Gaming a quick question about thermal paste.

[SgtYutz]

I`ve been trying to fix my 360 for a few days now and i just took the heat sinks off and what do i find?

some of microsofts thermal paste has dripped onto some of the tiny IC`s, so would this paste create a short circuit (im kinda sure it contains silver)
and what would be a rather easy way to clean it well?

one last thing should i start playing my 360 horizontaly, I`m guessing the paste dripped cause I had the 360 on a vertical on a stand.

 

[velocity37]

Cleaning the thermal paste:
1. Q-tips
2. Arcticlean or high isopropyl alcohol
3. Patience

I had lot more splatter than you did, particularly on the GPU, and it was fine. You can try to clean it up, but you should really just be worried about where the heatsink is going to contact the chips. I'm not sure if Microsoft's thermal compound is conductive, but there are plenty of acrylic and silicon-based compounds that are non-conductive.

Also, there is no reason you should think that you would have to use your console horizontally. The thermal paste is just that, a paste. It doesn't move around even on it's own, much less with the heatsinks holding onto it. Arctic Silver is mainly used for computers, and every tower-style case holds the motherboard vertically. It would be a serious design flaw if Arctic Silver flowed like water.

 

[SgtYutz]

i got some 70% isopropyl alcohol is that high enough (its the only one i could find)
or do i need to get one in the 90% range?

 

[velocity37]

i got some 70% isopropyl alcohol is that high enough (its the only one i could find)
or do i need to get one in the 90% range?

The higher the better, but 70% will work.

 

[SgtYutz]

is there a way to get my 70% to a higher concentration probably by evaporation?(leave the bottle cap off) or is that unsafe

 

[p1ngpong]

is there a way to get my 70% to a higher concentration probably by evaporation?(leave the bottle cap off) or is that unsafe

I wouldnt really try that if I was you lol, 70% should be high enough anyway.