Ivy Bridge and changing the Thermal Interface Material

When we started this guide, we didn’t want this to be a “how to remove the Ivy Bridge IHS” demonstration. However, whilst we started to do it we realised it actually isn’t as easy as it looks and we thought we’d give you some tips and tricks on how to do it.

Firstly, you will need a razor. Preferably a sharp and thin one that is attached to a razor knife because you will need a handle to get enough leverage and force through the blade. The Ivy Bridge IHS glue is very strong, so it is essential that you have at least a strong razor.

Secondly, once you’ve acquired an appropriate ultra sharp Razor or Razor knife you need to set your Ivy Bridge CPU onto a flat surface. It is also vital that this surface is soft enough to prevent you scratching the bottom of the processor. We used a cloth on top of a desk to prevent the processor from being scratched.

Now that you have your cutting equipment with your cloth surface to cut on, its important you prepare your processor. As already mentioned the Ivy Bridge IHS glue is very strong, so it helps you a lot to make sure you heat it up as much as possible before attempting the cutting. We did this by running Prime95 at 4.5GHz for 15 minutes. We then quickly shut the system down, removed the CPU cooler and cleaned up the thermal paste on the CPU. When you take the CPU out it could still be hot, so be careful, but you need it warm to cut through the glue.

Okay so you’ve now got the appropriate cutting equipment, the flat cloth surface and a clean heated CPU. The first thing to do is hold the blade flat near one of the corners of the Ivy Bridge IHS. Start a very small incision underneath the IHS. Then try and tilt the blade upwards a bit so your blade is cutting into the IHS and IHS glue not through the IHS glue down into the processor PCB where you could inflict damage. You should make incisions of about 5mm at each corner and then drag the blade down from each corner to the next corner to cut the glue seal all around the IHS.

We know words don’t always help, and unfortunately we didn’t have time to make a video but we did find a guide video that was incredibly useful and if you’re still unsure its definitely worth a watch.