thermal paste

Cheapest way is just to use a bit kitchen paper ;)One of the best ways is some Isopropyl alcohol.

if you go to your local chemist,you can buy a box of Isopropyl swabs,come in individual packets,box of 250 costs me about £3 i think ;) Last for ages

Rob
 
Both above work amazingly, Yeah swabs cost about £3 (mine was £2.75)
Nail Varnish remover.. hmm havent tried it but i read here that it works really well and of course pretty cheap!
 
My mate ran out of thermal interface material cleaner in the middle of changing CPUs once and ended up using Vodka.

He said it actually worked OK and cleaned the CPU nicely. Me I'd rather drink it ;)
 
What about surgical spirit? I've found some in the house I hope I can use. It just says 'contains methanol and ethanol'
That should be OK, right?
 
Hen_Dawg said:
What about surgical spirit? I've found some in the house I hope I can use. It just says 'contains methanol and ethanol'
That should be OK, right?
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I think that basically the point is to use something which cleans away the old interface material then when it evaporates leaves no residue behind. If the surgical spirit does so it should be fine.
 
i used a ****** aftershave the other day because i left my IPA at work. Clean as much off with damp tissue first, then squirt the chosen liquid onto cotton buds and remove the rest of the paste.
 
I used 40% isopropyl alcohol, was meant for surgical use but cleaned the chip just fine. Amazing how much crap came off onto the cloth after the chip looked clean!
 
dual2max said:
WD40, Pledge, Alcohol & spit all work if you are careful.
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Probably the worst possible materials to remove thermal compound tbh.

WD40 - a mixture lubricants and oil.
Pledge - wax
Alcohol - yup but it needs to be strong stuff.
Spit - quite possibly a mixture of all the above along with some fat aswell.

With the exeption of alcohol, all of the above will leave residue on your core/HS which will hinder heat transfer.

If you want it to look clean then use whatever cleaning stuff/fluid/spit!?! you have to hand. However, if you want it to really be clean then use IPA. Don't believe me?? Do your self a favour and clean a HS with specialised 'TIM' cleaner, it will look very clean (and is better than nail varnish etc). Then clean it again with some IPA, you will be surprised how much more crap IPA gets of a 'cleaned' HS.
 
...Which can more often than not contain moisturising oils - bad. I guess the really cheap and nasty stuff dosn't have moisturising oils/perfume so it 'may' be ok, It amazes me that we spend a lot of time buying the best cooling components we can afford and yet cheap out on actually cleaning the cpu/hs which defeats the object of having decent cooling in the first place imo. Sort of like buying a top end rig then trusting a q-tec to power it :confused:

£3.99 for a can of IPA that will last for hundreds of cpu changes is hardly breaking the bank is it?
 
w3bbo said:
Probably the worst possible materials to remove thermal compound tbh.

WD40 - a mixture lubricants and oil.
Pledge - wax
Alcohol - yup but it needs to be strong stuff.
Spit - quite possibly a mixture of all the above along with some fat aswell.

With the exeption of alcohol, all of the above will leave residue on your core/HS which will hinder heat transfer.

If you want it to look clean then use whatever cleaning stuff/fluid/spit!?! you have to hand. However, if you want it to really be clean then use IPA. Don't believe me?? Do your self a favour and clean a HS with specialised 'TIM' cleaner, it will look very clean (and is better than nail varnish etc). Then clean it again with some IPA, you will be surprised how much more crap IPA gets of a 'cleaned' HS.
Click to expand...

WD-40 actually works good, but you HAVE to clean off the remaining oil residue. And to clean that off you better use some kind of alcohol, so really it's just double up :D
 
I used the surgucal spirit, took a while because as you say w3bbo, it looks clean but when you rub another cotton bud on it, stuff still comes off.
Temps are if anything worse than before so I'm wondering how long you need to leave AC5 before temps improve? I'm just about to leave it to cool overnight. Will there be an iimprovement when I boot up 2morrow?
 
AS5 takes upto 200 hours and numerous cool down periods for the thermal grease to 'cure' apparently. most you will see is a couple of degrees though tbh so I wouldn't hold your breath. Bad mount?
 
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