Any suggestions on how to clean the silicon slime off a processor so it can be used again on another motherboard. My 1.4 Athlon is currently attached to a smoked mobo and I want to clean it and use it to upgrade a friend's PC (currently a 700Mhz). Any suggestions would be welcome.

uh...depending on what part of your mobo "smoked"...that cpu could be damaged. If this is the case, then that cpu could "smoke" your buddy's mobo too...

As far as cleaning goes...I'd try gasoline or bleach...
(I have no flippin' clue)

-Paco

North bridge smoked, as far as I can tell.

To clean a processor for future use, you'll need some form of 90%+ (I'd recommend 99%) Isopropyl alcohol, WD-40, & two clean/soft rags (may also want Q-Tips if you're being sloppy and need to clean up more).

1. Spray the WD40 to a rag. Wipe top of processor die until you can read it once again. Repeat with underside of heatsink. Surfaces should be extremely smooth when finished.

2. On second rag, apply alcohol, wipe the WD-40 off. Take your time here since WD-40, being oily, is a conductor. The alcohol removes the grease.

This is the absolute quickest and highest quality way of removing old thermal goo.

WD-40 is also flammable; so you might want to let it sit for awhile before using it. =]

Hopefully you'd never be using enough of it that it would ignite, but you do have to worry about the thermal resistance from the CPU to the heatsink. You really just want to use a small amount of wd-40, just enough that it makes it easy to wipe the gunk off. I've heard of people just plain using the alcohol to do this, and I've tried it, and it seems very tedious.

apicek wrote:

WD-40 is also flammable; so you might want to let it sit for awhile before using it. =]