How To Fix a Thermal Paste Disaster!
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- Опубліковано 1 кві 2024
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Thermal paste mishaps are actually quite common - either too much or too little paste is used or it gets into places it shouldn't! This instance is no exception! We'll simulate a thermal paste disaster and walk you through how I, personally, deep-clean and restore them back to working states. Come along for the ride!
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I've always applied thermal paste this way.
I'd expect nothing less from the owner of a PC that looked like it was hit by a bus.
@@GregSalazar That was staged.. Yeah.. That's the story im going with.
You are wise beyond all the other PC weeboids.
Will tomorrow's video what to do when you spill your Beer on your PC?
@@GregSalazar
@@EDV8ZR1 You shed a tear and go get more beer.
So couple tips.
Remove the latching mechanism
Use a children’s toothbrush, bristles are soft and they won’t pull out like the cheap brushes.
Place paper towels around the socket so the diluted paste won’t be hard to wipe off the rest of the board.
100% use a baby toothbrush. Super effective.
Blue shop towels are the best to use. They tend to not leave fibers behind unlike standard paper towels.
I kept saying the same thing. Roll paper towels around instead of letting it r7n everywhere
Came here for this, thank you!
I can't believe he tried to use that useless blower. It just spread it all over the board. I know he's a clean freak but when is he gonna learn, Q-tips and small sharp objects don't play well together.What's next, a sponge and the brush was a soldering paste brush. He's got a long way to go, learn before you teach!
"The cap is still on it." Wish i could say i haven't made that same mistake.
There's two kinds of people in this world: those who left the cap on and those who lie about it.
Gets really messy when the cap is just press fit.
Instructions unclear. I'm now drunk on IPA and there is thermal paste EVERYWHERE
I'm pretty sure IPA makes you go blind or just kills you instead of getting you drunk. The blindness might be methanol, can't remember.
Getting drunk on IPA… oh god
I think drinking IPA makes you Unalive.
You'd be dead if that was true.
The bitter taste of alcohol is the main reason why I don't drink.
An easier way to clean a socket is to spray it with a can of electrical contact cleaner. It will even take care of the residu at the bottom of the socket.
He should try this next. It'll be like power washing the socket.
The contact cleaner I have is more or less pure IPA anyway.
I clean every CPU GPU and MB when there is thermal paste on it with WD specialist contact cleaner and never had a single issue.
Correct or using break cleaner holding it upside-down 👍
@@gunnarsandstrom8031err brake cleaner destroys electronics. From experience.
Watching a Jigsaw movie was less painful than this video, but nice job !!!
SAW is the goat.
What's never a disaster is Greg Salazar
:-D
I agree with @MarcoGPUtuber
Agreed. Greg's a swell guy.
first time non tech yes video i seen u
@@murdergang420 Greg and Bryan are friends
Paper towel around the socket helps containing the IPA and avoiding it to spread all over the motherboard.
CRC Electronics/Contact cleaner pretty much dissolves thermal paste so easily that I wouldn't ever worry about making a mess with paste.
Your new studio and quality are awesome! Gratz and love from Sweden!
Greatly appreciate this! Cheers!
Cartman: "Shat on your Socket, what you wanna do about it?" 🤣
Thank you Greg for taking one for the team and having some fun.
5:25
Instructions unclear, used a local IPA and socket is sticky now :(
Hahah I knew this comment was coming!
Fortunately using the correct IPA (on the socket) can correct this problem as well. =) (Afterwards use any remaining of the local IPA in the more standard manner.)
True American draftsmanship
🍻👌
@@helenHTID
I know what you mean. I used a local on my girlfriend, and now her socket is sticky. 😂
Great idea for a video, Greg!
You do such a great job with all this
@2:04 the amount of times ive done that...tried to apply, but left the cap on...
be glad you noticed, and didnt continually add pressure to the plunger...thus shooting the cap off...and contents of tube out...
at a point thermal paste really does become much like automotive anti-seize
Good video, it shows that the world doesn’t end when some (or a lot) thermal paste ends up between the pins. I have used another way in the past - soak the socket a little bit with WD40 , let it resolve the paste and then blow air with compressor or air duster. Works like a charm, and leaves no trace behind.
