obvious over use since some even got on the bracket that locks the CPU to the board. Then the mishap, he said while taking the CPU out of the socket his hand hit the bracket accidentally and it fell back down to the board and some of the Arctic Silver 5 that was on the bracket fell down into the CPU socket area. I went by his place after that and I can see a tiny bit of Arctic Silver 5 was visible in the socket area and it's impossible to clean them out without bending the tiny pins down there. We put everything back in and the computer booted up w/out problem, would the compound cause any short or long term problem if he just left it like that? Or is there any good ways of cleaning it out without damaging the pins on the board? I've never seen or even heard of anything like that, it's his first build I guess he didn't have any experiences in doing stuff like that, any help would be appreciated.

I would try using a needle and soaking it in some isopropyl alcohol, then try to scrape out the heatsink, check and make sure its not spread between the pins

for future thermal paste id recommend spectra cool you can find it on ebay. Not many people know about it but its great stuff i went from Artic silver 5 to it, its cheaper and its alot safer to use to. performs just as good as Artic Silver 5