removing thermal paste from waterblocks

C

crazymonkee84

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 18, 2006
Messages
506
So, I have 2 water blocks. The fuzion cpu and fuzion gfx, both of which have some remaining thermal paste on them. They've been off for a while so the thermal paste is probably dry. Can anyone suggest anyway to take it off with products that I would have home? Distilled water, vinegar, alcohol?Something that DEFINITELY wouldn't tarnish it? It says in the "manuals" that they hae a special coating on them so that they aren't air corrosive and I dont want to destroy that cooating or tarnish the copper. So could anybody suggest anything? Thanks in advance
 
rubbing alcohol, highest % you can find which is usualy 91% in drug stores, is the most widely used cleaner because it wont harm 97% of computer parts. denatured also works just about as well. highly refined petroleum based products like ronson lighter fluid (not BBQ lighter fluid, the stuff for wick lighters) also works but it can damage alot of plastics and circuit boards. its fine on metal though.

edit: and as stupid as a bench grinder sounds, if you put a buffing wheel on it you can get them to shine nice :p
 
Just use alcohol, once, I used Listerine to clean off a waterblock.
I wouldn't worry about tarnishing though. If you are just cleaning off the mating surface, it probably wouldn't be exposed to the air long enough to make a significant difference in cooling performance.
 
I have always used 91% alcohol, and then Arctic Silver surface purifier afterwards to remove any excess paste that the alcohol missed. Looks like new this way.
 
If i use alcohol, do I have to dry it off immediately with like a papertowel or softcloth? Or is air drying acceptable?
 
Well all i have is 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol. Will that work? I'm just really scared cuz when I used alcohol to clean off my 7900gt heatsink it got REALLY tarnished. I wana clean my 7900gto heatsink now because temps are liek 60C idle vs 40C when I first got it back from rma. I don't wana tarnish it though lol so yaa
 
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