processor cleaning question

[xr4man]

would it be bad to use a soft paper towel and lacquer thinner to clean off old thermal goop from a processor?

[Snowman]

rubbing alcohol should be all the stronger solution you would need and an old credit or bank card

[Konrad]

Lacquer thinner, paint thinner, mineral spirits and other solvents will all work. Many will leave a residue which can "cook" onto the contact surface, some might even oxidize certain metals. Solvents (and any residue they might deposit) are typically highly flammable and they stink awful when burning/smoking off.

Isopropyl rubbing alcohol should be the most aggressive solvent you use. Use mechanical scrubbing/scraping when necessary (I use things like "credit card" plastics, wooden popsicle sticks, razor/knife blades, and stiff old toothbrushes), heating the solvent sometimes helps (carefully! - no open flame, no microwave oven).

Diluted acetone (nail polish remover) is much less aggressive than most commercial thinners (ie: less likely to damage the surface), sometimes stronger than isopropyl but I think it's overkill.

1,1,1-trichloroethane is the traditional (and best) electrical cleaning agent. It's no longer commercially available for electronic use (carcinogenic, teratogenic, mutagenic, scary, ozone-hostile, etc), but you can still get it (gun cleaning kits, industrial degreasers, and refrigerants) if you look hard. Modern replacements are terpenes, typically based on pine or citrus acids, "almost" (that is, "maybe half") as effective but they're comparatively harmless, biodegrable, and smell really really pretty.

Solvents can react with PCB plastics (especially cheap porous low-density ones), sometimes making PCB sections hard and brittle, usually making them swollen, soft, and spongy/mushy ... either way, they can deform and break circuit traces (irrepairably if layered). Isopropyl is always the safest bet, accidents happen, mobos cost $$$.

You can purchase all sorts of electronic cleaning chemicals, but the active ingredient is invariably isopropyl, terpene, or dilute petroleum stuff. Whatever's cooked onto your processor is probably not as hard to remove as spent flux, so you shouldn't need anything stronger than flux removers.

[Snowman]

Lacquer thinner, paint thinner, mineral spirits and other solvents will all work. Many will leave a residue which can "cook" onto the contact surface, some might even oxidize certain metals. Solvents (and any residue they might deposit) are typically highly flammable and they stink awful when burning/smoking off.

Isopropyl rubbing alcohol should be the most aggressive solvent you use. Use mechanical scrubbing/scraping when necessary (I use things like "credit card" plastics, wooden popsicle sticks, razor/knife blades, and stiff old toothbrushes), heating the solvent sometimes helps (carefully! - no open flame, no microwave oven).

Diluted acetone (nail polish remover) is much less aggressive than most commercial thinners (ie: less likely to damage the surface), sometimes stronger than isopropyl but I think it's overkill.

1,1,1-trichloroethane is the traditional (and best) electrical cleaning agent. It's no longer commercially available for electronic use (carcinogenic, teratogenic, mutagenic, scary, ozone-hostile, etc), but you can still get it (gun cleaning kits, industrial degreasers, and refrigerants) if you look hard. Modern replacements are terpenes, typically based on pine or citrus acids, "almost" (that is, "maybe half") as effective but they're comparatively harmless, biodegrable, and smell really really pretty.

Solvents can react with PCB plastics (especially cheap porous low-density ones), sometimes making PCB sections hard and brittle, usually making them swollen, soft, and spongy/mushy ... either way, they can deform and break circuit traces (irrepairably if layered). Isopropyl is always the safest bet, accidents happen, mobos cost $$$.

You can purchase all sorts of electronic cleaning chemicals, but the active ingredient is invariably isopropyl, terpene, or dilute petroleum stuff. Whatever's cooked onto your processor is probably not as hard to remove as spent flux, so you shouldn't need anything stronger than flux removers.

