**The Great Thermal Compound Removal Experiment**

In this experiment, we set out to test various household items and commercial products to see which ones would effectively remove thermal compound from our CPU cooler. We used a variety of substances, including beer, vodka, hand sanitizer, Windex, distilled water, coffee filters, nail polish remover, vinegar, Coke, and orange juice.

**The Initial Results**

We started by testing some household items that we thought might work well for removing thermal compound. Beer was one of the first items we tested, but unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to our expectations. Almost all of it stayed on the heatsink, leaving us with a sticky mess. We also tried Windex, which performed okay, but left a significant residue behind.

**The Hand Sanitizer Test**

We were surprised by how well hand sanitizer performed in this experiment. It's an alcohol-based sanitizer, and we expected it to work well. And indeed, it did! So there's at least one household item that would work quite well for removing thermal compound. We're glad we gave hand sanitizer a try.

**The Distilled Water Disaster**

Distilled water was actually the worst performer in this experiment. It didn't seem to make any difference and only left us with a gooey mess on our hands.

**The Coffee Filter Clean-Up**

We then tried using a coffee filter as a cleaning tool, hoping that it would pick up some of the thermal compound residue. Unfortunately, almost nothing seemed to stick to the filter, leaving us with no real results from this test.

**The Nail Polish Remover Test**

Next, we tried using nail polish remover, which is also an acetone-based product. We expected it to perform well, and indeed it did! So if you're looking for a way to remove thermal compound, nail polish remover might be worth trying.

**The Coke Experiment**

We then decided to test Coke, hoping that its acidity would help dissolve the thermal compound. And while it didn't work as well as we had hoped, it was still surprisingly effective. We were surprised by how well Coke performed in this experiment!

**The Orange Juice Test**

Next up was orange juice, which also worked quite well. It's another acidic substance that seemed to break down the thermal compound easily.

**The Vinegar Test**

We then tried using vinegar as a cleaning agent, hoping that its acidity would help dissolve the thermal compound. Unfortunately, it didn't work as well as we had hoped, and barely removed any of the residue.

**The Isopropyl Alcohol Test**

Finally, we tested isopropyl alcohol, which is a common solvent used in electronics cleaning products. We expected it to perform very well, and indeed it did! So if you're looking for a reliable way to remove thermal compound, isopropyl alcohol might be worth trying.

**The MX4 Test**

After the isopropyl alcohol test, we moved on to testing MX4, a thermal compound remover specifically designed for electronics. We were surprised by how well it performed, and nearly everything worked extremely well with MX4. We're glad we gave it a try!

**The Vodka Test**

We then tried using vodka as a cleaning agent, hoping that its acidity would help dissolve the thermal compound. And to our surprise, it actually worked quite well! So if you're looking for an alternative to isopropyl alcohol or MX4, vodka might be worth trying.

**The Golden Standard: Isopropyl 99**

Finally, we tested isopropyl 99%, which is a common cleaning agent used in electronics. We expected it to perform very well, and indeed it did! So if you're looking for the most reliable way to remove thermal compound, isopropyl 99% is the way to go.

