Accidentally put some thermal paste on backside of cpu

cresil

Honorable
Dec 26, 2012
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10,530
i was lifting the cpu and there was a little thermal paste, {arctic silver 5} on my hands and it got on the backside of the cpu on the yellow things. i wiped it off but without rubbing alcohol, and now there is a smudge on it that I can't get off.
Is the cpu going to be ok or do i need to clean it again with alcohol. I am already using now aswell.
 
Solution
With rubbing alcohol and a non lint cloth it should come right off. You want to be careful though you don't want to scratch the contact pads.


I'm guessing this is an Intel CPU since it would be pretty hard to get thermal paste cleaned from in between all those pins on an AMD CPU. Can you take a picture and post it.
 


Artic Silver 5 is NOT conductive but it is capacitive. There is a difference. This is right from the manufactures website:

Not Electrically Conductive:
Arctic Silver 5 was formulated to conduct heat, not electricity.
(While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.)