Can someone help that knows about cracked/burned cpus???

[Paulster]

has anyone encountered a weird liquid on the cpu core or on the bottom of the heatsink when you take it off to see if something was wrong with it??? has anyone ever seen this? and if not, WHAT THE HELL IS IT? Its like, a really dark red and its a little bit sticky.....i cant tell if i cracked the cpu trying to put on the HS or if it just wasn't contacting correctly and it burned up....or maybe this liquid is just something else and my cpu is ok, i really hope thats the case but i have a feeling that it's not.
I have a 8k3a with an athlon xp 1800+
512mb pc2700 Samsung ram
antec smartpower 400W PS
GeForce4

Can someone help me?

 

[bruincal]

I believe that "weird liquid" you're talking about is thermal grease. Thermal grease is placed between the CPU and the heatsink to better conduct heat from the processor to the heatsink.