**The Elbow Grease Method**

In addition to these commercial products, we also found that good old-fashioned elbow grease can be a effective method for removing thermal compound. We used this method to clean up our CPU cooler and were able to remove most of the residue with just a cloth and some soap.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, we've learned that when it comes to removing thermal compound from your CPU cooler, there are many different methods and products that can be effective. While some household items may not work as well as others, they can still be useful in a pinch. And if you're looking for the most reliable way to remove thermal compound, isopropyl 99% or MX4 might be worth trying.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enokay so you ask anyone on the internet what's the best thermal compound what's the best way to apply it to get a thousand different answers because there's everything from garbage like this all the way up to high-end compounds full of silver and and diamonds and all kinds of that crap but what everybody seems to pretty much agree on is how to remove it grab some 99 isopropyl alcohol got like tricks slap that on your cpu and bam thermal compound's gone but we thought to ourselves you know what conventional wisdom's not good enough for us so we got you guys 15 different solvents to find out which one truly removes thermal compound better than anything else the ripjaws km 570 mechanical keyboard from g-skill features full rgb a simple design cherry mx switches and more check it out now at the link below okay so you're probably thinking to yourself come on linus the reason we don't debate this is we already know the best way to remove thermal compound but picture this okay it's late at night you got the big match tomorrow you're building up your rig you're ready to go except oh no there's no solvent it turns out earlier in the day little johnny took all the rubbing alcohol poured it all over his skinned knee and now you've got nothing left so you're rummaging around in the kitchen the pantry the bathroom and you come together with a list of stuff that looks a little something like this we've got 100 orange juice we've got beer we've got distilled water goo gone vinegar more beer windex hydrogen peroxide absolute vodka vodka whatever you know what it is we've got nail polish remover alcohol-based hand sanitizer coke isopropyl at 70 and 99 concentrations and finally arctic silver's fancy expensive arctic clean surface preparation and we're going to be testing each of them on the two major types of thermal compounds the more runny kind and the more kind of particulate kind okay so we're going to start with icy diamond and the methodology is pretty simple we take the thermal compound we go and with a clean cpu and heatsink we apply the usual grain of rice sized boop there you go and slap our nhu 12s cooler on top of it once it's screwed in all the way we give it the old wiggle to make sure it's uh fully spread out and leave it for a minute or two then we take off the cooler you can see how this is gonna get pretty old pretty fast and there we have it a dirty cpu now the original plan was to take our solvents and kind of uh dump them onto the cpu and then we realized oh yeah that's uh that's probably gonna make a bit of a mess hold on so as a compromise we settled on using the heatsink as our test surface with the thermal compound smear covered we left each one for 60 to 120 seconds to allow the solvent to do its work after the waiting period we wiped each one five times without applying too much force we're evaluating how well the solvent works not how hard we can press down on a heatsink then to test we take something very clean very fine so a coffee filter in this case wipe it off and boom that is how we collect our results for each solvent on each type of compound okay we are done screwdrivers down and we have the results okay most of them are not very surprising but some of them are basically here's how the grading works if there's anything on the coffee filter that's a fail so hydrogen peroxide i was expecting another topical sanitizer to do well no not so much beer epic fail almost all of it stayed on the heatsink windex this one performed okay it did leave a significant residue though so we'll call that a c minus hand sanitizer so it is an alcohol-based sanitizer and this actually performed really well so there's at least one household item that would work quite well distilled water was actually the worst not good for cleaning off your cpu goo gone though excellent result here we've got almost i would say nothing on our coffee filter arc to clean i mean this is a purpose designed uh cleaner so this one performed perfectly as well and nail polish remover this one came in really well remember this is an acetone based one though i wouldn't expect the same results from a regular one vodka okay guys so if you gotta clean your cpu with alcohol go with the vodka not with the beer here's our isopropyl alcohol i think we've put an end once and for all to the debate 70 versus 99 we're going with doesn't frickin matter coke was basically tied with water and you get kind of a urine stain looking thing on your uh on your paper towel and the same goes with orange juice except even more urine finally we've got vinegar which worked actually much worse than i expected barely removing any of it and finally the golden standard isopropyl 99 oh that was fun now let's do it all over again with mx4 here we go wow yep okay the intent was to use a thermal compound that's a lot thinner and