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Removing thermal paste question

G

Glow

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 20, 2002
Messages
4,834
So rubbing alcohol seems to be the norm but what do you guys use to apply/ scrape the crap off with on the processor? Q-tip or something else?
 
Scrape? Heavens no.

Qtips and coffee filter, with HPLC IPA/Methanol as the solvent. Only because I have access to it.

A kleenex works too if you're in a pinch.
 
take your time. Use qtips with the highest % RA you can get (the higher % means the quicker it will dry). Try not use anything less than 70%. Anyway, just take your time, dip the qtip in the cap of the bottle thats filled with RA and whip it so its not soaked. Then gently rub the stuff off the heatsink and the cpu. What i do is, i whip with the dipped end, then rub with the dry end. Repeat as needed. Make sure you get it off nicely. And use as many qtips as u need.
 
Q-Tip and coffee filters with 90+% rubbing alcohol from the pharmacy. It might take some time to get all the paste off, particularly if it's been on there for a while, but patience is the key here. I can always get the heatspreader nice and clean with this method.
 
lol too the one guy I dont literally mean scrape, I'v used a Q-tip in the past just parranoid about little bits of fluff I dont notice. So trying to figure out other ideas. The coffee filter idea is new to me
 
QTips are ok, because the cotton is wound up on the stick, and as long as nothing snags it, the cotton shouldn't come off.

Coffee filters are lintless, but are kinda rough. If you want to have something smoother, spend some money on a box of Kimwipes. (I believe that's what they're called. Made by Kimberly-Clark.) Entirely lintless (wiping off chromatography cuvicles? yes.).

Uh... you just won't be able to find them at your local store. See if you know anybody who works in a lab.
 
Leman said:
If you want to have something smoother, spend some money on a box of Kimwipes. (I believe that's what they're called. Made by Kimberly-Clark.) Entirely lintless (wiping off chromatography cuvicles? yes.).

Uh... you just won't be able to find them at your local store. See if you know anybody who works in a lab.
Click to expand...

entirely lintless my ass (in the nicest possible meaning, of course). i had to use them to wipe spectrophotometer cuvets half a dozen times to get it clean, most of those attempts had more dust going on the cuvet than off. but for these kind of jobs, kimwipes are definitely good enough, if they dont catch on a splinter and rip on the surface of a heatsink.

if you're entirely paranoid, you can also use a microfiber cloth or such, the kind you can wipe your LCD screens with.

personally, a speck or two of dust don't bother me at all. it's not like those little bits of dust will toast the processor.
 
FanZ said:
entirely lintless my ass (in the nicest possible meaning, of course). i had to use them to wipe spectrophotometer cuvets half a dozen times to get it clean, most of those attempts had more dust going on the cuvet than off. but for these kind of jobs, kimwipes are definitely good enough, if they dont catch on a splinter and rip on the surface of a heatsink.

if you're entirely paranoid, you can also use a microfiber cloth or such, the kind you can wipe your LCD screens with.

personally, a speck or two of dust don't bother me at all. it's not like those little bits of dust will toast the processor.
Click to expand...
No matter what I clean the TIM off with, I always give it a good strong blast of compressed air across the surface of whatever I am cleaning. It takes care of any filaments or dust I may have missed, as well as drying any moisture.
 
I just use single packed alcohol wipes...you know those small 1x1" pads. I squeeze out the original alcohol and drench it into 91% RA.
 
I use kleenex, and q-tips with some rubbing alcohol, haha.
 
FanZ said:
entirely lintless my ass (in the nicest possible meaning, of course). i had to use them to wipe spectrophotometer cuvets half a dozen times to get it clean, most of those attempts had more dust going on the cuvet than off. but for these kind of jobs, kimwipes are definitely good enough, if they dont catch on a splinter and rip on the surface of a heatsink.

if you're entirely paranoid, you can also use a microfiber cloth or such, the kind you can wipe your LCD screens with.

personally, a speck or two of dust don't bother me at all. it's not like those little bits of dust will toast the processor.
Click to expand...

Well, maybe not at the professional level. In high school, its all we got.

Well, I guess I don't count. You know, I use a pasture pipette to apply alcohol. Its quite handy. Especially if you're worried about contamination... but who'd be anal enough about that?
 
if there's a woman in the house you can use acetone (fingernail polish remover) with better results than running alcohol

(it works beautifully at removing conductive ink pen traces from voltmods also, rubbing alcohol won't phase that stuff without a ton of rubbing)
 
I use WD-40 and Q-Tips to get it off, and then alcohol to get the surface clean and take off any oil left from the WD-40.
 
montypythizzle said:
I use WD-40 and Q-Tips to get it off, and then alcohol to get the surface clean and take off any oil left from the WD-40.
Click to expand...

seriously....i know WD40 is a great cleaner, but it leaves behind oil.....why ever introduce it....why not use a solvent that doesnt leave behind a petroleum byproduct?
 
Leman said:
Well, maybe not at the professional level. In high school, its all we got.

Well, I guess I don't count. You know, I use a pasture pipette to apply alcohol. Its quite handy. Especially if you're worried about contamination... but who'd be anal enough about that?
Click to expand...

heh.. my high school couldnt afford kimwipes for everyone.. we had to use them.. and then reuse them.. and then keep using them until they ripped to unusable size. you guys are doing chromatography already, thats pretty awesome.

Modred189 said:
No matter what I clean the TIM off with, I always give it a good strong blast of compressed air across the surface of whatever I am cleaning. It takes care of any filaments or dust I may have missed, as well as drying any moisture.
Click to expand...

definitely good suggestion. i'm just too cheap to afford a can of compressed air so i never thought of using it. even if it's only a dollar, i'd rather spend it towards food..mmmm food.

i'm hungry.
 
nobody_here said:
if there's a woman in the house you can use acetone (fingernail polish remover) with better results than running alcohol

(it works beautifully at removing conductive ink pen traces from voltmods also, rubbing alcohol won't phase that stuff without a ton of rubbing)
Click to expand...

From my soldering days, acetone (nail polish remover) leaves much more residue than isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol. I'd use rubbing alcohol.
 
The real quest is... how much will acetone/WD-40 (or just forget it.) leave behind, and what kind of temperature loss are we looking at?


montypythizzle said:
OMG !?!?! Silicone leaves a residue too!!! O NOEZ!!!
Click to expand...
No Mr. Cleese, you are the silicone.
And then John was a lubricant.

FanZ said:
you guys are doing chromatography already, thats pretty awesome.
Click to expand...

I'm an idiot. I meant to say spectrophotometry, not chromatography. >.> No way we'd be able to do chromatography in high school.
 
Leman said:
The real quest is... how much will acetone/WD-40 (or just forget it.) leave behind, and what kind of temperature loss are we looking at?
Click to expand...

Way too much for it to even work 20% as efficient as the old thermal interface materials.
 
I used to use them for photolithography, metal and glass photoetching processes, they work well enough. I used nitrogen air with an inline dryer to reduce moisture. With the two, I was able to keep particulates out of between the substrates.
 
I honestly just wipe the shit off with whatever I have around. Ive wiped off heatsinks on my jeans, dabbed on some TIM and stuck it back on the CPU.
This ain't brain surgery and I swear some guys make it out to be way more than it really is.

I would bet half the folks here don't clean themselves half as good as they claim to clean a HSF...:)
 
I use denatured alcohol and a clean cloth or q-tips. Works great and leaves no residue.
 
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