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Cleaning off dried HSF paste

R

Rurik

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Sep 29, 2000
Messages
4,662
I purchased a video card on which the fan died. The owner took off the HSF, and sold the card to me. It's sat, while I ordered a new one. (Just for giggles, Xtasy ti4200, Thermaltake A1349 HSF). Unfortunately, the old paste has dried up very hard, and I'm not sure how to take it off to apply new paste:

http://www.thebaskins.com/vidcard.jpg

Hopefully I can get this cleaned tonight and get it in :D
 
Doh, scanned again, and somehow I missed the thread at the very bottom covering this. Going to try some rubbing alcohol :)

Doh, doesn't work well on DRIED paste, though :( Rubbed it down, tried scratched it off, rubbed some more.. nothing
 
Go to your local Radio Shack or Fry's Electronics if you have one local and pick up some Contact Cleaner. Its industrial cleaner especially made for silicon based electronics - it'll pretty much clean off anything.
You can also try some goop-off if you've got some laying around, but be a bit more careful if you plan to use it...
 
acetone.

At work here we keep a bottle of the pure stuff for cleaning crap off of our "refurb-worthy" parts. Very nasty stuff though, and it can do some damage if your not careful, but it WILL remove about anyhting from a board.
 
Well, since it's so icy out, I read up more and saw other sites recommending a razor, with a careful hand. Guess what I don't have... the latter.

In trying to remove the last fine layer of it, I ended up scraping most of the letters off. And, in a few spots, scraping the silver metal up to reveal the copper like stuff underneath. Pissed, tired from a 12 hour work day, bad traffic, I said screw it. Put paste on, threw HSF on. Boots up to constant beep codes, no video signal :mad:

I am beyond pissed with myself. Bought it from a guy on here, next time I'll just spend the extra amount to get one that's not covered in century-old paste.

Put my old Geforce 256 in, guess it'll last me for another year.
 
acetone (nail polish remover w/o the fragrance etc) works well, like mentioned above. Sorry about the chipzers though :\
i'm sure many of us have been there.
 
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