mission freaking accomplished there here we go okay okay here we go last one whoa three four five wow the beer actually performed shockingly well with mx4 okay let's get all the other results out here and do the whole roundup then so for a thin compound like mx4 freaking almost everything worked astonishingly okay well that's isopropyl 99 we expected that to work but vodka clean vinegar okay we got a couple little flecks there but basically clean beer beer worked hand sanitizer windex everything's got just like you know what we would consider a negligible okay coke didn't work especially well but arc to clean absolutely flawless that one looks great here nail polish remover perfect distilled water sheesh hydrogen peroxide perfect that was an epic fail first time around 70 isopropyl looking pretty good even orange juice worked what leading us to coke which also worked so the obvious question here then is what could possibly go wrong while removing a thin compound like mx4 and let me show you you can pull the cpu out of the socket when you go to lift the heat sink off i had just done another mount so that i could what is that 1800x oh terrible okay anyway the point is i had done a final one so i could do a live demo of how while what we've discovered is that some household agents would work to remove thermal compound another perfectly viable method in a pinch is straight up elbow grease so here's one two three four five of those and a coffee filter and there's really not a whole lot left so there you have it guys how to remove thermal compound everything from super sensible ways all the way to stuff that makes no sense whatsoever and how well they all worked thank you for watching and please pray for our 1800x is always so confusing to me when i'm at the supermarket and i see people spending way too much on shaving cartridges no no dollar shave club is the way to go and for a limited time new members get their first month of the executive razor with a tube of dr carver shave butter for only five bucks with free shipping after that your new razors are just a few bucks a month and you'll already have the nice weighty handle for the executive there are no hidden fees and no commitments you can cancel any time you like we've been working with dollar shave club for like four years now at this point never any complaints so start using it today get a great shave at a great price delivered right to your home head over to dollarshaveclub.com linus and give them a try today we'll have that linked down below so thanks again for watching guys if you dislike this video you can hit that dislike button but if you liked it hit the like button get subscribed maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description as a summary uh if you're going for thermal compound removal we're thinking maybe the isopropyl alcohol or the goo gone or arc to clean if you're just like a mad baller and you like to you know whatever spend a lot of money on removing thermal compound uh also down there you'll find a link to our t-shirt store as well as a link to our community forum which you should totally join you can go talk tech including how stupid this test was right over thereokay so you ask anyone on the internet what's the best thermal compound what's the best way to apply it to get a thousand different answers because there's everything from garbage like this all the way up to high-end compounds full of silver and and diamonds and all kinds of that crap but what everybody seems to pretty much agree on is how to remove it grab some 99 isopropyl alcohol got like tricks slap that on your cpu and bam thermal compound's gone but we thought to ourselves you know what conventional wisdom's not good enough for us so we got you guys 15 different solvents to find out which one truly removes thermal compound better than anything else the ripjaws km 570 mechanical keyboard from g-skill features full rgb a simple design cherry mx switches and more check it out now at the link below okay so you're probably thinking to yourself come on linus the reason we don't debate this is we already know the best way to remove thermal compound but picture this okay it's late at night you got the big match tomorrow you're building up your rig you're ready to go except oh no there's no solvent it turns out earlier in the day little johnny took all the rubbing alcohol poured it all over his skinned knee and now you've got nothing left so you're rummaging around in the kitchen the pantry the bathroom and you come together with a list of stuff that looks a little something like this we've got 100 orange juice we've got beer we've got distilled water goo gone vinegar more beer windex hydrogen peroxide absolute vodka vodka whatever you know what it is we've got nail polish remover alcohol-based hand sanitizer coke isopropyl at 70 and 99 concentrations and finally arctic silver's fancy expensive arctic clean surface preparation and we're going to be testing each of them on the two major types of thermal compounds the more runny kind and the more kind of particulate kind okay so we're going to start with icy diamond and the methodology is pretty simple we take the thermal compound we go and with a clean cpu and heatsink we apply the usual grain of rice sized boop there you go and slap our nhu 12s cooler on top of it once it's screwed in all the way we give it the old wiggle to make sure it's uh fully spread out and leave it for a minute or two then we take off the cooler you can see how this is gonna get pretty old pretty fast and there we have it a dirty cpu now the original plan was to take