cpu cleaner ??

[advanced]

whats the best way to clean the cpu before putting on thermal grease? i hear alcohol isnt that great

 

[Maximilian]

If its got old thermal paste on it isopropyl alcohol does the trick, or some toilet roll and maybe a qtip if you have no isopropyl.

 

[C1]

Actually I have found paint thinner to be one of the best general purpose solvents (ie, works on the most diverse cases). I dont think you should need that. Just clean the surfaces well with a lintless cloth and apply a thin layer of silver artic paste - just enough to ensure that any mating surfaces irregularities are able to be filled when the parts are mounted.

 

[dma0991]

I always use alcohol to clean the IHS of the processor. Some say that tissue and some elbow grease will do the job but I like alcohol instead.

I do use thinner but I always have the thought in my mind that thinner is much much stronger than alcohol and thinner has a very strong reaction to plastic. It even burns my hands when I strip paint using thinner. However there is a type of thinner used in factories. I've used it before to clean the flux off the bottom of the PCB and it is called thinner and has that distinctive smell that thinner has but it does not react strongly and does not burn my hands like paint thinner does.

 

[infoiltrator]

The Artic Cooling two part kit got very good reviews. Awaiting arival of some, so second hand information.
I've been using Isopropyl, adaquate to very good results.
Acetone was a common industrial cleaner in my day, evaporates quickly with no residue.

 

[jm0990]

I've got some ArctiClean that I used for my 212+ installation. Worked fine - though it's a bit expensive. The first bottle smells like citrus...maybe it's just 'goo gone', and the second doesn't really smell like anything, but I bet a high % alcohol would work just as well. I used coffee filters for clean-up, btw.

 

[Zenoth]

Isopropyl Alcohol 99%. I used the 70% variant before, it worked fine, but I now officially prefer the 99%, it definitely cleaned the whole thing more efficiently when compared to the previous one I had, and it's dirt cheap, go at any drug store, they should have some.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Isopropyl Alcohol + Microfiber cloth = GREAT clean!

An old T-shirt that doesn't lint off would be a good second option.

 

[Seven]

Isopropyl Alcohol + Microfiber cloth = GREAT clean!

The microfiber cloth would get ruined with the thermal paste. I always use the coffee filter or just a paper towel.

 

[tej85]

i use toilet paper on which i put just a little bit of water. then i rub the processor dry. not that i do this everyday :>

 

[Idontcare]

I've got some ArctiClean that I used for my 212+ installation. Worked fine - though it's a bit expensive. The first bottle smells like citrus...maybe it's just 'goo gone', and the second doesn't really smell like anything, but I bet a high % alcohol would work just as well. I used coffee filters for clean-up, btw.

This really is the best. The citrus smell is because there is some citric acid (orange juice, lemon juice) in the solution which is needed to do two things: (1) bust up and dissolve the thermal paste in a way that IPA can never accomplish (just basic chemistry at work), and (2) dissolves the surface layer of metal oxides that covers all aluminum and copper metals and simultaneously passivates the freshly exposed metal surface with a uniform surface layer of metal-hydride (M-H bonds).

The second bottle is just IPA, with removes the excess chemistry from the first bottle and the alcohol groups (-OH) finalizes the surface passivation.

If you just use IPA to remove existing TIM and reapply new TIM then you have left the pre-existing surface layers of metal oxides which are thermally and electrically insulating by virtue of the same physics, phonon coupling and fermi band-gap.

Its not the end of the world (obviously) but there is a fundamental chemistry/physics based reasoning why cleaning the metal surfaces with a light acid like citric acid (orange/lemon juice) or acetic acid (vinegar) is preferred by professionals in just about any application involving thermal transfer interfaces.

(FWIW copper surfaces respond better to citric acid, aluminum responds better to acetic acid)

 

[Harvey]

I use a little Windex amonia based glass cleaner on a paper towel, cloth. It works very quickly and doesn't damage the electronic packaging or circuit board. Don't spray it directly on the surface because it contains water, which you don't want to get under any components.