Thank you Greg, the other day I spilled some extra over my cpu pins and I didnt know how to clean it. This is super helpful.
love this vid! good job. im bout to build my first PC. I love ur Channel and i cant believe ya dont have 5 million subs.,,,Keep the vids good like this and im positive u will get there...thank you for doing what u do...
Thanks for this! I've never ran into this problem, but I'll know how to handle it if a do.
I've been servicing computers for more than a decade but never had the chance to encounter just like this one (bent pins the worst case for me, and revived it). Thankful as I cannot bear witnessing this kind of issue especially to those high-end components. whew!
Yikes, this one hurt. LOL God bless you and the family. ❤
Raymond looked like he was having a hard time breaking one off on the throne, with that thermal paste application. 🙂
LOOOOOOOOL
Fun video and I have seen this before! I wasn't lucky enough to have to try and fix!!! Though I figured it was possible with kindness and tenderness and the right amount of "It's okay, you're alright, I will take care of you!" hahahah
Great job Greg 👏 just goes to shoe most things are fixable with patience and time
This made me laugh way more than I thought it would 😅
5:25 Instructions unclear used a nice Tree House Julius IPA but it didn't clean it at all, now my motherboard smells like a hobo.
He did say good ipa…
I also believe that if you put the mobo on its side you can spray a non-residue forming electronics component cleaner into the socket so there is nothing abrasive at all touching the pins. I've had luck with that in the past. Also works tremendously on other slots if you have a motherboard covered in cigarette smoke tar shmoo.
I have to swap CPUs on a daily basis (I work at a large tech company) for validation testing. I had a CPU socket that had a small amount of thermal paste in it and tried to clean it with IPA and the same kind of brushes and had some of the bristles come loose from the brush in the socket, however I couldn't see them and wasn't aware there were bristles in the socket. I had to get one of the rework techs to use their magnifier (100X) to see the bristles and remove them. Once everything was cleaned up the board booted up without issue.
Instead of using the Q-tips on the underside of the CPU, use the brush. Also, you can spray the underside of the CPU with the IPA.
Greg, don't say to use IPA! If they're going to put thermal paste under the CPU, they may just use an India Pale Ale to clean it! 🤣
I used a ultrasonic cleaner to clean pcbs. Works like a charm. Be sure to take the MB out so you can stand the board on end and wash the residue off
"Soaked in IPA"...not to be confused with the beer.. 😂
I have learned so much from the likes of you and other pc tech tubers. Can you please do more informative videos like this? We love you greg and Co.
Thanks so much for watching! And of course!
Hey, I can say from experience I bent a few pins on my MB and didn't realize until years later when I went to add two additional sticks of RAM and a M.2 HD. I could only get the B side of the RAM to work but not the A side. I pulled the CPU off and found 4 pins bent slightly, everything else worked fine. Just saying this to ensure that all RAM slots work and all M.2 slots as well. Great Videos honestly.
Greg I was wondering…since I’ve seemed to make a huge mistake is it possible to take out a graphics card if the latch piece used to keep it held was broken. (I had to move due to the military and in my haste of getting all items around I noticed the graphics card still in but the latch was gone completely I ask since I’ve been wanting to upgrade my PC and have only just now seen the issue.) if you have a guide or video that’ll help it’s be greatly appreciated thank you.
Effit, put a power-washer to it, LOL! No, but seriously, great work, Greg, as always. A little time and patience go a long way!
I know of a few people that actually place the Motherboard in a Dishwasher and then thoroughly dry them after, they work fine.
@@johnt.848Same here!
Yep, fixed this multiple times like this. I've only ever dealt with something this bad once. Usually I've just had to deal with instances where people applied so much TIM in ended up in the socket. Another option for people that are too scared to touch the pins is some Deoxit55 or CRC electronics cleaner. That stuff can eat it up and blast it out of the socket. But you might want to hit the whole board with with an IPA bath afterwards and blow it out with compressed air.
Its reprable... repairable :D its like what i tell my friends, Dont listen to what i say, understand what i say xD
Good to see a demonstration on how to fix such a uncommon issue.
Looking forward to the next video :D
That's more than an oopsie hahaha
if you have bent pins and want to check, I found having a good top light shining down, and using a phone to take a picture from 2 different angles, the reflection from the light shows discrepancies with alignment pretty good. (played around with some old Work E-waste PC's they let me have once and dropped the CPU in)
An untested thought for cleaning, an electric dental floss using Isopropyl Alcohol instead of water may help get it out from under the pins?
