[SOLVED] Thermal paste underneath cpu pins

[raywestnit]

Hey guys accidentally put a little bit of thermal paste underneath like 4 or 5 pins on the side is this safe? Or should I remove it? And If I do need to remove it what's the safest way to do it?

https://imgur.com/a/4L3qu8S

View: http://imgur.com/gallery/4L3qu8S

 

[helpstar]

use a brush and isopropyl alcohol to remove it. Once in the CPU socket, this can get you problems.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Hey guys accidentally put a little bit of thermal paste underneath like 4 or 5 pins on the side is this safe? Or should I remove it? And If I do need to remove it what's the safest way to do it?

https://imgur.com/a/4L3qu8S

View: http://imgur.com/gallery/4L3qu8S

You can easily enough clean it, but just so you know I've had far worse on mine with no problems.

If you watch some of GamerNexus' videos on the 'Tube you can see what his test motherboards look like. TLDW: they're smeared all over with excess thermal paste because he installs/removes so many setups when testing. I seem to remember one video he demonstrated how benign the stuff is by applying some directly to the socket of a motherboard, installing a CPU and running it (NOT that it's recommended, at all).

Only the conductive 'liquid metal' type of thermal paste is something to worry about...which is very uncommon. And also hard to clean off; if you contaminate the CPU pins with that stuff it's highly likely you'd never get it clean enough to run again.

 

[SamirD]

use a brush and isopropyl alcohol to remove it. Once in the CPU socket, this can get you problems.

And if it's already hardened, use a toothpick to just 'chip away' what's there and then finish with the brush, etc.