Is the Isopropyl Alcohol Necessary ?

Hi Guys....

I've had my Piledriver (FX-8320) Rig for 3 Days now and the noise from the Stock Cooler is Driving me Insane. I went to my Bios and noticed the Fan Profiles were set to "Full Speed" or something like that... I swtiched it to Automatic with a Target Temperature of 52ºC..... It didn't help . Infact I don't think it made a Difference.... the thing spins at 5000Rpm 24/7.

Anyway thats not the real issue, I already set my sights on the Hyper 212X before this issue even occured to me so... Whatever. My Hyper 212X arrived in the mail Yestetday and The real issue is Installing it. I don't have any Rubbing Alcohol lying around the House so I'm curious as to how necessary is it to Wipe the Stock Thermal Paste off my CPU before installing the Hyper 212X ?

It's worth the small sum to get the alcohol. Besides mixing the thermal pastes, you'll end up with uneven thicknesses and potentially air bubbles. I would consider a clean surface a "must".

Go with the highest percent alcohol you can get. I try to get at least 91%.

Damn.... I guess theres no way around it.

Thanks Guys.... I'l probably be back next week with in update.

Does the stock cooler have a 4 wire fan or 3 wire?

Uhm... I don't know about Wires but it uses a 4-Pin Connection.

Three wire fans generally can't be controlled by bios settings. The fourth wire is responsible of carrying the adjustable electrical pulses that allow speed control. But it sounds like yours has four wires if the connector mates with a four pin motherboard header.

Lulu just an FWI most first aid kits contain alcohol pads for cleaning. These work great in a pinch if you have one laying around at home or at work.

You'll love the 212x. I used one on the last build I did and it was very quiet and cooled very well.

Good call all the way around.

I managed to get my Hands on Surgical Spirits.... Its used to Sterilise all kinds of stuff. Unfortunately the label has no information about its Concentration so I have no idea how affective it is. There's just a big red 77 with no context.

I'll test drive it on the base of my Stock Cooler before I try it on my CPU

From the little reading I did on Google it seems that surgical spirits is a mixture of ethyl and methyl alcohols. I'm not sure how that will react but you could give it a try and see. This has me thinking, I have a bottle of methyl alcohol on order might have to experiment with it to see how it breaks down thermal paste.

It was actually my Dads idea to use Spirits instead since he had no idea what Rubbing Alcohol is... infact nobody here knows what it is, including me (Before I got my Cooler).

Isoproyl alcohol is the same as rubbing alcohol. For external use only. It's chemically different than the alcohol found in intoxicating beverages and is very toxic if swallowed. Don't drink it.

Well, it happened to me a few times to run out of ALcool/Acetone... I cleaned the IHS thoroughly with humid kitchen roll and soap, then dry it well and TBH, I did not notice any increase in temps...

Lochekey said:

From the little reading I did on Google it seems that surgical spirits is a mixture of ethyl and methyl alcohols. I'm not sure how that will react but you could give it a try and see. This has me thinking, I have a bottle of methyl alcohol on order might have to experiment with it to see how it breaks down thermal paste.

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No gurantee, but ethyl alcohols should basically do the same as isopropanyl. They can react with certain plastics while isopropanyl shouldn't (therefore it's better suitable for cleaning displays i.e.). As the surface you are going to clean is metal and not plastic this should not make a big difference. But with isopropanyl being mostly inert I'd prefer it over ethyl alcohols. Plus it evaporates very quickly and thus dries the surface. Any ethyl alcohol you would buy is very likely to contain isopropanyl to a small percentage. In order to avoid paying taxes ethyl alcohol for cleaning is denatured so it can't be drunk. This makes those mixtures as poisonous! (Almost) pure isopropanyl is poisonous as well. As already pointed out:

trents said:

Don't drink it.

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And work in a well ventilated area.

Tír na nÓg said:

Well, it happened to me a few times to run out of ALcool/Acetone... I cleaned the IHS thoroughly with humid kitchen roll and soap, then dry it well and TBH, I did not notice any increase in temps...

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You wouldn't have any disadvantage such as higher temps when you clean the surfaces thouroughly. The advantages of using isopropanyl are: little to none water present, dries quickly, good solvent for thermal paste. Thermal paste is often based on non polar silicon oils, which are unsoluable in water. Using isopropanyl they come off easier.

Personally I very seldom use the alcohol, just wipe the old off well with a coffee filter and go. The only time I'm concerned is after a lot of handling and it gets contaminated with my skin oils. That's just me though.

The Stock Cooler was starting too really irritate me so I paid a visit to the Bios and started playing with the Fan Profiles....

Unlike the Skylake Rig I put together for a friend, mine Doesn't have a Fan Curve. All I get are two Options: 1) Target Temperature (##ºC/##ºF) 2) Fan Speed (0-9)

After fiddling with the settings for abit: Target Temperature seems to be a User Determined Limit... when the Temp gets nearer to that limit, the Fans slowly Ramp up.

Fan Speed is the Lowest Speed setting the Fans will run even when Idle..... By default this was set to 9 for whatever reason.... hence the Extreme noise.

LoL.... this Setup is really confusing and counter intuitive... and without a Proper Visual Representation like a Fan Curve... it takes a bit of trial & error to get the Profile just right.

Since I don't have Stress Testing software installed, I've been using DMC4's Performance Test to Warm Up the CPU (it doesn't put it under 100% load) then Cinebench's R15 CPU Benchmark to really Stick it to the CPU !!!

In my last Test, even though I set my Target Temperature to 55ºC, By the time Cinebench was through with it I hit an average of 59ºC and a Maximum of 66ºC.... Which I'm guessing isn't good for just a 20 Second Test (5 Minutes if you include DMC4's Test).

I'm going to Lower the Target Temperature down to 50ºC. If that stops it from going over 65ºC then I'l lower the Fan Speed too (Right now its at Level 3).... The idle Temperature is around 20º (I have Cool n' Quiet Enabled).

I figured its better to figure out how well the Stock Cooler Works before I make the Switch.

Johan45 said:

Personally I very seldom use the alcohol, just wipe the old off well with a coffee filter and go. The only time I'm concerned is after a lot of handling and it gets contaminated with my skin oils. That's just me though.

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Yeah yeah, your fat greasy fingers!!!!

Really, it's not necessary to use alcohol and it will not make any measurable difference one way or the other most likely. In a perfect world, yes, use it. But if you don't have it and can't find it, like Johan45 said, the best material for wiping old TIM off is a paper coffee filter. They have a hard sheen and leave less fibers behind to stick in the micro pours of the CPU lid than do soft facial tissues or toilet paper or paper towels. They don't have greasy lotions either, like a lot facial tissues do. If you don't have a coffee filter, the local coffee shop would probably give you one.

I never use it, to be honest. I know I should, but the highest % I have is 50% on hand, and I've been running my rig for 3 years now with 0 issues on temps.

I also only ever use one thermal compound, so mixing generally isn't a concern for me. That said, the adhesive used to bind the plastic protection on the heat spreader was a concern at first, but I used a brand new microfiber cloth on it to remove most of it.

I also used about 1/4th pea sized dot, and spread that super thin over the heat spreader with the gelid solutions spreader thing.

Temps are a solid 58C Real world testing on load on hottest core(IBT pushes it to 67C). I don't like having a ton of goop on my chip

My cooler and chip are in my sig.