Cleaning RAMchips and other surfaces
 

So i did some experimenting, and thought I would give you my findings. I used to be lazy, and just use papertowell, which worked OK. Then I started getting more concerned with the best possible contact, so started with Rubbing alcohol and coffee filters. That method worked perfect, until I took the cooler off my 8800GTX, and had to clean those pesky RAMchips! After fighting and fighting with them, I finnaly pulled out an old microfibre cloth from a pair of sunglasses, to give it a try. To my amazment, with only a little rubbing alcohol, it cleaned them up perfectly in no time. What a difference the cloth makes!

In conclusion, coffee filters are great for CPU's and heatsinks, but no match for the microfibre cloth when it comes to chipsets and ram! If you have any other methods, enlighten us!

I use alcohol wipes for everything. The ones that come with the lil cloth like a wetnap intended for cleaning lcds and such.

Ah smart! How long do they last? Cause I would think they would tear and break apart after a few chips?

They are 1 use, I have a big box of em individually packaged.

Man- those mosfets and ramsinks on the 8800's are hell- the TIM one the stock GPU coolers use must be pretty damned greasy because I cleaned and cleaned last time with 100% alcohol and still couldn't get all of the heatsinks to stick. That's why I just bought a full coverage stealth- tired of those little buggers falling off everytime I swap some parts out. I know I could've used the adhesive but I'd like to be able to RMA the card if I had to. Funny though- the newer Swiftech mosfet sinks have a silver sticky TIM instead of the white stuff they had before- must be an improvement because they stick pretty good.

Yah, at first I attached the ramsinks with the stiky pads they had, but they just would not stick. Got some Arctic adhesive, they're not going anywhere now!

AFAIC nothing, and I mean nothing cleans hard-to-reach surfaces better than a good soaking with an aerosol contact cleaner. Probably not the most environmentally friendly solution, but it does seem to do the trick.

Yeah, electronics cleaner is what I use on boards usually. Tools for the sub zero bencher:

http://members.shaw.ca/zryan/dice-1.JPG

:)

Arctic clean, Q-tips (Cotton swabs) and paper towel. Thats what i always used and it always worked fine.

Ah-- liquid electrical tape- does that keep condensation at bay?