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TIM Cleaner, how clean is clean?

glenimp617

glenimp617

glenimp617

Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2005
Posts
16,942
I have been using Akasa TIM Cleaner and was wondering just how clean you should get it.

The CPU is perfectly clean as in if I were to rub a cotton bud over it a million times not one tiny bit of paste would come off. The heatsink is a different story though.

I have cleaned it for about 20 minutes and I am still getting a faint patch of grey on my cloths. How clean do you guys go? To the naked eye it looks clean but my cloths are telling a different story.
 
I expect there are still small traces of thermal paste in the very fine pits in the surface. I had a similar experience using that cleaner and I think as it you keep cleaning, you just breakdown and dilute another small part of what is left.

I stopped trying when it was just a faint trace left, on the basis those pits are just going to get filled again with a fresh application of paste and nothing short of lapping the heatsink would change anything.

I don't know if I gave up too easily but my temps were better with a small amount of MX-3 than my previous over application of MX-2, so I was happy anyway.
 
Yeah I don't think I'm ever going to get it like new

Might pop to a local shop at lunch and get some of that ArcticClean 1 and 2 just to make sure. Once it's on I hope not to remove it for a long time so need to make sure it's as good as can be.
 
I disagree with the consensus on this one. I dont think it matters at all providing:

1 you've never tried to use wax as a tim
2 you're replacing one flavour of silicone grease with another
 
i use good old fashioned whiskey with a kitchen towel.i don't think it matters as long as you have'nt got anything conductive on the cpu.never had a problem yet
 
People will possibly bawk at this but I use white spirit, the non-smelly stuff from focus diy and it cleans cpu's perfectly and any residue evaporates.
I have never had a single problem using this stuff, never had any big issue's with temps going high etc. I even use it to clean contacts, heatstink bases etc. I once bought a bottle of akasa tim cleaner and tossed it away somehwere as I hated it lol. Made my stuff stink of lemons lol.
 
vectisitch said:
i use good old fashioned whiskey with a kitchen towel.i don't think it matters as long as you have'nt got anything conductive on the cpu.never had a problem yet
Click to expand...

Dont let my scottish father-in-law know about that one lol! Whiskey is for drinking.

Then again having a nice tipple whilst putting a pc together sounds nice :)
 
@glen8

Get a tub of those ear bud cleaners, the ones that look like little sticks with cotten on each end! They are brilliant for cleaning around heatspreaders and any stray globs of paste/tim or whatever you call it.

Just be carefull that you dont catch the cpu hard as it will travel accross the table or whatever surface your using. I have used them for years and they did wonders on the old socket 478 p4's and I was even able to clean the little breather hole on the top (yes im that anal lol)
 
My two cents is it ll only really matter when you are sticking components together i.e. like ram sinks on graphics cards, then clean matters.

When you are forcing two components together with a lot of force, a rough job would do, no need to go crazy as whatever TIM is on there is still going to be very thermally conductive.
 
buttkinz said:
Or just buy the articlean kit for a few quid and you get the cleaner and the iso alcohol ready made in droppers :)
Click to expand...
£5.50 for ArctiClean which includes 60ml of Isopropyl Alcohol and no hint of the purity percentage.

or buy a bottle of Isopropyl Alcohol 99.9% Pure:
125ml £1.39
250ml £2.19
500ml £3.19
1L £5.99

Larger sizes are available :)
 
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