Got told I was cleaning heat sinks wrong and it saved me a ton of time

A guy at a shop in Omaha watched me scrape thermal paste off a CPU with a coffee filter and he just shook his head. He told me to use a plastic spudger first to get the big chunks, then finish with 91% isopropyl and a lint free cloth. I figured it was a waste of steps but after trying it I realized I was smearing paste around for way too long before. Now a job that used to take me 10 minutes to clean up takes maybe 3. Plus I stopped worrying about little filter fibers getting stuck in the socket pins. Anyone else got a simple tool swap that cut their bench time down?

2 comments

2 Comments

willow_martin15h ago

Honestly I was the same way. I always thought scraping with the coffee filter was fine until I tried the spudger method and felt like an idiot for wasting all that time before. Night and day difference for sure.

james_butler10h ago

Hate that feeling of wasting time on something that works but is terrible. It's funny how such a small change can make you feel like you've been living in the dark ages.