Removing Thermal Compound - The BEST Way?

[ashypanda]

Do not use acetone near the motherboard or CPU, as that shit will eat through the motherboard and socket, as it melts plastics and fibreglass.

[Phate.exe]

3 hours ago, Daniel644 said:

fucking PGA sockets, Thermal compound is stronger then the damn socket retention, did that twice myself when swapping out the stock cooler to a Hyper 212 on the work FX6300 CPU,

 

Don't just pull straight up.  You need to sheer the old thermal grease, either by twisting it back and forth slightly, or by pushing it sideways, then "peel" the cooler off by lifting up on one side of it while pushing down on the other.

 

Also doing it while things are still semi-warm helps a lot too.

[Luscious]

Always stuck with ArctiClean - just a few drops is all that's needed, and since for stuff that you didn't assemble yourself, there's no way of knowing what type of TIM is on there anyhow.

 

Should have included a lemon in the test - literally cut a nice juicy one in half and squeeze a few drops onto the paste to see how it performs.

[LeapFrogMasterRace]

Should I even watch this lul 

[SageOfSpice]

Best way is probably just to scrape what you can off with a quick swipe of a business card, and then just dilute the rest with alcohol. The largest problem is that thermal paste is really sticky, so getting it off without diluting it is a pain, and diluting it makes a huge mess.

[Phate.exe]

55 minutes ago, SageOfSpice said:

Best way is probably just to scrape what you can off with a quick swipe of a business card, and then just dilute the rest with alcohol. The largest problem is that thermal paste is really sticky, so getting it off without diluting it is a pain, and diluting it makes a huge mess.

Yup, scrape as much as you can while it's "dry" so it will come off in chunks, then dilute what you can using alcohol or Arcticlean.

 

I have a bunch of the 2 step Arcticlean because it ended up being cheaper to get the two bottles and a syringe of AS5 than it was to just buy thermal compound by itself.

[genexis_x]

@EasonIDontKnowAnything your question has been answered

[Rmerc]

I fell in love with LTT because of the knowledge it imparted into its viewers. I am about to tackle something harder than I have ever done in my tech world (a server!), and I'm even going to name it "Linus Server" because I wouldn't even be able to come close to building and operating something so complex if it wasn't for my computer newb self coming onto this tech channel and being inspired, taught, and entertained. So with that said, this video was kind of a sad sight to see, because it is deviating from the original nature of this channel. The recent posts have unfortunately not helped me out at all. I understand you still gotta do the computer review stuff, (and I have no issue with laptop, desktop, etc. reviews), but I honestly believe that sticking to the roots of who you guys are, you will continue to be successful. I would HATE to see LTT lose popularity. I honestly do appreciate this channel a lot. 

 

Thanks for all you guys do. Good luck. ***and perhaps some more server stuff?*** ;D

[brandishwar]

This is almost about as good as watching JayzTwoCents and his test for various grocery store products as coolant. Sure it's great for a video, but not exactly practical.

 

Alcohol is typically recommended for cleaning thermal compound as it evaporates quite easily in small quantities and won't damage circuit boards or metals, making cleanup easy. For example when you spilled a significant amount onto the CPU and mainboard. If you spill water, you have to wait a nominal amount of time for the water to evaporate after mopping up as much as you can. If you used tap water, you have to make sure to clean up any hard water spots with alcohol -- which is what you should've been using to begin with.

 

Depending on what else is in the hand sanitizer -- e.g. the emulsifiers and any perfumes -- you'd likely want to avoid using that on your CPU. The heatsink, however, will be perfectly fine provided you follow-up with distilled water. One thing that would've been valuable to know is how easily the thermal compound came off the heatsink. And it would've also been better trying this with a heatsink that'd seen some time -- like one of the systems in the editing den if those haven't seen any internal maintenance yet. It wouldn't surprise me if the hand sanitizer would actually be better than thinner liquids in that circumstance since it could sit in place easier and hold onto the thermal compound as it dissolved it without risking going everywhere as you wiped it away. I'll have to consider this next time I need to clean water blocks.

 

Acetone, as @ashypanda already mentioned, is one hell of a solvent. Don't get it anywhere near your circuit boards. Which means if any of it spills off the IHS and onto the edge of the CPU or the mainboard, you'd better be super quick about cleaning it up and rinsing it away with distilled water to avoid damage. By the way, that kind of damage isn't covered on your warranty.

 

Soda and orange juice sound like they'd work because both are acids. The problem is both also contain significant quantities of SUGAR! And soda is worse on that since it's a syrup with carbonated water.

 

Goo Gone and Windex aren't all that surprising. With Goo Gone, however, same applies as with the hand sanitizer: avoid using it on the CPU, but heatsinks and water blocks will likely be fine so long as you follow-up with distilled water to ensure the surface is clean. And it being a gel, it'd probably work very well for cleaning up an old CPU cooler.

 

With Windex, the concern is ammonium hydroxide, which is an oxidizer. You don't really want that anywhere near a circuit board, or metals period, so if you decide to try it, spray onto a paper towel first, then follow-up with distilled water to make sure the surface is clean and free of residue.

[mikeeginger]

Now re test all of them after the compound is baked on 

[featherwolf]

Hey Linus Media Group folks, just out of curiosity: Any word on what the issue was with the seemingly "dead pixel" in this video? I hope the fancy Red cameras aren't already giving you guys troubles...

[Bananasplit_00]

why wasent gasoline used? its what i use to clean my chips. works really good

[DoctorWho1975]

16 hours ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

why wasent gasoline used? its what i use to clean my chips. works really good

 

Do you really want to give Linus gasoline?

[Bananasplit_00]

7 hours ago, DoctorWho1975 said:

 

Do you really want to give Linus gasoline?

yah? its about as flamable as isopropyle

[killer5247]

I would like to use some sadness to clean the thermal paste 

[Questargon]

I'd like to know what will happen if you don't remove old paste at all. Is it really that important to always use fresh thermal compound and not go with the rest already applied on CPU and/or cooler?

[DnFx91]

this video was the most pointless thing i have seen come out of LTT in a long time.

 

Have you honestly ever had thermal paste in a state where you physically can't wipe it off the CPU ? and require a cleaning product in order to get it done ?

 

Just wipe harder for fuck sake, even the nastiest most ancient fag-ash consistency thermal paste wipes off with very little effort.

[SkillFill]

On 5/16/2017 at 10:05 PM, mrzoltowski said:

Isopropyl or Acetone works too 

could sent me link of sell isopropyl