REVIEW:Arctic Silver ArctiClean and Ceramique

After seeing the some of the reviews people are doing, though I might as well give it a try. Today I'll be reviewing two items from Arctic Silver- ArctiClean, a relatively new product used for removing thermal compound, and Arctic Silver Ceramique thermal paste.


Arctic Cooling ArctiClean

The ArctiClean comes in two bottles, labelled 1 and 2, with white and blue caps respectively.

Before the cleaner was applied:

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The instructions say to apply several drops of the remover (bottle 1) so that the pad is saturated,

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then wipe with paper towel after 30 seconds to a minute.

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When it's applied it's easy to see it disolving the paste, creating a silvery layer on top of the liquid, once it's wiped away it's clean. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get those marks off of the HSF base (can't see it very well in the photos:a thermal paste fingerprint), I guess I might have needed a finer cloth.

Once the compound is removed you're instructed to apply several drops the 'Thermal Surface Purifier' (bottle 2:blue cap) over the pad, and wipe away with a lint free cloth, I just used paper towel again as I didn't have any 'lint-free cloth' handy.

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After doing this it's noticably clean, the photos don't show the CPU well but the base of the HSF is shiny and has a full copper colour now. And the CPU looks brand-new. From different angles you can see thermal paste stuck to some of the sides in the tiny ditches on the HSF base etc, which would explain the need for cloth, I'm guessing that's a bit finer than paper towel. As a side-note, both of the solutions smell a lot like fake lemon, the sort of thing in ironing aid etc. And when some of it dribbled over the side of the IHS onto the CPU PCB it dried up and left white powder, similar to Stingose when it dries.

Now, that's done, onto the:

Ceramique thermal paste

I ordered a 22g syringe of this, which is surprisingly long, just over half-a-foot. I've only ever worked with generic thermal paste, but this stuff is damn hard to squeeze out of the tube, once you get started though it's easier, then it's hard to stop the stuff. It's very similar to spreading honey, I.e. trying to pull the syringe away without leaving a fine string of the stuff everywhere.

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It's equally hard to spread, though from what I've heard AS5 and the like are harder. After a couple of minutes of laboring away with the business card a nice smooth, sticky coat can be achieved.

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Note:

1. I'll post the temps after the Ceramique paste about 10 minutes after I put this thread up (need to restart etc. )
2. Yes I know I used WAY too much paste, as was evident when I mounted the HSF.

Thanks for reading, this is my first review, so obviously it's a bit hit-and-miss, if I do another one out of the parts I've got here I guess the next one will be the Enermax Liberty 400w PSU.

 

Are they made by Arctic Cooling or Arctic Silver? Your review says Arctic Cooling, but the Ceramique tube clearly says Arctic Silver (and I thought the ArctiClean was made by them too).

EDIT: After reading through it, that's a nice review. What was the thermal paste on the CPU/HSF when you applied the ArctiClean? Ceramique? Stock thermal pad?

For AS5 you can just put a small grain of thermal paste on the heatspreader and locking the heatsink down forces it to spread out (so it's the right thickness); I don't know whether Ceramique works the same. AS5 also seems to stay in the tube a bit better (it stops when you want it to stop). OCZ's Ultra 5+ is a pain in the neck though - it just keeps coming out until you put the cap on the tube to stop it.

 

It's Arctic Silver, not Arctic Cooling.

I would never waste my money on ArctiClean - 100% Isopropyl Alcohol has always been my choice. No review would be able to sway me into buying it. I've got AS3, AS5 and Ceramique in my collection, so i'm covered for all occasions, wether it be watercooling or sub-zero

---dens

 

Sorry, I was reading a thread about the Freezer 64 just before that so I think that set me off lol. I'll fix it up.

yeah, I was going to buy Isopropyl instead, especially seeing as you buy it buy large bottles, instead of 30mL kits lol. But I figured I might as well give it a try.

Ceramic has a fairly lower viscosity than AS5, which would explain it, I thought it'd be easy to spread though (simply cause i've only ever dealt with thermal paste once before), can't imagine what spreading Shin Etsu paste would be like.

Just some cheap generic paste that came in an itsy bitsy little syringe.

 

Sorry for the slightly off-topic post but, I used metho last night on my Arctic Silencer base and it did shit all, didn't do any better then just using a tissue.

 

I guess. If you do it very rarely then I guess this or medical swabs (~70% Isopropyl) would be fine. I've had the one bottle of isopropyl for about 3 years now and I couldn't live without it. If you use it as often as I do it would definitely be worth buying it in bulk. as i'd hate to know how many of those i'd go through and how much it'd cost me :\

---dens

 

Yeah, this definately isn't for constant use I dont think lol, even the 240mL kits wouldn't last long, then there's still the cost of it .

 

Nice effort, brodiepearce
A tip - the quality of photos when reviewing something like this is very important, especially when we're looking at small, fine objects. Get your lighting right, as well as a camera that has a decent macro.

Another thing - although it may seem like overkill, too much info is not enough. Blow-by-blow is what people are after, so mention every step you take and visually document it. For example, the spreading of the paste, what you used to do this, etc.

Keep it up

 

I use a tiny plastic ruler that my brother got at orientation day at curtin uni to spread arctic silver, it does an awesome job and is easy to clean. A much better choice then a business card as it won't spread around microscopic paper bits, but I may just be pedantic.

 

Nono, not business card, this came with some thermal paste i got last weekend, it's an 'applicator', sounds fancy doesn't it?

 

Oh, so someones too good for rulers now.

 

Next Arctic Silver will be selling "applicators" for $9.95

btw: nice review, i just ordered some of this stuff, altho it was AS5 not ceramique, but i got the cleaning bottles.

 

i have used Articlean for several months now still on same first 60ml bottle of it and been through more cpus and reapplications than most folks if you are aware of how many cpus i've tested in the past few months - probably done close to 100 applications of articlean so far just for cpus not counting GPU and chipset on motherboards

works very well in cleaning TIM even on motherboard chipset heatsinks where you need to clean off the pink/yellow gum like glue TIM heh

works equally as well on video card GPUs

For TIM, i use AS5 on cpus and Ceramique on GPU and motherboard chipsets

 

@ the anti articlean ppl
i used to be that way about the stuff, untill i had to take the 'bubble gum' pad off of my northbridge sink on my asus p4p800 my 99% isoproply wouldnt do anything to the stuff so i decided to waste a few bucks on the small kit of articlean. the articlean took the crap straight off in less than 30 seconds.

now if all you are doing is removing AS5 or ceramique or normal thermal paste then articlean is kindof unecessary but for thermal pads its pretty usefull.
nowadays i allmost never use the articlean as all my stuff has normal paste on it that alcohol will get off but if you have ever had to or need to deal with thermal pads arcticlean is worth it in my book.

 

I've found theres *NOTHING* mineral turps cant remove, use it all the time on dirty old heatsinks/cpus.. theres things it's removed in 5 seconds that 100% alcohol wont no matter how hard you scrub. Tried metho, that stuff is USELESS for this sort of thing too.

 

tbh the paste that swifttech supply (maybe its ceramique?) seems to work better then AS5 - its a thick white compound thicker then any silcion thermal paste i've ever used, but spreads easier then as5 (less lumpy).

 

I remember with the old GPU blocks; mainly MCW-50/50T they both came AS Ceramique but now days It seems to me that they started switching to un-known generic?

 

You're not supposed to spread AS5........

 

Why not????

 

I was wondering how oten are we supposed to reapply thermal paste? Some one said several times a year, but I generally do the initial installs, or if i get new cooling/want to lap.