Basically what I said but a lot more technical;)

[xr4man]

i hadn't thought about the residue. i do know that isopropyle alcohol is the best stuff to use, i was just trying to think what i actually have at home.

thanks very much for the reply. i'll get some alcy on the way home then.

[Snowman]

Try looking in the first aid section for the higher concentration one it seems to work better I just let anything soak in it if its really attached seems to break it down. Usually the regular stuff has a blue label the higher concentration has a red label.

[x88x]

I use this stuff with an old cotton undershirt.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100010&cm_re=arctic_silver-_-35-100-010-_-Product

Overpriced? Maybe. But it works well for thermal paste and one set lasts me ~4-5 years. I have yet to see a caked on thermal paste that the 'remover' stuff couldn't eat through if I let it sit for a few seconds.

[slaveofconvention]

I used to use an Akasa product called (ingeniously) TIM Remover and it worked very well. Now I buy an equally ingeniously named product called "Sticky Stuff Remover" - it smells exactly the same as the Akasa stuff did, and it's 1/10th of the price. Best thing about it is that I can pick it up at Asda or Aldi with my weekly shopping here in the UK - it's only a couple of pounds a bottle and it's a BIG bottle. Drop on literally a few drops, just enough to cover the CPU and wait like, 30 seconds, then a quick wipe with a paper towel or cloth and the CPU is good as new - I haven't noticed any residue and when reapplying TIM there's no reaction or problems - it goes on smoothly - does exactly the same awesome job on the Heatsinks too....

[Konrad]

I purchase "electronics grade" anhydrous isopropyl ... dunno if the "grade" is official or some kind marketing promise, but the fact is that it's "pure" and uncontaminated. Drugstore isopropyl often has perfumes and other crap which (probably) will leave some kind of residue ... my logic is that parts tend to be cleaned only when it's critical to ensure they function as efficiently as possible; so I don't want any invisible coating which might be electrically conductive or thermally insulative (when cleaning, say, electromechanical relay contacts, etc).

lol, De-Solv-It® Sticky Stuff Remover™ is just an aerosolized gel-bonded terpene (see MSDS (http://www.free-instruction-manuals.com/pdf/p4752782.pdf)). Similar products are Goo Gone and UnDu. There's really only a handful of consumer chemicals out there once you boil away the brand names; buy yourself a jar of "pure" stuff and cut it down as needed for each application ... save a lot of $ after a while. I personally find aerosols unsuited for any electrical work (the only exception being conformal sealant, which is essentially a spray-painted laminated polymer coating) ... I always have to spray a tiny bit onto a cloth or swab rather than the device itself, sprays just go all over the bloody place (even when using the straw nozzle thingies).

Hairspray, lighter fluid, and gasoline are commonly available alternatives. Many people report that Fantastik™ (made from 11% "n-alkyl dimethyl ethylbenzyl ammonium chloride", that blue stuff, whatever the hell that is) is also a very effective agent for dissolving adhesives and greases. Some people recommend vegetable or olive oil, which I seriously doubt will do anything other than create a big mess (although pure oils are excellent dielectric fluids, so they shouldn't harm electronics, much). WD-40 (as well as silicon- and teflon-based lubes) is pretty decent against many adhesives, but also tends to create a big mess.

[slaveofconvention]

lol, De-Solv-It® Sticky Stuff Remover™ is just an aerosolized gel-bonded terpene

Must be a different product to the one i use - this isn't an aerosol.

[xr4man]

well i found a can of acetone in my basement, so i used a spot of that on a gun cleaning pad to clean the processor. of course, when i went to install my new heatsink and fan, it had the wrong mounting bracket. fortunately it came with a 70mm fan so i took it off and mounted it to my old heat sink. but of course, the old fan had built in standoffs to clear the mounting arm and the new fan didn't. i used a few nylon tie wraps to go around the screws to act as spacers. right now the processor is holding at 88* idle and about 92* when i'm doing stuff. so it will do for now until i get a new heatsink with the proper bracket for an am3 socket.