How To Clean Cpu Pins From Thermal Paste

i was putting in new thermal paste on my i5 2550k processor and i had some old thermal paste on fingers and i accidentaly touched the bottom
part of the CPU where the golden pins are and it left a little thermal paste stain, it is a very small amount and can barely be seen.
my PC seems to be working fine atm
Should i be worried?

https://eu.coolermaster.com/en/cooling/thermal-compound/mastergel/

this is the thermal paste i used

Last edited: Oct 17, 2018

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

+1 to cleaning it off and use isopropyl alcohol to do it.

Frick

Fishfaced Nincompoop

But if he tried to clean the pins he will damage them!?

How? Alcohol and metal mix perfectly well.

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

A very small amount, i tried to brush it off gently with my shirt, but there's still a little stain that can be seen, maybe someone with a worse eyesight wouldnt even notice,

It's hard to say whether to clean it or not. On the one hand I'm inclined to agree with @Bill_Bright and say leave it, but if you're overclocking, then it might make a difference. I'm thinking about the kinds of pins they are. If they're power or ground, then they'll be passing a lot of current, so any extra resistance will cause heat build-up and potential burnout, as well as instability.

If you're gonna clean it, then use that isopropyl alcohol I mentioned, but ensure it's with a clean lint free cloth, not your shirt or some other cloth lying around as that will leave debris and crap on the pins, even too small to see, but it will matter.

Clean it or not, it's your call on this one.

Finally, isopropyl alcohol is poisonous, so use it sensibly in a well ventilated environment and on no account ingest it.

For the benefit of others who stumble upon this via Google, I also did the same silly thing after I put too much by accident. I used Arcticlean remover by putting a drop on a cotton bud / q-tip and carefully dabbing the area in the corner with it a few times, in-between using a dust blower to dry it and blow any microscopic debris away. Did this for 5 minutes, then applied the Arcticlean purifier to remove everything afterwards, same method. Repeated the whole thing twice and crossed my fingers, luckily escaped with no issues. Temps are fine, Intel Diagnostic tool reports fine, used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut instead of Arctic Silver this time, spreading method.