Got some liquid metal on the pins of my CPU, system doesn't post anymore, any hope?

[Max Norde]

Hey there,

 

I recently tried my hand at direct-die cooling and screwed up big time. The temps I got after delidding were awful and I unscrewed and rescrewed the cooler lots of times, trying several different thermal interfaces. One of those was liquid metal (Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut). Somehow a splotch of the liquid metal got on the underside of the CPU and probably in the CPU socket, too. I wiped it off the CPU, but it left some of the pins silver instead of gold. I'm not sure if there's any left in the socket, it's hard to tell. The Debug LEDs on my mainboard light up for the CPU for a few seconds before the system shuts down and does not restart. I don't have another mainboard to test the CPU.

 

Is there any hope or should I just write the CPU and mainboard off as losses?

 

The components in question are an ASRock Z790 Pro RS Wifi mainboard and a 13700K CPU.

 

Right now, I think I'll just wait for the 7800X3D to get released and go Team Red when that happens. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Max Norde
typo typo

[Shimejii]

Did you lift the cpu up when you were removing the cooler? Pretty much the only way i could see LM getting under the CPU. Once you get LM where the pins are its pretty much RIP socket. I would expect asrock not cover your warranty, since this is pretty much user done damage. Youll have to buy another Motherboard and then test it to see if its a cpu issue. 

 

Always gonne be direct and honest, Direct die cooling is a pretty dumb idea due to the fact of just how much you can get wrong. Just leave it to youtubers to do since they can easily just get a replacement no problem, you on the other hand its another 300-500$ for the motherboard or CPU if you damage it, or the GPU if it drips down. 

 

I understand that it has thermal gains, but the risk is to reward is simply not worth it for a end user like yourself. Hopefully you learned from this.

 

[porina]

The CPU is probably ok. If you have some isopropyl alcohol use that to wipe the pads and see if you can get more off.

 

If any got in the socket, that's another story as you can't just wipe it without destroying it. You might need some magnification, see if there are any signs of it in there at all. Like the CPU pads, if it got on the pins it should be visibly different. You can buy syringes with a fine tip and try to suck up any beading but if there's any conductive path might as well write it off.

[Max Norde]

10 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

Did you lift the cpu up when you were removing the cooler? Pretty much the only way i could see LM getting under the CPU. Once you get LM where the pins are its pretty much RIP socket. I would expect asrock not cover your warranty, since this is pretty much user done damage. Youll have to buy another Motherboard and then test it to see if its a cpu issue. 

 

Always gonne be direct and honest, Direct die cooling is a pretty dumb idea due to the fact of just how much you can get wrong. Just leave it to youtubers to do since they can easily just get a replacement no problem, you on the other hand its another 300-500$ for the motherboard or CPU if you damage it, or the GPU if it drips down. 

 

I understand that it has thermal gains, but the risk is to reward is simply not worth it for a end user like yourself. Hopefully you learned from this.

 

The only reason I wanted to do it in the first place is the crazy thermal envelope of the Intel chips. I might try some resuscitation attempts tomorrow, but I'm probably gonna wait for the 7800X3D to release. It should pull a lot less wattage in the first place and make direct-die redundant.

[Max Norde]

10 minutes ago, porina said:

The CPU is probably ok. If you have some isopropyl alcohol use that to wipe the pads and see if you can get more off.

 

If any got in the socket, that's another story as you can't just wipe it without destroying it. You might need some magnification, see if there are any signs of it in there at all. Like the CPU pads, if it got on the pins it should be visibly different. You can buy syringes with a fine tip and try to suck up any beading but if there's any conductive path might as well write it off.

I'm gonna take the CPU out then and try to get the liquid metal syringe needle between the pins without damaging them.

[porina]

33 minutes ago, Max Norde said:

I'm gonna take the CPU out then and try to get the liquid metal syringe needle between the pins without damaging them.

First do a visual check. If you can't see it, no point poking around in there. Also get a new clean syringe and tip. Don't use anything that's already been near liquid metal. Reduce the risk of making it worse.