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need a brief explanation of how to clean 'goop' off (solvents?)

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felinusz

Senior Overclocking Magus
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Location
Taiwan
What is the best way to clean thermal epoxy and thermal paste off of a video card's default H/S? What is the ideal soloution to use, and where can I get some if it isn't a household product? What kind of procedure should I use toi safely and completely clean off the 'goop'?

Sorry for the generic question (must drive you all crazy), any links and advice appreciated :)

Thanks guys.
 
Is it an epoxy goop? Mine just kinda peeled off and the stuff leftover I scratched off with my thumbnail. Then I wiped it down with isopropyl alcohol.

It's easier to get it off if you leave the HS on, run 3DMark or something like that for a while to heat up the stuff, then turn off your PC real quick and take out the card, pop off the HS then clean. This is because the heat will loosen the goop.
 
freeze it, wrap it in a ziplock, freeze it for 3-4 hours then take dental flause to work the HSF off of the chip
 
Use something flat and non conductive to scrap off the goop, a credit card or small plastic ruler works well, then remove the rest with Isopropyl Alcohol(aka Rubbing Alcohol, which you can get at a local drugstore for cheap) and some qtips.
 
The card I am Going to mod is a Voodoo 5 5500 PCI (heh, it is old but still a monster), and the paste is thick enough tht it won' come off when hot. Will freezing the card to make the paste brittle damage the card in any way? How can I be careful so that the card does not get damaged by the freezing?

Thanks again guys.
 
I've had mixed results with freezing in the past... Also, when you take the card out of the freezer it will most likely be subject to condensation. At least, that's what I observed in my case.

If the goop you're talking about is anything like the stuff I came across, alcohol won't do jack. You've got to use acetone, like Toysrme said. Try nailpolish remover. Depending on what it's made of, the epoxy will come right off.
 
will nail polish remover work better than rubbing alcahol? some of the thermal goop out there is terribly hard to remove, when i removed my nb heatsink to put as3, that bubble gum that asus put on there was soo hard to remove, i got the heatsink clean and the metal/shinny part of the chip but the rest i just gave up on

maybe nail polish remover would have helped???
 
For some people it seems that freezing and/or alcohol do the trick... I guess it depends on what the goop is made of. If one thing doesn't work, the only thing to do is try another. I tried freezing, alcohol, one brand of nail polish remover, and then another, before finally getting the stuff off. You probably got a lot of it off by scraping, like I did. But once I put the right stuff on it, it melted away *very* easily. A note - if you do decide to use nail polish remover, I'd suggest that you thoroughly clean the surfaces afterwards using alcohol.
 
Just make sure it's the good old school brand for you nail polish.

Which is ACETONE LoL!

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If it is real Epoxy and not just some strong glue, you might get screwed.

Only three ways to get Epoxy off.
1) *very* strong acids or dissolvants.
2) Reheat it to uncure it. 400F or 60min in an oven is perfect.
3) Freeze it until it becomes brittle and chip it away

All three of these would more than likely destroy a chip with little effort if something went wrong...

Be very careful upon freezing a chip, if you leave any on the top of the GPU you could chip a piece of epoxy off and the top silicone layer of the GPU would go right with it. Oh yes... It happens!


You might could order some Epoxy Dissolvants, but you'll more than likely run into the chip being eaten alive before the Epoxy. It's also costly and you get into *serious* chemicals I wouldn't Advise but a handful her to play with (hell I don't and I know about them)

Obviously a 60 min stay in a 400F oven would kill everything LoL!

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Dig out my article on sticking a heatsink on the BACK of the GPU/PCB if you *need* more cooling.
 
The stuff connecting the heatsinks is just thermal glue, and it has been applied by the manufacturer by having a machine place a 'blob' of the crap on the GPU, the 'blob' is even off-center, so merely replacing the paste alone would yield me some huge performance increase :)...

Where is your guide to placing coolers on the rear of the GPU? (I don't know what to search for, a link would be great)

CamH: You would be surprised. A properly maintained and installed voodoo 5 is still a usable card (comparable to a GeForce 2 with D3D and OpenGL, and wicked fast wiith glide, the old 3DFX API), and I use it for emulation (most emulators can use glide through different 'graphics plugins') not for more serious gaming so it isn't an issue. The 4 sample FSAA is the real seller on this card though, it has very little speed impact and great quality.

Plus, it is fun to mod things like this, regardless of the practicality/usefullness of the project.
 
Yeah enough with the card bashing. Just like all three major CPU's they all ahve their niche...

Personally if I were playing many old glide games a V5 would be great. They still have 3rd party drivers so atleast bugs in games get fixed sooner or later.
 
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