Damaged CPU?

i made a post earlier, but it seems to have died. My problem is that i have an asus a7m266 mobo, a 1.4 ghz athlon, and a swiftech mcx462. The problem is that i was running fine with a 148 mhz fsb. When i went to remove the heatsink to unlock the processor i found that it was already unlocked, next i learn that i can't up the multiplyer with my mobo without some modding, oh well, but what gets to me is that when i started it up, i would get an error message in windows 2000 at 148 fsb, but when i put it back to stock it would be fine. I did install the heatsink incorrectly though while putting it on and had to reinstall it. The base of the heatsink was not flush with the core and the temps were 5 degrees higher, but that's not enough to damage the CPU, i was wondering if a little bit of extra pressure on one end of the cpu could damage it only so that it would not be able to run as high fsb.

The error messages i've been getting are 2506. upon looking this up at microsoft it shows that some default value in the registry should be set to at least 11, and mine is set to fffffffe, now that's some funky windows $hit. So i changed the setting, but now i get an error message without it being logged in the event log, i'm extremely confused, and could use any help out there, even just to tell me that my core is slightly damaged so i stop worrying trying to figure out what else it could be.

thanks