How to clean thermal paste from CPU socket?

[Wiley Q. Hacker]

I got a little too enthusiastic trying to mount a fan onto an AMD
Athlon XP 2900+ into a Socket A motherboard. Now, I've got thermal
compount in the pin holes on the socket, and the board is unusable.

Can I, and if so, how do I clean the socket to remove the compound?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Victor]

I got a little too enthusiastic trying to mount a fan onto an AMD
Athlon XP 2900+ into a Socket A motherboard. Now, I've got thermal
compount in the pin holes on the socket, and the board is unusable.

Can I, and if so, how do I clean the socket to remove the compound?

Thanks in advance.
I'd try a small sewing needle with some paint thinner or acetone.Keep
wiping the pin clean.Of course unplug the power supply and maybe the
motherboard too

 

[Matt]

I got a little too enthusiastic trying to mount a fan onto an AMD
Athlon XP 2900+ into a Socket A motherboard. Now, I've got thermal
compount in the pin holes on the socket, and the board is unusable.

Have you tried using it?

 

[johns]

Girl in CAD class came in my office one day really upset.
She had been working on her project, and saved it to a
floppy, and then put the floppy in her purse. Sometime
after, she spilled purse-goop on the floppy, and her
project was gone. I took the disk and cracked the
plastic case off of it, and took the recording media in
the bathroom and washed it with soap and warm water,
and then rinsed it until I could not seen any more stuff
on the disk. Took another floppy, and carefully replaced
the inside media with the washed media. Worked fine.
Happy girl. I don't agree with alchohol or any solvent
that can destroy plastic. I think stripping the board of
ram, cpu, etc and using something like Joy liquid detergent and warm water
sprayed fairly hard is your
best bet. Let it dry good.

johns

 

[DaveH]

Girl in CAD class came in my office one day really upset.
She had been working on her project, and saved it to a
floppy, and then put the floppy in her purse. Sometime
after, she spilled purse-goop on the floppy, and her
project was gone. I took the disk and cracked the
plastic case off of it, and took the recording media in
the bathroom and washed it with soap and warm water,
and then rinsed it until I could not seen any more stuff
on the disk. Took another floppy, and carefully replaced
the inside media with the washed media. Worked fine.
Happy girl. I don't agree with alchohol or any solvent
that can destroy plastic. I think stripping the board of
ram, cpu, etc and using something like Joy liquid detergent and warm water
sprayed fairly hard is your
best bet. Let it dry good.

johns

Does alcohol generally dissolve plastic? I know acetone can. I wonder
if cleaning agent selection should be based on that which will
dissolve the heatsink compound but won't dissolve or attack the
plastic socket material. Mineral Spirits may do it. A guess.
Dave

 

[spodosaurus]

Does alcohol generally dissolve plastic? I know acetone can. I wonder
if cleaning agent selection should be based on that which will
dissolve the heatsink compound but won't dissolve or attack the
plastic socket material. Mineral Spirits may do it. A guess.
Dave

Mineral spirits on a motherboard? That sounds VERY wrong to me.


--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[spodosaurus]

I got a little too enthusiastic trying to mount a fan onto an AMD
Athlon XP 2900+ into a Socket A motherboard. Now, I've got thermal
compount in the pin holes on the socket, and the board is unusable.

Can I, and if so, how do I clean the socket to remove the compound?

Thanks in advance.

I've come across (and you'll have to google for these) reports of
recovering motherboards and other cards following flood submersion (and
associated debris accumulation). IIRC it involves soaking in soapy
water. Not that I think you'll have much luck with the goop all down in
the pin holes, but you never know.

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[Guest]

I don't agree with alchohol or any solvent that can
destroy plastic. I think stripping the board of ram,
cpu, etc and using something like Joy liquid detergent
and warm water sprayed fairly hard is your best bet.
Let it dry good.

That's rather bad advice. Isopropyl and ethyl alcohols are safe for
electronics parts, but 90% or higher purity should be used to prevent
trapped water from causing corrosion.

Detergent and water will usually work well enough, but the water should
be distilled, at least the water used for the final rinse.

 

[Wiley Q. Hacker]

Thanks for all the advice.

I tried the needle approach. Also used a swab of cotton dipped in nail
polish remover. That did the trick. The board is alive!

 

[DaveH]

Mineral spirits on a motherboard? That sounds VERY wrong to me.

Yea--Maybe you're right.

 

[Victor]

You the man!

Thanks for all the advice.

I tried the needle approach. Also used a swab of cotton dipped in nail
polish remover. That did the trick. The board is alive!

 

[Matt]

Thanks for all the advice.

I tried the needle approach. Also used a swab of cotton dipped in nail
polish remover. That did the trick. The board is alive!

I guess you didn't try just using it without trying to clean it. I was
thinking that the zif mechanism would just squeeze the thermal compound
out of the way and you would have good contact on all the pins anyway
.... assuming you weren't using one of the silver compounds or other
stuff with problemmatic capacitative or conductive properties.

 

[Wiley Q. Hacker]

I did, Matt. It wouldn't work before, and does now.

My compound was white, not silver. Don't know the difference.