Even still, the idea of removing a heatsink and placing a thermometer on the exterior of the cpu to find the temp is not only not practical, it's b orderline absurd. It is not an accurate way of getting the temp. It takes something roughly ten minutes to cool down or warm up to room temperature. When you turn off your cpu, it is not going to get any hotter therefore will immediately start to cool down. The heatsink is also still doing it's job, cooling the cpu. Now, imagine about 15 or 30 seconds to get the side panel off, and another minute or two to remove the heatsink. The tip of a thermometer is metal, and will most likely be colder than room temperature, at least not NEARLY the temp of the cpu. And touching the cpu with it will add another element of cool to it, let it be a little, it is cooler nontheless. So right there you have 1 and a half to 2 minutes of the CPU cooling down.
As you can clearly see, this method of checking the temp on the cpu is extremely innefective and does nothign but waste your time. I'm sorry if I was condascending at all, but I had to be. ;-)
You are right though, it is possible that they are bad. This is by no means a way of checking them though, as it would be absurdly innaccurate.
