How to get thermal paste off, thermal tape vs. thermal paste on top of thermal tape

[opio]

So I have two gtx 760's cooled by Corsair H55's via an NZXT Kraken G10

http://i.imgur.com/noj1azZ.jpg

as you can see there are aluminum heatsinks on some of the VRAM chips, I have removed those as I am going to be putting these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

on all 8 VRAM chips (4 per GPU). I don't have any isopropyl alcohol in the house, anybody know of a way to get thermal paste off..? Should I put some arctic silver on the thermal tape that comes on those enzotech ramsinks I showed you, or just use the thermal tape only?

 

[zarugal]

Isopropyl alcohol is what I hear a lot, but you can just use dry kitchen towel and wipe until it's gone which is what I do. Takes a while, but still clears off nicely.

Just use the thermal tape only. The idea of thermal paste/tape is to act as a transfer barrier between the components surface, and the heatsink - too much thermal material will stop the heat transfer so will inhibit cooling. When it comes to applying thermal compound, the less you can use whilst getting a complete coverage of the surface that needs cooling the better - but if it comes with tape it's likely that the tape has been designed to go with those components, so will do the job properly.

 

[synphul]

I don't know of anything else that works as well as alcohol. If you haven't removed the heatsinks, might wait til you can pick some up (it's cheap). The nice thing about alcohol, not only does it effectively remove paste/residue it dries clean and leaves no residue of it's own since it evaporates. As for the enzotech sinks, if they have thermal tape pre applied, just use that. Thermal paste is only used between two metal surfaces to fill in the voids of the mated surfaces and it's a 'secondary' heat transfer method. Meaning it's not the best for transferring heat just for the sake of transferring heat. Using it on top of something else will only reduce heat transfer efficiency. Not to mention in the case of thermal tape, it will interfere with the tape and won't allow it to bond properly. They use the tape since it's sticky to adhere to the chips as an alternative to retention brackets/screws. Thermal paste on it's own isn't sticky but used under coolers that use mounting brackets, the brackets retain the heatsink/cooler so the tim material doesn't have to be adhesive.

 

[opio]

thank you for the thorough explanation

 

[Calvin3200]

You'll want to use Isopropyl alcohol, and you can get that basically anywhere band-aids are sold. You do NOT want to use any sort of paper towel, little bits and pieces of paper can easily come off and you'll run the POSSIBILITY of leaving some lint behind or stuck in the paste.

The best thing to use to wipe the paste off is coffee filters (coffee filters are lint free). Just apply some of the alcohol to the filter and rub off the existing paste - repeat until there is no residue left behind on either surface.

Fast forward to the 3:05 mark - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDLQ7FjPMf8

 

[opio]

I was able to get them off by using a credit card to protect the PCB and a flathead screwdriver to pry them off, go all 8 of my ram sinks installed now. Thanks everybody!