How remove crystalized Liquid Metal from IHS ?

[Abnormalia]

Have opened Asus Scar III as its thermals got worsen recently. This is what I see now.

I cleaned CPU and GPu easily. But IHS have it oxidized and now they stuck really hard to surface, alcohol and tissue have almost no effect.

How can I clean IHS effectively to reapply paste ?

 

 

[fUnDaMeNtAl_knobhead]

Try a product meant to do that i think noctua makes one of those paste removing paste or liquid

[fUnDaMeNtAl_knobhead]

7 minutes ago, Abnormalia said:

Have opened Asus Scar III as its thermals got worsen recently. This is what I see now.

I cleaned CPU and GPu easily. But IHS have it oxidized and now they stuck really hard to surface, alcohol and tissue have almost no effect.

How can I clean IHS effectively to reapply paste ?

 

 

This seems good https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084X1NDPJ

[Levent]

Any sort of thermal paste removal product is waste of money. Get yourself a liter bottle of %99 IPA instead of those. Cleaning liquid metal is not easy, I believe HCl is what you need to dissolve Gallium BUT that is a very dangerous chemical. I believe Derbauer had a video on this topic.

[8tg]

Drain cleaner and aluminum foil.

I shouldn’t need to explain explain how dangerous that is, you’re doing it on a very small scale where it’s like working with lead solder, do it well ventilated and don’t breath in the shit.

 

it’s hydrochloric acid, it’ll dissolve the gallium slowly and eat the additives, but the aluminum foil is to diffuse the gallium into the metallic crystalline lattice of aluminum and basically “mop up” the metal.

 

But then you’re also handling a reactive acid, toxic metals and what you’re left with in the end is a bunch of destructured aluminum that’s slowly reacting with hydrochloric acid.

Now that’ll be really damn clean, it’ll leave the die looking like it’s never been used.

 

So, removing the danger factor, what you want to do instead is just wipe at it with alcohol and paper towels for a few hours.

[HanZie82]

I had this on my CPU.
I just used toilet paper a little Iso Propyl Alcohol 96% and some elbow grease.

 

I also tried a razor to scrape it off. But it was to stuck.
I did sand it a little with 1000grit but it matters very little.

I just left it as it was still really flat, put some thermal compound on it (non metal this time) and stuck it.
Works great temps are fine.


No guarantee, but its most likely fine, as long as its flat enough.

[Mark Walter]

Use Hydrochloric Acid and a contact cleaner this will let you remove the liquid metal from the IHS of the cpu.

Quote me if you like

[Tan3l6]

The liquid metal is usually mixture of gallium and indium. I doubt it can be dissolved with usual methods, rather it's just rubbing with soft tissue paper that would help. Maybe even cotton swabs help. The swabs are good to spread the stuff in the first place anyway..

[Abnormalia]

Thanks guys, "Operations repaste" is officially over. Results went from 95C to 65C at max load on both GPU and CPU. Performance is back as it was 2.5 years ago, when I bought it. I've used Dremel 4000 (Outdoors, w mask and eye protection just in case) this header on first image.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Abnormalia

[Beefsticks]

So, copper is the problem with LM long-term, I think. Long term, it does change to some degree by a slow chemical plating reaction with copper. If it keeps plating, I would think eventually it may create a differential in pressure and change the bond dynamics a bit, since it is being absorbed by the copper to some degree. A fully nickel-plated heatsink base is a guarantee of stopping any kind of reaction like that. I use a Noctua DH-14 and my performance stayed exactly the same for 1.5 years straight. Like, not even a few a degrees difference.

 

 

Anyone else use copper long-term with liquid metal and find their temps go up over a long period?