Dry thermal paste removal Dell laptop

[Juan_ElArbusto]

Im cleaning my aunt's laptop (Dell Inspiron D531) because it was overheating, i clean and put oil on the fan because it didnt spin. 
i think about skipping the thermal paste change because the problem was the fan but i have the pc open so i did it anyway but the problem is that the paste is dry and hard as rock,
i unscrew the heatsink and the paste keep it stuck i had to use the screwdriver to pop the heatsink out.
i had the thermal paste on the heatsink soaked in Isopropyl alcohol 3 time but is still hard and i cant get it out of the heatsink.

and im afraid of damaging the cpu.
how can i disolve the thermal paste?

[W-L]

1 minute ago, Juan_ElArbusto said:

Im cleaning my aunt's laptop (Dell Inspiron D531) because it was overheating, i clean and put oil on the fan because it didnt spin. 
i think about skipping the thermal paste change because the problem was the fan but i have the pc open so i did it anyway but the problem is that the paste is dry and hard as rock,
i unscrew the heatsink and the paste keep it stuck i had to use the screwdriver to pop the heatsink out.
i had the thermal paste on the heatsink soaked in Isopropyl alcohol 3 time but is still hard and i cant get it out of the heatsink.

and im afraid of damaging the cpu.
how can i disolve the thermal paste?

Welcome to the Forums!

 

Just give it some time to soak in, you can use a plastic spudger or small toothpick to try and loosen the worst of it off just becareful if there are capacitors near the CPU. 

[Rainverm38]

In the past i have just used rubbing alcohol and it has worked just fine although it took a few trys

[FAQBytes]

I just replaced some thermal paste from a 2005 Xeon. That stuff was caked on. It's likely higher quality anyways, but just kinda pretending to try to clean up soup worked great. (Best way I can describe it.)