Did I Clean Off Thermal Paste Properly?

[derekp16]

Upon installing my new Corsair H55 Liquid Cooler in my PC I found out that maybe I did something wrong. Before you read any further you must know that nothing has happened but I'm writing this to prevent anything from happening in the future. Anyway, I took off my stock Intel CPU cooler of my Intel i7 3770k (not overclocking) and I removed the remaining thermal paste with only a few pieces of toilet paper. It seemed to do the trick and got all of the thermal paste residue off. I installed the new cooler and everything seems to be working fine. Again, I'm only writing this becuase I read that it needed alchol to clean it off and I am hoping nothing will happen in the future.

 

[Gam3r01]

You need alcohol to remove it completely. It wont really make a difference, especially if you use the same paste.
If you are replacing stock paste with something like MX-4 then it would matter moderately more.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Just keep an eye on your CPU temps. You should be ok, but ideally, you do want to clean the CPU with isopropyl alcohol and then re-apply thermal paste. As long as your temps remain normal, you shouldn't run into any issues.

-Wolf sends

 

[derekp16]

Thanks guys! Wolf, I lowered my CPU temp. from 42C at idle to around 25C. I think it should be fine. But I will take your guys' advice and now I will know better for the next build!