Glad to see you got it working again, but there were a few things you could have done better. As you noticed yourself, throw away those brushes, they were arguably making the situation worse by shedding bristles. It would be best to use an ultra soft/super soft toothbrush or baby toothbrush, they usually also have nylon bristles and won't shed. Also better to use the brush on the CPU too instead on qtips, they tend to leave fibers on small sharp bits like the SMDs.
Secondly I would not go poking into unbent pins with a needle. To get the bristles out I would have let the socket dry first and then used a small squeezable blower to blow them out. The electric duster could work too I suppose, it's just less targeted. Maybe canned air, though that seems a bit overkill on pressure. A squeeze blower is really handy when working on small delicate stuff.
I also think using the duster to "dry" the IPA was a mistake, as it ended up spreading thermal paste residue all over the board. I would have at least put down paper towels around the socket first to contain it, but I think you could have just gently dipped the corner of a paper towel into the socket to get most of it and then wait for the rest to dry, and dry around it with paper towels.
IPA is good to get most of the thermal paste off. For the residue at the bottom you should try contact cleaner. But all in all, glad to see it worked out okay!
IMHO this vid is stupid. 98% of paste is non conductive ... I expect it to boot if the TGrizzley paste they used is non conductive. As you point out, he introduced more risk by poking around the socket... I am not a fan of Greg's technical abilities/knowledge.
I've actually had a lot of luck using Electrical Contact Cleaner, found in the automotive department in a lot of stores, to remove thermal paste. It cuts right through the paste and dries quicker, too. I've had to do multiple passes when using Isopropyl. Might be worth a look.
2:57 I mean yes. Thumb is the most important finger of our hand. Without it you won't be able to hold your precious coffee cup
Yeah, I can't say I've ever done that or needed to watch this video. But, we need to always be prepared for all situations.
I'd be curious whether the system would boot with the thermal paste in it. If it's not electrically conductive, would it be enough of a barrier between pin and pad to prevent contact? Or would it boot but potentially be less stable than if it were not gooped up?
As for cleaning the SMDs on the bottom of the CPU, an alternative might be automotive electronics contact cleaner, since it's lightly pressurized it might make cleaning small components a little easier/safer.
Could also take it to someone with an ultrasonic cleaner, take out the bios battery and take off what can be removed from the board and give it a dunk in the cleaner, that'd get it off too. Just an alternative if someone doesn't have the stomach to do this themselves.
I'm crying inside cuz of this, Greg.
Out there changing lives, making differences 🥰👍
Educational. Informative. Fun.
The paste application and "smooshing" had me cringe hard. I really enjoyed the video!
Thank you I got so frustrated at one of my builds that I just threw it all in the discard pile after I removed the heatsink and fan and went to remove the CPU but I didn't realize I got some thermal paste on my hands and I got a little bit on the pads and I am great I just ruined it. Now I know it can be cleaned so I won't loose any more money. Also don't buy the cheap recycled PCB boards they are not as strong as the new ones and will not support the big cooling towers.
It looks like bird poop. If the bird was a very small human with constipation. I was thinking wtf why is he squirting it in the centre on those caps? I'm thinking this guy works with technology and this happens. Some people are just so confused you just have to bow to the absurd. the look on his face is priceless.
Yea this is actually the preferred way. Ive built 3 systems with this method and never had an issue
I once got a free, used motherboard that "didn't work" was the only info I was given. Upon removing the heat sink, I discovered a cpu installed UPSIDE DOWN. After removing it, and straightening all of the pins, it actually ended up working just fine.
My first mb was used and came with paste in the socket. (Am4) quick dry contact cleaner made quick work of that
12:12 Remember to DAB on them chips fellas
I saw a thing recently where someone used the end of a mechanical pencil to bend pins back into position. Youd basically cover the specific pin with the end of the pencil and bend it back carefully. Seems like it would be a bit easier than using a needle. (But then again it might only work with some motherboards or CPUs. I dont know!)
I had always wondered what happened to Arctic silver paste between my first build and a 10 year or so lapsed to my second build… And then I wondered if this was a factor. Conductivity.
