Should I clean it

ansin

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Nov 9, 2014
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Yesterday I reapplied my thermal paste, because I knew I had previously put on too much, and when I took out the cpu cooler it was indeed too much. Some of it fell on the cpu PCB(it is Arctic Cooling MX-4 so non electrical inductive).

I cleaned the cpu as best as I could without removing it and placed new thermal paste, installed cooler, booted and all was fine. But today I got my new CPU cooler and will be mounting it, so I will again clean the cpu to apply the new paste from noctua that came with the cooler.
My question is, should I bother to cleanup the pcb/area around the cpu lid of thermal paste ? That would require to remove it from the socket. What should I use as tool (other than alcohol) because I think there are some little pins or something on that side of the pcb. Here as some photos where the paste fell off. The area is marked in the stock photo.

I would very much like to avoid damaging any pins on the pcb and stuff.
http://imgur.com/a/aLOmP
 

sirstinky

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Aug 17, 2012
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That is a very dark picture, but to answer your question, unless it got on the CPU socket pins, it's fine to clean it with a cotton swab with some alcohol. The PCB's are pretty resilient, but be gentle. Don't touch inside the CPU socket.