i am currently building my first computer system, and i installed the processor and included heatsink with a thermal pad already on it. i left it for a few hours and then got a bit paranoid incase the thermal pad had a cover on it which needed to be removed. So i decided to remove the heatsink and have a look and it didnt have a cover on the thermal pad.
Do i now have to put on a new pad because i have already used this one? I didnt power anything up so the processor or fan didnt run so is it ok to still use this.

this is probably a stupid question but any advice would be appreciated......thanks

no your fine as long as you left the pad on there there will be no problems. If you want to cool your cpu a little better i would apply atric silver on it but read the instuctions on atric's site before doing it.

My advice to you would be to get some thermal grease (which is what the person above meant by arctic silver) and apply between the heatsink and processor.
Thermal Grease is very cheap and you can find great deals on all computer parts from www.pricewatch.com

on the other hand, arctic silver is the best stuff on the market, far better at heat transfer than standard thermal grease.

If you want to use a grease or the arctic silver you need to remove the thermal pad that is alreasdy on the cooler and any that got on the cpu.

you can do this sevral ways but the way that has always worked for me is to get a new razor blade and slice off as much of the gunk as possible and then use acetone to clean the rest off, then clean it with isopropyl alcohol.

If the cooler has already been heated up and used then you will never get all the thermal pad off and it will stop any other thermal grease working to its full potential due to the micro crevases in the metal being filled by the melted pad and that you can't remove.