How do I go about remiving rock solid/baked on thermal paste?

[biuro74]

I've had couple of Strikers (Formula and Extreme). All I've done was to buy some TIM cleaner, put it to some cotton wool and touch this "rock solid"-something with it for longer. Few times (everytime new app), no rush and after some time you may clean any chip until shiny.

DO NOT SCRAP IT WITH ANYTHING as you might crush the core making motherboard completely useless.

BTW, I used nail varnish remover, too - but experts say it contains some additions for nails like vitamins, all of this stays sticked to surface later when you apply TIM making whole cooling process a bit worse.

 

[Akagi]

None of those would have worked on the stuff that Asus used back then. It's almost like concrete. A hairdryer is just about the only way it will come off. I had a P5E X38 board and read the horror stories with this paste/glue as it was'nt actually very good at aiding thermal transfer and that once warmed up it glues the heatsink to the chipset. First thing i did when i bought the board was to get a hairdryer on it and seperate it from the chipset then gently chipped away at the stuff with a chisel. There were a few people at the time who ripped the chipset out of the board trying to remove the heatsink!! That's how strong this stuff is.

Hairdryer did not help much. It had been baked on thoroughly for 6 years or so. I still concur that no magical paste remover would have worked lol. If it took isopropyl alcohol and/or a heat gun combined with what felt like hours of chiselling then I am skeptical that the paste remover would have done anything.