our solvents and kind of uh dump them onto the cpu and then we realized oh yeah that's uh that's probably gonna make a bit of a mess hold on so as a compromise we settled on using the heatsink as our test surface with the thermal compound smear covered we left each one for 60 to 120 seconds to allow the solvent to do its work after the waiting period we wiped each one five times without applying too much force we're evaluating how well the solvent works not how hard we can press down on a heatsink then to test we take something very clean very fine so a coffee filter in this case wipe it off and boom that is how we collect our results for each solvent on each type of compound okay we are done screwdrivers down and we have the results okay most of them are not very surprising but some of them are basically here's how the grading works if there's anything on the coffee filter that's a fail so hydrogen peroxide i was expecting another topical sanitizer to do well no not so much beer epic fail almost all of it stayed on the heatsink windex this one performed okay it did leave a significant residue though so we'll call that a c minus hand sanitizer so it is an alcohol-based sanitizer and this actually performed really well so there's at least one household item that would work quite well distilled water was actually the worst not good for cleaning off your cpu goo gone though excellent result here we've got almost i would say nothing on our coffee filter arc to clean i mean this is a purpose designed uh cleaner so this one performed perfectly as well and nail polish remover this one came in really well remember this is an acetone based one though i wouldn't expect the same results from a regular one vodka okay guys so if you gotta clean your cpu with alcohol go with the vodka not with the beer here's our isopropyl alcohol i think we've put an end once and for all to the debate 70 versus 99 we're going with doesn't frickin matter coke was basically tied with water and you get kind of a urine stain looking thing on your uh on your paper towel and the same goes with orange juice except even more urine finally we've got vinegar which worked actually much worse than i expected barely removing any of it and finally the golden standard isopropyl 99 oh that was fun now let's do it all over again with mx4 here we go wow yep okay the intent was to use a thermal compound that's a lot thinner and mission freaking accomplished there here we go okay okay here we go last one whoa three four five wow the beer actually performed shockingly well with mx4 okay let's get all the other results out here and do the whole roundup then so for a thin compound like mx4 freaking almost everything worked astonishingly okay well that's isopropyl 99 we expected that to work but vodka clean vinegar okay we got a couple little flecks there but basically clean beer beer worked hand sanitizer windex everything's got just like you know what we would consider a negligible okay coke didn't work especially well but arc to clean absolutely flawless that one looks great here nail polish remover perfect distilled water sheesh hydrogen peroxide perfect that was an epic fail first time around 70 isopropyl looking pretty good even orange juice worked what leading us to coke which also worked so the obvious question here then is what could possibly go wrong while removing a thin compound like mx4 and let me show you you can pull the cpu out of the socket when you go to lift the heat sink off i had just done another mount so that i could what is that 1800x oh terrible okay anyway the point is i had done a final one so i could do a live demo of how while what we've discovered is that some household agents would work to remove thermal compound another perfectly viable method in a pinch is straight up elbow grease so here's one two three four five of those and a coffee filter and there's really not a whole lot left so there you have it guys how to remove thermal compound everything from super sensible ways all the way to stuff that makes no sense whatsoever and how well they all worked thank you for watching and please pray for our 1800x is always so confusing to me when i'm at the supermarket and i see people spending way too much on shaving cartridges no no dollar shave club is the way to go and for a limited time new members get their first month of the executive razor with a tube of dr carver shave butter for only five bucks with free shipping after that your new razors are just a few bucks a month and you'll already have the nice weighty handle for the executive there are no hidden fees and no commitments you can cancel any time you like we've been working with dollar shave club for like four years now at this point never any complaints so start using it today get a great shave at a great price delivered right to your home head over to dollarshaveclub.com linus and give them a try today we'll have that linked down below so thanks again for watching guys if you dislike this video you can hit that dislike button but if you liked it hit the like button get subscribed maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description as a summary uh if you're going for thermal compound removal we're thinking maybe the isopropyl alcohol or the goo gone or arc to clean if you're just like a mad baller and you like to you know whatever spend a lot of money on removing thermal compound uh also down there you'll find a link to our t-shirt store as well as a link to our community forum which you should totally join you can go talk tech including how stupid this test was right over there\n"