Arctic silver cleanup

[A person]

Apologies if I posted this in the wrong section; i'm not good at this "where do they go" stuff.

Here's the deal: some arctic silver got onto my ramchips in my video card. I wiped it off w/ a paper towel, hoping that would just be all right. I plugged it back into my comp, and turned it on. 5-10 minutes later, my display went completely wacked. Sure, i had the video card oc'ed, and sure, my pci clock is out of spec. I reset them all, and the distortion was still evident.

I took out my vid card and whipped out some trusty isopropyl alcohol and tried to wipe off the chips completely. I thorughly cleaned it, making sure there is no more sign of it. Good, so i plugged it back in, and the distortion occurred again. This time, the distortion was different: it was just as bad, but it looked a lot more different. Obviously, the arctic silver is the fault. I took it out again and put it up against a very powerful magnifying glass. From there, I found some very minute evidence of arctic silver between the chips' catapillar legs.

Now, how do I get that out? I don't want to RMA my card now (There's no warranty anyway), and I think I can fix this myself. Please help!!!

Thanks

Matrox G450 on a Celly 1.6 (12*133) w/ abit st6 and 512MB PC133 2-2-2

 

[Diggrr]

Have you tried something like a small artist's paintbrush and the alcohol? You don't need to use much fluid, as you don't want the 'silver stream' running around the board.

Hope ya get it, bud.

 

[Christoph]

Welcome to the forums!!!
It's always nice to see A person here.

Can you describe the distortion on your monitor? You might be able to fix it with a quick deguass (usually pic of a magnet on the monitor menu). It's unlikely, but at least it looks cool.

Other than that, go with Diggrr's advice, and maybe try switching resolutions.
Good luck.

 

[A person]

Well, i took a toothbrush and some alcohol and cleaned up the mess, i believe. Now, I think some water got into it (well, I wanted to do this over a sink instead of over my keyboard). The distortion before is to the point where i just can't read anything. Now, the screen has a purplish tinge, and my curser has been making stuff change color and stuff like that. Oh well, I hope a new matrox card comes out soon; i've always been an avid fan of matrox (i don't like 3d games too much)