[SOLVED] About little marks and scratches on the CPU

[SilverPigtail]

Hi!

Today I was disassembling my computer becasue I'm going yo change my motherboard. When I extract my CPU (i7-8700k), and cleaned the thermal paste, I noticed some marks in the cover of the CPU, like little scratches. My CPU is 3 years old and never got temperature problems, are these marks normal?

Thank you.

 

[idkwhattonamethisacc]

Seems pretty normal to me, ive seen dirtier cpus than that (mostly because i deal with lga 775) it usually seems to be caused by thermal paste so no worries if your cpu gets dirty, if you crack the die then that would be bad news (death) but if you nicked the ihs then its completely fine execpt for potentially lower resale value due to the dirth ihs xD even then no one is gonna buy that unless if it were 150-100$

 

[R_1]

Welcome to the forums

While not ideal on the heat spreader (the plate on the top of the CPU the paste goes onto) the rols of thermal paste is to fill those imperfections. the actual CPU is under that heatplate and any slight damage to the plate, scratches and such are not damage to the CPU. Clean it, paste it and your fine.

 

[SilverPigtail]

Seems pretty normal to me, ive seen dirtier cpus than that (mostly because i deal with lga 775) it usually seems to be caused by thermal paste so no worries if your cpu gets dirty, if you crack the die then that would be bad news (death) but if you nicked the ihs then its completely fine execpt for potentially lower resale value due to the dirth ihs xD even then no one is gonna buy that unless if it were 150-100$

Welcome to the forums

While not ideal on the heat spreader (the plate on the top of the CPU the paste goes onto) the rols of thermal paste is to fill those imperfections. the actual CPU is under that heatplate and any slight damage to the plate, scratches and such are not damage to the CPU. Clean it, paste it and your fine.

So, it is pretty normal and is not damaged at all?

 

[R_1]

tis but a scratch in the armor. the soft and squishy inside is fine. 👍

 

[SilverPigtail]

tis but a scratch in the armor. the soft and squishy inside is fine. 👍

And sorry for quoting you again, did you have some CPU with scratches or marks like that before?

Thank you so much for your support.

P.D: this shouldn't affect to the OC right?

 

[CountMike]

And sorry for quoting you again, did you have some CPU with scratches or marks like that before?

Thank you so much for your support.

P.D: this shouldn't affect to the OC right?

Even worst scratches are 0.0001% of surface but they also fill up with TIM paste so no great loss. I have seen some really bad ones but with less than 1c difference in temperatures,

 

[R_1]

And sorry for quoting you again, did you have some CPU with scratches or marks like that before?

Thank you so much for your support.

P.D: this shouldn't affect to the OC right?

no worries. My old 955 black was pretty messed up by the time it got to me. I could not make out the writing on the heatspreader, but it worked like a champ for a further 9 years. My Ryzen 1500x is the first Brand Spanking new CPU I've had since my P4 northwood core.

as to overclocking that heatspreader is a bout 1/16 of an inch thick. back in the day we used to Lap CPUs. we'd take a mirror (perfectly flat) and use fine sandpaper to take the finish off the heat plate and take it down to the copper. Many CPU's died in this process due to bent pins from careless users but I digress you have been warned.

Lapping your CPU: a handy guide – Brandon Foltz

that article is to give you an idea of what that heatspreader can take, I do not a suggest lapping the unit.
proper thermal paste and the OC will not change at all. the second part of the word heatspreader is spreader, it ensures that any hot spots are much larger than any scratches and that alleviates any issues your afraid of.

clean it, paste it, enjoy it.

 

[SilverPigtail]

no worries. My old 955 black was pretty messed up by the time it got to me. I could not make out the writing on the heatspreader, but it worked like a champ for a further 9 years. My Ryzen 1500x is the first Brand Spanking new CPU I've had since my P4 northwood core.

as to overclocking that heatspreader is a bout 1/16 of an inch thick. back in the day we used to Lap CPUs. we'd take a mirror (perfectly flat) and use fine sandpaper to take the finish off the heat plate and take it down to the copper. Many CPU's died in this process due to bent pins from careless users but I digress you have been warned.

Lapping your CPU: a handy guide – Brandon Foltz

that article is to give you an idea of what that heatspreader can take, I do not a suggest lapping the unit.
proper thermal paste and the OC will not change at all. the second part of the word heatspreader is spreader, it ensures that any hot spots are much larger than any scratches and that alleviates any issues your afraid of.

clean it, paste it, enjoy it.

Got it!

And one last thing (about the paste), when I was cleaning it I noticed there was a Tony amount of thermal paste un te connectors, this scared me, but with a cotton but (without alcohol) I cleaned it and now looks fine. The CPU shouldn't break if did this glently right?

This is how the termal paste was, I expect that it didn't affect the CPU.

 

[R_1]

your good.

 

[Karadjgne]

Scratches like that are usually caused by the paste and/or scrubbing or cleaning. There's been documented occurances of contaminants in many pastes, even Thermal Grizzly. Arctic Silver 5 is very common to create scratches after its fully cured and dried out and owners beat the cpu silly trying to get it off.