Removing thermal compound

I am installing a new Arctic 64 Pro tomorrow and i dont know if i need to remove my cpu to clean off the old paste or not ? i got the remover from Tuniq and new compound. Any help would be great. There will probly be instructions but i dont know for sure.

You should not need to remove the CPU. Work carefully from the outside inward to the center of the CPU.

You don't need to remove the actual CPU. Turn the 4 pins on the present CPU co9oler and gently pull up on each of the 4 pins. The cooler should seperate with a bit of wiggling etc.

The CPU will have the gunk on it. Use qtips to get the gunk off, use a paper towel to clean the cpu off on the flat area, a bit of standard house isopropyl alcohol on is fine. Then use the fancy cleaning stuff for the last clean/wipedown, and put the paste on per directions.

You should remove the whole mobo for this operation, but it's up to you.

Thank you everyone. I have a removable moboo tray so that will make it easier. Cant wait to get my new cooler on !

What method did you use to spread the thmeral CPU compound?

i use the 2 part, cleaner and surface purifier. i use coffee filters, they work the best, they don't leave fibers. i never remove the cpu when i clean them i find it easier. and you need it to run through several thermal cycles for the compound to properly set up, i think as5 is like 200 therm cycles or something like that

So i took it off, cleaned it again and this time used about a pea sized drop of compound in the middle of the cpu. Temps still not dropping. I pt the cooler in with the fan facing the front of my case. Is that the right way? Its an Arctic 64 Pro. Maybe im just expecting too much? My PII 720 is oc'ed to 3.1Mhz with just a bump in the multiplier. I am afraid to go higher cuz i hit 62c after twenty minutes at load.

You might want to try something like Arctic Silver Arcti Clean. That stuff really helped me get all the goonk off my CPU. Its nice to start fresh without any residue.

Man i will tell you what, i cleaned the hell out of that crap with isopropyl and the tuniq-2 stuff. i have been gone for 4 hrs. and its been idling at cpu 46c and all cores at 32c. as far as everest says. i just dont know.

Hsf was a clip style. No pins or screws. Just line up hooks and push the lever down. Its an Arctic 64 Pro on a Phenom II 720.