Will Grey Goose Vodka remove stock thermal paste

Fullmetal Chocobo

Moderator<br>Distributed Computing
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May 13, 2003
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No, go out and buy the right stuff. And stop wasting good vodka. Nonetheeless, you are talking about two different kinds of alochol here.
 

svi

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Jan 5, 2005
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It will probably work. It will not work well.

Leaving the fancy chemistry out of things, isopropanol and ethanol (grain alcohol) are pretty similar in terms of how they work as solvents for substances like thermal grease. Isopropanol is a little better, though, and there's more water (worst of all three for this work) in your vodka than there is in even cheap 70% isopropyl alcohol. Your vodka should work better than water, but worse than isopropanol.

It will WORK for the same reason isopropyl alcohol does: you don't need a very good solvent to do an adequate job of cleaning off a heatsink. Since most of us use a cloth of some sort (rag, lens wipe, coffee filter, whatever) to wipe off our heatsinks, and since it's fine if there are traces of the old grease left after cleaning, the ability of the solvent to actually dissolve the grease is not critical.

Even if it worked as well as it possibly could, though, I'd still recommend against using it. Grey Goose is too damned good to waste as a solvent.
 

paulw86

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Sep 18, 2005
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=X guess so. Thanks a lot, it was very informative. Oh btw I bought Grey Goose b/c it was the best vodka, or so the pros rated it.
How do I clean off the thermal grease on the cpu chip? Put some 90%+ isopropyl on tissue and wipe the grease off?
 

svi

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Jan 5, 2005
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Well, it certainly is good, at least. All the more reason to mark it for internal use only.

As quackerww said, it's a bad idea to use tissues. They leave bits of themselves behind too much, sometimes in a form you can't see (they tend to leave very small bits of lint). Use a coffee filter or something.

For solvent, 90/91% isopropyl alcohol will work fine. If you don't have any, don't bother buying any just yet; there are many things that will work in its place, some of them better. Look around the house for naphtha (lighter fluid, painter's solvent), xylene (Goof-Off and friends), hexane, or even just grain alcohol cheap enough that you won't mind wasting a little of it (very cheap rum would be ideal).
 

paulw86

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Sep 18, 2005
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it's actually some strong ass tissue that wipes off oil/grease on stove easily w/o tearing.
 

JEDIYoda

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Jul 13, 2005
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What I would do is put some of that Grey Goose Vodkas on your tongue and clean the thermal grease off!!

By the way Grey Goose is NOT the best Vodla...hehee..

You really have to go to Poland and try the regional Vodkas that are not even imported to the USA!
 

foodfightr

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Sep 19, 2004
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Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
use rubbing alcohol. cheap and no other food stuffs for residue.

Rubbing Alcohol = Cheap & Potent.
Grey Goose = Expenisve & Not Potent.

Even if you had everclear, I'd still opt for $0.99 rubbing alcohol at CVS.
 

DAPUNISHER

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If you enjoy GG, keep on drinkin' it :) But be aware, in a blind taste test it was rated lower than Vodkas costing half as much ;) Myself, I'll take Kettle One in that price range, but Skye is my favorite affordable vodka.
 

DAPUNISHER

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Originally posted by: lnguyen
blah, i don't like GG. don't really like vokda straight to begin with.. heh.
I do, I like it cold&neat. GG never did it for me, Skye has a quality and kick I dig though.