Greg, you just need to apply Power Switch Contact Cleaner, it will evaporate in seconds and will remove all of the thermal paste from the socket and from the processor contact.
Best method using break cleaner holding motherboards upside-down and spraying it.
I have a doubt, wouldn't the residue thermal paste in the socket be under a lot of heat? If yes this would cause it to stay "pasty" right? And due to the normal orientation that these parts (mobo and cpu) stay in a case (vertical), that "pasty" thermal paste could slide into the contact points between the pins and the pads on the cpu causing problems like not posting, etc?
Inb4 TIM and IPA are non-conductive, and IPA is cheap enough to positively bath the socket in it. I had to do this after AM4 did one of its famous somersaults back into the socket.
I didn't need brushes, and would recommend against them for LGA. You can just flood it with TIM remover followed by an IPA bath, it's cheap, don't hold back.
Thought - could you use something like a waterpik loaded with IPA to more aggressively (yet less impactfuly) clear the thermal grease?
i have a question ... Does this CPU and MOBO will better now ? Because the heat will not be that high on the CPU temperature will be lower than normal . It still have little cooling from the thermal paste . Correct me if i am wrong. So the question is , will be better if it stay a little bit of thermal paste on the pins or not at all as normal. Thank you. It make sense a little bit when you think about it. That's why i asked .
"We all know what's going on behind the scenes." I see what you did there :P
ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero X570 ATX Motherboard with PCIe 4.0, Integrated 2.5 Gbps LAN, USB 3.2, SATA, M.2, Node and Aura Sync RGB Lighting
is this a good motherboard i dont know much about boards i have been looking for bouard to upgrade my old gaming pc board but i want to buy the ryzen 9 chip later i have look at some but dont know if this is high end board or in between which ok i just don't want any budget low tier board like the one i have any way great video i learn lot but debugging hardware issue thank lot i dont have to send in unless its sofeware
I've cleaned my AM4 before with soft bristles toothbrush... Almost gave me a heart attack when I saw I've put too much paste and smeared onto the MB socket... :P
Another way to clean the socket is to tun the board around and use wd 40 electric contact cleaner spray.
I haven,t tried it but should get thermalpaste loose and doest need so much brushing.
Yea, but that has weird stuff: Hydrofluorocarbon 152a, Isopropanol, Hydrotreated Light Naphtha, Heptane
Works awesome!
with a very soft (fine tip preferably )brush and some alcohol like 99% because it disintegrates thermal paste and it leaves almost no residue behind . clean gently and rince and repeat until it is cleaned completely . let dry completely before powering on the board and be very gentle and careful not to bend pins . so it is fixable ( remedied or repairable or whatever word that can apply lol ).
Using the blower, now you have dispersed the remnants of the thermal paste all over the motherboard, so potential issues with the paste elsewhere.
Should have used absorbent towels at the sides of the socket to soak up the paste/IPA solution to prevent this.
That thermal paste on the socket post was definitely intentional for a meme post
I am crying inside because of this
Broo I remember this reddit post. This post blew up not because of an oopsie, but because it was able to boot into windows WHILE there's thermal paste between the socket and the CPU!
and this beautiful thermal paste application was apparently done by a 'computer science major' before it was sent for repairs. Also, this build didn't have a cpu cooler because the customer said he didn't know it needed one 💀
It's expected to boot :) This video of Gregs is silly ....98% of thermal paste is non conductive... What makes this extra silly is because IF you clean it, Vs just turning it on, you risk bending 1 of the 1000+ pins .. if he paid more attention to the technical things, he would never make such a silly vid
I don't know where you got those brushes but I use make up brushes for my PC cleaning and they do not shed like that.
Im crying inside, laughing outside. I still cant believe this happens
This really looked like a job for a tub of ISA and a vibratory cleaner....wonder if that woyld work? Would the ISA disolve the thermal compound enough that agitation would clear the issue?
loads of electrical contact cleaner then was away with IPA i did that years ago on a mates pc
I love that greg couldn't bring himself to do it lmao
(Screams in hexadecimal) 😱
"Don't dump Corona or Bud Light in there... IsoPropyl Alcohol... IPA..."
Oh, so I have to have an IPA? Makin' me dump my good beer to clean my CPU socket...
Your Nylon brush 🤝My head
Losing tonnes of hair every bath.
