what alcohol is best for removing heatsink residue?

Isopropyl alcohol, you can buy it on ebay.

question:p,

TIM= Thermal Interface Material. This is the technical term for thermal compound.

90% or higher rubbing alcohol. The higher, the better. Cheap alcohol will leave behind too much residue. It seems to take a few doses of rubbing alcohol to get the material cleaned up. You can buy this at the drug store. I don't know how much cheaper you can get. A 500ml bottle is 2 dollars.

I still perfer to use the Arctic Silver 2-step thermal remover. It's about $5 USD. It cleans up the material better and faster than alcohol. Lint-free wipes and lens wipes are the best.

It's important to not leave behind any oil, lint, dust, or old material. All of these things are poor conductors of heat.

Not Rubbing Alcohol look at the contents in it:

Rubbing Alcohol, USP / B.P. contains 68-99% of isopropanol (isopropyl alcohol) by volume, the remainder consisting of water, with or without color additives, suitable stabilizers, and "perfume oils".

Denatured alcohol is used as a solvent, there is no duty on denatured alcohol in most countries, making it considerably cheaper than rubbing alcohol.

Information is From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The strongest stuff you can get. Isopropyl rubbing alcohol (Preferably 90 - 100% alcohol) works the best, from what I've heard. You can use any brand; doesn't matter, so long as the level of alcohol to water is right.

If you're talking about white spirit as in Wine or something, don't do it. Just don't do it.

you may take a skinny piece of difficult plastic and attempt to rigorously pry it removed from the heatsink. probable the inventory heatsink pad melted itself onto the processor. i'm no longer so constructive nonetheless that eliminating it forcefully with the lock-in lever in place might or won't have broken the truthfully socket on the motherboard.

I tend to use plain methylated spirits and cotton buds, and have never had any problems, at a fraction of the price of isopropyl alcohol. Don't use white spirit - it is a different thing entirely.

most alcohol is not pure, it has other ingredients that will leave a film of residue on the CPU/heat sink...though this isn't cheap, its about the best stuff..you only need a few drops. around...http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

Then of course you want to replace the paste with this..http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

You mean Thermal paste?

If your talking about thermal paste, just use regular rubbing alcohol. Works great.