Help, thermal paste on Ryzen CPU pins!

nicktay2605 · 1 May 2020 at 14:57

I've stupidly managed to get some thermal paste on two or three of the pins on my 3700x processor. Is surgical spirit and a very soft toothbrush the best way to get it off?

Jamin280672 · 1 May 2020 at 15:18

nicktay2605 said:
I've stupidly managed to get some thermal paste on two or three of the pins on my 3700x processor. Is surgical spirit and a very soft toothbrush the best way to get it off?

I did the same recently with my 3900X, first thing is dont panic, my CPU.....no matter what I try.......even heating it all up with Prime95 etc for 10 mins before shutting down and trying to remove the water block has a very bad habit of being ripped out of the socket still attached to the water block, obviously then you have to carefully slide it off the bottom of the water block, its very easy to get TIM on the pins, I use a toothbrush and 99.9% Isopropanol alcohol, then just leave it on the side to evaporate / dry off for 5 mins.

Im not so sure surgical spirit will be OK though, as it contains other ingredients like caster oil etc.

Even if you can get some alcohol wipes from somewhere and try and transfer the alcohol from the wipes to the toothbrush, it would be better.

nicktay2605 · 1 May 2020 at 15:48

Thanks for the reply, I can't seem to find isopropyl alcohol anywhere locally so I'm going to try alcohol wipes. It's only a tiny amount of thermal paste so hopefully it won't be too hard to remove.

fobose · 1 May 2020 at 15:56

If you have any first aid kits around the home / in your car - check for alcohol wipes in there

Jamin280672 · 1 May 2020 at 16:10

What do you normally use to clean the TIM off you cooler and CPU ?

I always have a kit of that 2 part Arctic Silver fluid handy too, which will also clean the pins.

nicktay2605 · 1 May 2020 at 16:32

I've only ever had to clean the top of the CPU before and have just used surgical spirit and then wiped it off thoroughly with a microfiber cloth.

Seems to be fine for that application, but I didn't want to just assume it would be fine for the pins. I think I'll get some of that Arcticlean for next time though, looks good.

PiKe · 1 May 2020 at 16:35

IPA and a clean paintbrush.

Jamin280672 · 1 May 2020 at 16:46

nicktay2605 said:
I've only ever had to clean the top of the CPU before and have just used surgical spirit and then wiped it off thoroughly with a microfiber cloth.

Seems to be fine for that application, but I didn't want to just assume it would be fine for the pins. I think I'll get some of that Arcticlean for next time though, looks good.

Yes it is pretty good, but for the price you can get a 500ml of SHL IPA which is better, or even 1 litre of some other brand which is even bigger and will last forever, if you do get the Arcticlean, only use the part one on the pins.

nicktay2605 · 1 May 2020 at 20:27

Jamin280672 said:
Yes it is pretty good, but for the price you can get a 500ml of SHL IPA which is better, or even 1 litre of some other brand which is even bigger and will last forever, if you do get the Arcticlean, only use the part one on the pins.

Thanks, I'll look into the SHL, good thing to have for the future in case I need to replace or remove my CPU in future. Fortunately everything seems to be running fine. I managed to use the alcohol wipes in combination with a toothbrush and as a one-time solution it worked fine. PC is back up and running and temps seem fine for a 3700x.