Question about removing an epoxied heatsink

About a year ago i baught a EL-cheapo mobo at a comp show, i want to O/C and W/C but my dismay the cpu is solderd to the mobo and tha heatsink is attached not with screws or clip but THERMAL-EPOXY is there a way i can get it off other than by overheating this stuff
thanx in advance

Put your motherboard in the freezer for about an hour, then easily, gently, try to pry off one corner at a time. I've taken a stupid short cut by just spraying a duster bottle at an epoxied heatsink and luckily it came off without incident. There's also some stuff called "Goof Off" that you can get at Home Depot, it's used to remove epoxy, not sure if it's safe for electronics, but that's all I know

thANX

thanx i will try the freezer thing, as for goof off it ISNOT tron save it is a solvent, and mobos are made of epoxy-glass so anything that will disolve epoxy should disolve the epoxy in mobo 2

Wow! That's a tough one! Maybe, try alternate hot-cold exposure and do the "gentle-prying" thing. Epoxy does not respond well to solvent, at least until the point you'll do other damage. If you are brave, some thermal epoxies do lose their grip at higher temps due to all the thermal filler they have ... maybe try heat at, for example 180 deg. F in an oven for an hour or so and then try the gentle pry method. I'm not sure, I have had the stuff get soft at that point ... mabye then clean up with isopropyl alcohol? Careful & good luck!

KK

thanx the warm/chill got it off

i was GENTLY prying at it, and with a loud heart stopping POP it came off TFG there was no damage done to the core did leave some epoxy crap all over the chip tho not on the core itself, thank the solder gods it was just epoxied to the chip

Koooler King said:

Wow! That's a tough one! Maybe, try alternate hot-cold exposure and do the "gentle-prying" thing. Epoxy does not respond well to solvent, at least until the point you'll do other damage. If you are brave, some thermal epoxies do lose their grip at higher temps due to all the thermal filler they have ... maybe try heat at, for example 180 deg. F in an oven for an hour or so and then try the gentle pry method. I'm not sure, I have had the stuff get soft at that point ... mabye then clean up with isopropyl alcohol? Careful & good luck!

KK

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Im not sure if heating it will work on epoxy... Because when you combine the two reactants to form epoxy its reaction is sped up by heat thus making the epoxy go to the solid state quicker.

ILikeMy240sx said:

Im not sure if heating it will work on epoxy... Because when you combine the two reactants to form epoxy its reaction is sped up by heat thus making the epoxy go to the solid state quicker.

Click to expand...

True, heat will speed the reaction and bonding time of "true" epoxy. Once solid and the chemical reaction is over, it's over. However, I have found some mixes with filler for thermal conductivity do soften with higher temps, especially if the resin / hardener ratio was a bit off. I only suggested the heat method as an option as I had the unfortunate experience once of using thermal epoxy that appeared to be set, weeks old and "hard" ... it worked OK at 120 deg. F, but at 150+ degrees, it turned to mush and the heat sink then fell off ... not a good scenario at all, but maybe heat will help in this case for removal. Good luck.

KK

Welcome to the forums.

Anyways, could you possibly list the name/brand/type of motherboard you have? It could potentially be some via based motherboard with the cpu PERMANENTLY installed so you cant upgrade~mess with it. I hope that isnt the case but it really sounds like it to me. If thats the case even if you some how get the cpu out chances are it wont work with anything but that cpu.

i wish i could, the name was unknown to me when i got it
paid 45$ with 256 of ddr didn't ask there is no name printed on the board it has sis chipsets but other than that i donot know

(EDIT)
just ran cpu-Z

says ECS manufact
m810d 1.0
ami bios
0.7.00T
04/07/01

procesor
duron (spitfire)
socket A
.18u 1.616 coreV
fam 6 model 3 step 1
ext fam 7 ext model 3
mmx+ 3dnow!+
1016.4MHZ
9.5X mult
107MHZ fsb
214MHZ bus