Cleaning Liquid Metal paste off CPU

[evo4ever86]

Hello.

Currently I've got a 8700K and im gonna de-lid it with one of those de-lidding tools. I'm using Coolaboratory Liquid Ultra Thermal Paste between between my water block and heatspreader. I've only had the CPU for a few weeks so it might not be necessary but I might as well do the works... clean off the liquid metal on the headspreader and apply some fresh TIM to the die and heatspreader.

I've heard it is needs to be alcohol based cleaner for removing Liquid Metal based TIMs. Is this true?

 

[Smffy]

You’re doing it the wrong way round, you really want the liquid metal between the die and the IHS then decent TIM between the IHS and block... Don’t be surprised if you find your waterblock is permanently discoloured by the liquid metal.

Just cotton bud it off and clean as you would normally with isopropyl or equivalent. Delid and remove the black silicon glue, clean up and carefully apply a thin layer of liquid metal to the die/IHS contact. IHS and block just good thermal compound in my opinion...

 

[subbytna]

+1 for smiffys points