Dude this video gave me anxiety 😂
Can we appreciate the Yugioh cards in the back at 3:40
I’m wondering if taking off the cpu clamps would have helped in the cleaning part. I feel like it’s just in the way while you’re working on it. Made me cringe a big extra when the clamp fell on the needle you were using to straighten the pins lol.
A goos tip is to do it up side down. Paste will drip off because of gravity. Used this method and saved 3 boards.
. . . It might be fun to put clear silicone coating compound in the cavity underneath the bottom of the item's CPU and see if it improves cooling; lots of computer stuff and electrical stuff fill out cavity in the assembly to provide protection and cooling path for the item's components . . .
I've never taken it to those kind of extremes but only thing that works for me is to soak the socket in IPA, Spray with canned air and then gingerly finish with a toothbrush going in the direction of the pins. A microscope always helps too.
oh i saw this reddit post. it was actually a client that brought their pc to a person to fix their pc, turns out he had put the thermal pasted BETWEEN the cpu and motherboard and called the cpu cooler the cpu fan. the client was supposedly a computer science major in college if i remember correctly.
Another option would be an ultrasonic cleaner. Of course, a CPU-sized ultrasonic cleaner would be less expensive than a full ATX motherboard-sized cleaner.
This would be one for the dishwasher/sink and soft toothbrush to be followed up buy an alcohol bath for me. Heat and water action would get more of that paste out because of the thermal properties of the paste. And of course I would remove the battery first.
If you want to be real fancy you could do a heated ultrasonic bath to get rid of the paste.
For those who are saying "NO NOT WATER", it is how some brands get their boards ready after testing, and they are baked at hundreds of degrees so they should be good. The alcohol bath helps evaporated the water. It is what is often used in repair with an ultrasonic washer.
I have never hated one of your videos. Not ever. I truly enjoy them. And I understand what you are doing. But I'm also finding it next to impossible to watch this. It's like torture almost.
whats funny is when I do below ambient overclocking i stuff the cpu socket full of dielectric grease... like smothered... when you put liquid metal in your socket yorue screwed, paste will do nothing to the socket, but trying to repair it will
a perfect use case for a ultrasonic cleaner :)
I actually did this oopsie a few weeks ago. I was working late, around 3am, and I didn't know how I managed to get paste under the cpu into the socket. I was panicking and dropping f bombs, but the ipa and brushes helped. I somehow didn't bend any pins and the system posted. I didn't want to buy another i5 13400 and or motherboard lol
a soft toothbrush works perfectly tho. accidently applied to much thermal paste once and it got in the cpu socket during a cpu upgrade. just used a toothbrush. no problems after
Hi Greg, I know some people will only watch the beginning of your video. They will believe you are showing them the PROPER way to apply thermal paste.
My home repair would be filled two plastic basins with IPA then stripped the mobo of all sinks/retention brackets and dunked the whole mobo socket side down and let is sit then rinse in the second basin with clean IPA and repeat until clean if needed use a soft brush. But if you really want it cleaned maybe send it out to a repair tech and have them ultra sonic clean it in a parts washer.
At 10:20, you say that as long as the paste isn't thermally conductive, where you meant electrically.. By it's nature, it better be thermally conductive, lol.
1 Gold star for Captain obvious. Now look at your post again, find the error and next time understand how mistakes occur.
@@animalyze7120Well here's the issue, if someone doesn't know much about thermal paste, and he doesn't clarify that it needs to not be ELECTRICALLY conductive (some are, he does mention it later though), they might waste their time and effort if what they used IS electrically conductive. When working with this stuff, details matter. A mistake here could lead to someone else causing their system damage due to not understanding exactly what they're up against. If you can't understand that and are just wanting to fanboi, nothing I say is going to change that, and all I can say from here is 'good day', lol.
Question: would it have been easier to apply the paste to the bottom of the CPU instead? At least for the purposes of the video? Or am I totally missing something?
Wouldn't change much. I think we made our point either way hahah :-)
interesting approach but many needed. would have stood the board on edge and tape some platic to the board next to the cpu. keep thr run off as much as possible off the board. maybe use a proper board cleaner. Would love to see the again with a different cleaner like MG Chemicals 406B Superwash Electronics Cleaner. Not sure if it would clean better.