Thermal paste on Inspiron

Hi all,

I am trying to replace the thermal pad with thermal paste on my old Inspiron 9300. I have removed the pad from the heat sink, however, there's a black cover over the chip. Is this part of the thermal pad ? Should I remove it or leave it alone ? (See attached image).

Thanks

 

The actual CPU is the bit in the middle. The rest is just the packaging which has to be big enough for the innumerable pins that connect to the CPU to the socket. Just make sure that you have a good thermal connection between the CPU and the heat sink.

John

 

Looks like the cpu (the small square in the middle) still has some stuff left on it from the thermal pad. make sure you clean that off. use a good 90+% rubbing alcohol or nail polish remover. (if you use nail polish remover, use the basic type, don't use any that has moisturizers or special scents built in)

 

This is not the CPU which is on the left), this is the chip on the right, GPU, I guess. Regardless, you have answered the question. I will leave that in there.

I am getting the ArctiClean1 and ArctiClean2 solutions. I didn't know if I could use rubbing alcohol to remove it. I have never attempted this before, so, it's exciting

Thanks for the replies.

 

Rubbing alcohol works fine... been using it for years. Sometimes you have to really get in there and scratch the old stuff off. The black thing is there to prevent paste from touching any on-die components, so if you do a clean pasting job, you can usually remove it.

 

I actually recommend at least 99% anhydrous alcohol to clean off GPU/CPU. Or the Arctic Clean is some good stuff.