Arctic Silver 5

[t1no]

Well i used it on my ZALMAN 7000b UCLA, and i think i used too much(the whole thing). Wondering is anything will happen to my cpu or.... ?(Could not use the internet so i didn't check the instrustions, i was only suppose to use a little.

By the way it's a socket 939, i plan on going to Fry's tomorrow and buy some Arctic silver thermal material remover(or something else if better) and do it over again. From the instructions i read it says to only put a lil in the middle of the cpu and just put your cooler on top of it. I put way too much and it's spreading everywhere, im not using that computer right now till i clean it off. I also got some on the mobo also, it is okay if i use the arctic silver remover on the motherboard?

Any tips on how i should clean it?

[jdbnsn]

I am not sure about this, never heard of this happening. You may be able to clean the compound off the mother board with Q-tips, it seems to me that it wipes off fairly easily. I would hold off on using any cleaning products until someone with better experience weighs in, but I think oil is usually safe if you need to dampen it a little. Just be sure to ground yourself well while cleaning, and you probably know by now, but you shouldn't need to clean any off the surface of the chip itself, just scrape with a credit card to leave a very thin trace before putting your heat sink back on.

[UK-Blade]

Get it all cleaned off, Artic Silver IS conductive, so could cause the system to short.

Akasa (http://www.akasa.co.uk) do a liquid specifically for cleaning off TIM, here (http://www.akasa.co.uk/akasa_english/spec_page/thermal/spec_ak_tc.htm). Its really handy.

Plus they have distributors all over the world.

Always remember, LESS IS MORE, when using TIM. You want to put the thinnest layer you possibly can.

[xmastree]

Last time I was cleaning a CPU I used good old-fashioned kerosene. Worked a treat. It was one of those foil stickers, which left a lot of goo behind after I removed it. It just wiped right off with a drop of kerosene on a tissue.

[justleftlife]

Just a little helper i just installed Blu Orb II with Artic Thermal 5 and i used maybe the of a pin drop at a time spread it and then used more as needed

[dgrmkrp]

i once used hot water and soap on silver grease.. sounds dangerous, but i used it to clean a motherboard's northbridge area and the powercircuitry after removing the sinks (and cleaning them...). i gently washed away all the grease and tried not to leave any soap .. visible.. then let the mobo dry :) and then i tested it and it worked!!! sorry if i offended anyone with this technique, cause it may sound like sacrilege :)

[nil8]

When dealing with adhesive residue(thermal tape), rubbing alcohol or kerosene is optimal because of evaporation.

A dab about twice the size of a pinhead is all you need.

As for cleaning, lint-free cloth, q-tips and after you get the compound up, rubbing alcohol to finish the job. It's how I clean all the compound off anything I touch and works incredibly well.

[justleftlife]

The soap and hot water idea is a rather bad idea. i dont suggest that to anyone. dgrmkr, it was good thing you let it dry but if you left a little soap behind that you didnt see you could have been bad also soap can leave a residue on the part. So i would use Isoprypl or something to that nature just becuase it evaporates at a high rate so even if you do use a little to much its not to worry it will be gone in about 5 min.


dgrmkr i am glad you machine worked after you were done though.

[dgrmkrp]

of course your right.. i do not really recommend that.. but, it was a fun project, done on an old spare :) it surprises me how lucky i was... or how resiliant modern technology is :)

[archmaille]

I always use 90% rubbing alchohol. Most the time at stores you'll find 70% but if you look around a little they have 90% almost always that's what I would suggest. It evaporates quickly which is a big bonus.

I would suggest going ahead and spreading the Arctic Silver out using a CLEAN piece of plastic or razor blade to make a thin coating. The reason I say this is some Zalman coolers have a slightly raised center and it doesn't spread as well if you just put a small dab in the middle. Always remember to use a very small amount though, nothing bigger than a drop the size of a BB

[Cevinzol]

If the heat sink isn't flat, make it flat by sanding it. put a mirror finish on it before installing it. it can lower the CPU temp by as much as 5 degrees. A big glob of thermal grease is bad, an air pocket is even worse.

[.jrauck]

I put a crap load of thermal paste on my processor/heatsink and it works better than the stuff the manufacture put on it.

[archmaille]

it's still always best to use just a small dab, if you think it works better than the factory stuff as is you might want to try doing it the correct way and see what kind of results you get!