Arctic Silver....woops!

[AntRam]

Ah, well I think I'll just get rid of it then. Too bad, it was a decent board (Shuttle AN35N Ultra). I'll have to use my backup board ASUS A7N266-VM. It's an older board, I just hope it supports an XP 2000+ chip. Let this be a lesson to you all, don't be sloppy and take care of your parts :sigh:

 

[zerozero]

but I think thats remote as Artic Sliver is designed to conduct HEAT..Not Electricty or current.

Sorry MicroBell but this is very WRONG.
Arctic silver contains silver particle, zinc and aluminum (read specs on arctic silver site) and each of those metals is highly conductive. The reason they use metal particles and silicon in a heat dissipative paste is because they conduct heat as easily as current and can therefore be used to cool down your CPU by absorbing its heat and allowing it to be blown off by your fan.

If any of the paste makes contact between 2 pins, it will short them out.

However, it can be cleaned using the tips mentionned in my earlier post. You just have to take your time and apply yourself.

 

[ekÆsine]

yes i confirm this and was going to correct him also. the newer type of artic silver is electrically conductive and is known to be extremely messy. people have been cautioned to be careful with it.

this is why i use the ceramique version of the new artic sivler, no electrical worries and it is not messy, and works almost as good at tranfering heat.. can you try compressed air to blow it out of the holes?

 

[zerozero]

On its own, compressed air is not enough. You have to flush the holes with a contact cleaner or alcool based product (rubbing alcool works fine) and a brush (small paint brush for example).

When you flush it out, you got to be careful not to spray it all over the place and short other components.