Sticky Old Heatsink... Grr..

I'm trying to get a heatsink off a P4... it seems to be glued on there.... bleh... how do I get it off? The former owner pulled it out of a Dell I think. Any suggestions on getting it safely off the hunk o' metal? Thanks!

Do you care what happens to the HS?

Not really.

Well standard P4 HS has a thermal pad thing, it's basically wax and some other stuff. It melts the cpu heatspreader on to the HS. So if you just get a flat razor and slide it *carefully* between the two it should come off fairly easily. Twisting it would probably also work, just try not to damage any pins.

After it's off you will have to clean off the remaining wax stuff. use something like nail polish remover or carburetter cleaner, make sure it only goes on the heat spreader tho.

Another method would be to heat the heatsink up using a hairdryer, (while the PC is shut down and there's no power to it!!!) and then you should be able to get the heatsink off, because the thermal material will melt.