Artic Silver ArtiClean on motherboard

Question

So I think I messed up today. Because I was experiencing severe fps drops on my three year old Alienware m14x r2, I decided to clean it out with compressed air and repaste the thermal paste (with IC Diamond 7). It was my first time doing this, heck, it was my first time opening up and dissasembling a laptop.

Altough I tried to be as careful as I could be (including using an anti-static mat and wrist band), I fear that I have just killed my machine. As you can see here, the OEM paste was really messy and a real PITA to get off. I used Artic Silver ArtiClean to get it off and I'm sure that some (read: a lot) of both solutions got on the side of the chips and onto the motherboard. I also managed to somehow get some near the ram slots. I've indicated this in blue on this picture. I also spilled some on the headphone jack like this, not my picture: i.imgur.com/Mu5lkYx.jpg, and probably also all over the board because of the strap getting in the way and me making a mess of it.

The ArtiClean product is comprised of two solutions, the remover and the purifier.
The remover contains:

• D-Limonene
• Methyl Esters of Soybean Oil
• Non-Ionic Surfactant.

The purifier contains:

• Dipropylene Glycol Monomethyl Ether
• Azole- Triazole Inhibitor
• Proprietary Inhibitor (non-Hazmat, TSCA listed)

(As found on the MSDS documents).

I've since then applied the thermal paste and screwed the heatsink back on.

Will this have damaged my motherboard? Is there anything I should do? As I'm in finals I'm perfectly fine with letting it dry a month or two, even more if that's what it takes, I just don't want to throw away my $1500 machine :-(.

Answer 1

The biggest issue might be some of the chemicals that do not evaporate quickly: e.g. Dipropylene Glycol Monomethyl Ether (b.p. ~190 C), esterified soy oil etc. Though the chemicals were probably nonconductive per se, they may be hygroscopic (picking up water from the air) and certainly would adhere dust. If you believe some got between parts and the circuit board, you might try to gently remove them:

1. Use bibulous paper (aka absorbent paper towel) to wipe and to wick away as much junk as possible.

2. You might try washing the contaminated parts of the board with a pure solvent that will not attack the board or components, but it is has risks. For example, ethyl ether is a solvent that evaporates very rapidly, is comparatively nontoxic but is highly flammable, often causing flames to flash back to a container and setting it on fire, as well. Methyl chloride is an effective solvent but is quite toxic and might attack plastics. For those reasons, unless you're under the guidance of an experienced technician, I would not recommend using solvents.

So rather than doing further damage, you might best take the machine to someone who services them and can remove the glop, or you can take a chance and close it up, hoping it will work and not accumulate a conductive layer on the PCB.