Can I Clean Thermal Paste With Toilet Paper?

Removing and applying thermal paste to a CPU/GPU has always been cumbersome for some computer owners. Questions like, “Can I use toothpaste instead of thermal paste?”, “Can I use water to clean thermal paste?”, “Can I clean thermal paste with toilet paper?”, have always lived rent-free in their minds. And it’s understandable, the human brain comes up with “clever” ideas like these once in a while.

But — is it really possible to clean up the thermal paste with toilet paper? Could doing this be harmful to your computer’s components? Will it even work?

Read on to find out everything you need to know.

Is it necessary to clean old thermal paste before applying new paste?

Absolutely!

It’s crucial to remove the old paste from your CPU before you apply a new one.

“Why?”, you may ask. Well, when a thermal paste gets older, it loses its ability to transfer the heat from one component to another. That means it’s no longer able to perform the way it should.

Now, if you apply a new paste to your CPU without removing the old one, the residues of the old paste will affect the overall thermal performance. Hence, your computer will heat up more than it should.

All in all, it’s always recommended to remove all the residues of the old paste before you put on the new one.

What happens if I use toilet paper to clean the thermal paste on the CPU or GPU?

It’s not recommended to clean thermal paste using toilet paper. In any case, you should stay away from trying it, even if you don’t have any other solution at hand. In such a situation, you’d want to wait until you find a more optimum solution to clean up the paste.

You see, toilet paper is not the right material to try and clean up the thermal paste with. The composition just doesn’t fit right. Toilet paper is made of soft wooden fiber, which isn’t strong enough to rub off the dried-out thermal paste on your CPU or GPU. Furthermore, it has no dissolving properties, so it won’t be able to melt down the solidified thermal paste. Even if the paste hasn’t dried out, toilet paper won’t be able to completely remove it. A thin, quite-invisible layer of the old paste might be left behind.

Last but not least, as the toilet paper is made of soft wooden fiber or paper pulp, it can leave lint behind — and you don’t want that to happen. The left-behind lint will be hard to clean off, and will also drastically reduce the thermal performance of your new paste if you don’t thoroughly clean it beforehand.

What about using toilet paper for cleaning the big part of the paste?

You might be thinking, “Alright, so it’s not recommended to rub off the paste with toilet paper, but I can still use it to clean up the bigger chunk of paste on the top, right?”

Well, no.

It’s not recommended to clean up even the bigger chunks of thermal paste. As said earlier, toilet paper breaks down quite easily, and it will most probably leave some lint behind. And trust us, you don’t want to deal with tiny particles of lint on your CPU or GPU — it’s a tedious job.

Instead, we recommend you use something specifically made to clean up the thermal paste. “And what would that be?” — well, read the next section to find out!

What are other good thermal paste remover alternatives?

A common solution people tend to use is isopropyl alcohol. Simply put, it’s a 90%+ alcohol solution that’s usually known as “rubbing alcohol”. You could “technically” use it to clean up a thermal paste from your CPU or GPU — but there are a few caveats.

It could be hard to find the right composition of alcohol, i.e., more than 90%. You don’t want to use lower than that. Even if you find it, you may not get your hands on the right piece of fiber for the job. Even if you do, using the bottled alcohol to soak the fiber, and using it to clean up the thermal paste could be trickier than you think. You may not like the process of finding out how much alcohol to use.

So, what do you then? You use a special product specifically designed to clean up the thermal paste. Turns out Kooling Monster has got just the thing. Kooling Monster KLEAN-01 is exactly what you need. It’s a specialized compound cleaner designed to wipe off thermal paste.

You don’t have to apply the component on wipes or paper towels; KLEAN-01 comes pre-applied on dedicated thermal paste cleaner wipes. There are 20 wipes in each package, and you only need 2 of them per reapplying session.

The package also includes other important equipment. There’s a pair of safety gloves you can wear while wiping and reapplying the paste, making sure you don’t get your hands dirty. Plus, there’s a spatula and spreader that help you to spread the new thermal paste with ease.

All in all, KLEAN-01 can easily wipe off the thick and thin layers of thermal paste. There couldn’t be a better solution for this job!

The bottom line

There you have it — that’s everything you need to know.

In any case, you should never try removing thermal paste from your CPU or GPU with toilet paper. It will only make the situation worse by leaving behind residues and not even cleaning the thin layer of solidified thermal paste. It’s simply better to grab your KLEAN-01 kit for the job.