What should I use to clean the thermal grease off of my cpu?

[Basher]

Is alcohol ok?

[jughead]

Sure, alcohol works. 'n if that don't work, jus' boil it at a very low temp. (jus' tryin' to be funny). Some people use fingernail polish remover.

[Colin]

Alcohol is a good start. If you want to get rid of the old compound and go to a high performance one like Artic Silver, you need to lap the HS. One of the most important things the thermal grease does is fill in the microscopic surface imperfections in the HS. Just cleaning the HS with a rag and solvent won’t remove all of the old grease. After you lap it, don’t touch it. You don’t want the oil from your skin where the thermal grease should be.

[Rookie]

Dumb question, what do you mean by lap?

[Hoot]

A lot of HSFs don't have finishing on the base, where they physically contact the core, that is as smooth as they could be. By lapping them, you take some very fine sandpaper and gently improve that surface to one with less surface irregularities. That will give you more surface contact with the core and hence more efficient transfer of the heat. There are numerous technique pages on doing this. My original heatsink (FOP-32) had a rather rough surface on it and I got it to near mirror quality. It improved the core temp a few degrees, but sometimes OC is a game of a few degrees between success and frustration. Needless to say, lapping is a rather inexpensive way to recover a few degrees. Nothing to buy other than a few sheets of very fine sandpaper. After lapping my HSF base, going from the common white heatsink paste to the highly respected Arctic Silver, had no positive effect on my core temp, so I must have done the lapping right.

Hoot

[Colin]

Hoot (Mar 01, 2001 11:50 a.m.):
After lapping my HSF base, going from the common white heatsink paste to the highly respected Arctic Silver, had no positive effect on my core temp, so I must have done the lapping right.

Hoot

If you applied white thermal grease first and then cleaned it off and applied Artic Silver, the white stuff is still on your HS. There are microscopic surface imperfections that you cannot clean with solvent and a rag. The scale is similar to trying to clean out a waffle iron with a 2’ diameter rope. The only way to get rid of the old grease is to lap the HS again. If you do this and then apply Artic Silver, you should see a drop in temperature.

[Myrddin]

I applied Arctic Silver when I first put my HSF on. Since then I have had to remove and re-attach the HSF several times while trying to properly bridge the L1s with conductive ink. During this time period I did not reapply new Arctic Silver each time I put the HSF back on. I assume this descreases the effectiveness of the compound.

Should I reapply addition Arctic Silver? Should I wipe away the previous Arctic Silver residue on the CPU core before doing so?

Thanks for any information provided.

[Yomama]

Basher (Mar 01, 2001 12:38 a.m.):
Is alcohol ok?

You can also try citus solv

Yo

[proze]

i use nail polish remover, and it seems to work okay.

[Hoot]

Actually, I took both to work and cooked them for 30 minutes in a heated TFE Vapor Degreaser. Trust me, nothing was left in the pores. I did have the sense to remove the fan beforehand.

Hoot