Thermal grease in my mobo socket pins.

nathan1987

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Well I made a noobish error. I was test fitting my CPU fan on the socket and unknowingly got thermal grease in the little holes that the CPU goes in on the motherboard. Its only in about 4 of the little holes but im wondering if its going to mess something up. If so, how could i go about fixing this?
 
I would suggest acetone, but I'm not sure what it would do to the plastic CPU socket. Maybe try a little on the socket away from the pin holes just to see if it melts it any. Acetone does a really good job of cleaning and drying without leaving residue behind.
 
Rubbing Alcohol on a q tip. Do it GENTLY, this pins need to line up EXACTLY on the CPU.
 
alright ill try this. problem is it seems the grease is IN the holes. im trying to carefully get it out with a thumbtack

Rubbing Alcohol on a q tip. Do it GENTLY, this pins need to line up EXACTLY on the CPU.

im not talking about the CPU pins, im talking about all the holes on the CPU socket that the CPU pins go into. i placed the fan to test fit over the mobo CPU socket, not knowing there was thermal grease on it.
 
I would suggest using a Q-Tip and some isopropyl alcohol to gently dab the thermal grease from the socket.
 
Try to get as much as you can out of the socket holes. I'm thinking that it could potentially mess things up although thermal paste containing silver conducts electricity (which is a good thing because we don't want to inhibit the flow of electricity out of those CPU pins). My only concern is that it won't be as electrically conductive as needed and/or will produce/conduct heat thus eventually frying the CPU and even the motherboard.

tl;dr - Clean it all out as best you can!
 
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