I took the heatsink off my pentium 4, and wiped off the old grease. Then I noticed this spot that looked like a blob of goop on the bottom left corner. I realized however that this goo never came off, and because I can feel the depression with regards to the surrounding area I discovered it was a HOLE!! Is it supposed to be there? I took the heatsink off correctly, the chip didn't stick, so I didn't pry it off or anything like that. I attached a picture. Please tell me its supposed to be there!

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It's normal. I have several that have it. I've read varying accounts and am not sure what to believe as to why it was there, but it appears it was design decision, probably having to do with exhaust during manufacturing.

There are two questions to ask yourself :

1) Does the cpu work ?
2) Do I really think that Intel would send out cpus with holes in if they didn't work ?

CPUs are not "grown" individually, they are cut from a slab*. Somehow, the machines have to be able to hold and correctly locate the slab while it's processed. Hence, there are at least 4 (if not more) cpus from any given slab that have holes in.

(* slab is my term, wafer is probably theirs)

And you are of course only looking at the heatsink. Turn the thing over to see the cpu.

I don't think it is anything to worry about.

Time for the tin foil hat.

This is a depression in the plastic purposely fitted to most chips to indicate the location of pin 1, so they won't be inserted the wrong way up. It is not an issue.

I agree it is not an issue, but I have currently NO chips that have a hole in. A mixture of AMD and INTEL if it matters.
Pin 1 is usually indicated by a gold coloured arrow on one corner.

if it still works , then slop a bunch of putty on it and stick it back in
and it looks a bit too round to be corrosion.

Yes, it is just an index mark. Notice the little triangle on the green part next to the same corner, same thing.

all standard 2 row chips with 8,14,16,18,20,24,28,32,40,48 or 64 pins have them, as well as all 4 row qfp packages, and plcc packages. I have no interest or reason to ferret out their existence on cpu chips, but the logic of marking pin 1 is clear to all, as reverse mounting is fatal to any chip.

I realized after a quick google search that indeed the hole should really be there. In my panic, I posted here first. I should have used my google-assisted-memory...
It appears that it is time for more than the tin hat. It ought to be lead-plated to prevent the cosmic rays!

Hehehe

every micro chip package has to have a way to mark pin one and it is almost always a hole in the package

I wouldn't be wirried if I saw that because that's just the heatsink that has the hole, the actual chip is a fraction of the size of the whole package and is attached to the bottom.

TS, have you searched for P4 images first? Look e.g. at this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...m_4-2,4GHz.JPG. Doesn't it tell you it's normal for P4 to have a hole?