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Can I leave some thermal paste around the edges of my cpu?

Britishblue
By Britishblue
in Cooling
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Go to solution Solved by rippy4500,

As long as its non-conductive, its perfectly fine. It just looks messy thats all.

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Hello, I am selling a cpu and motherboard to a friend of mine soon so I have been testing everything works properly. I have finished testing it any everything is working fine. I just removed the cooler and the cpu has gotten quite messy as thermal paste from multiple coolers over the years has gotten round the edges. I usually just clean all of the paste off the top and its fine. I tried wiping some of it away on the sides with Isopropyl alcohol but it just spread it out more. I dont want to remove the cpu again to clean it all off properly as Ill feel the need to reconnect the cooler and everything else to test it works again as ill be worried I did something wrong. Could it ever become an issue later? I assume not but I want to be sure. Thanks rn_image_picker_lib_temp_f3d38223-bec1-49ff-a309-4f25d6c0ca55.jpg

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1 minute ago, ET_Explorer said:

I don't think its going to hurt anything, as long it doesn't touch the circuit board(motherboard).

Even if it does, so long as its none-conductive its absolutely fine.

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22 minutes ago, Britishblue said:

Hello, I am selling a cpu and motherboard to a friend of mine soon so I have been testing everything works properly. I have finished testing it any everything is working fine. I just removed the cooler and the cpu has gotten quite messy as thermal paste from multiple coolers over the years has gotten round the edges. I usually just clean all of the paste off the top and its fine. I tried wiping some of it away on the sides with Isopropyl alcohol but it just spread it out more. I dont want to remove the cpu again to clean it all off properly as Ill feel the need to reconnect the cooler and everything else to test it works again as ill be worried I did something wrong. Could it ever become an issue later? I assume not but I want to be sure. Thanks rn_image_picker_lib_temp_f3d38223-bec1-49ff-a309-4f25d6c0ca55.jpg

The only issue that will come out of this is if chunks of that paste find its way into the socket.

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  • Solution

As long as its non-conductive, its perfectly fine. It just looks messy thats all.

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Q-tips work very well for the edge work.

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