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Guy at a shop in Reno told me to stop cleaning thermal paste with alcohol wipes, now I can't decide if he was right
About 5 months ago I was doing a repaste on a client's gaming rig at my bench in Reno and the shop owner next door wandered over and watched me wipe the old paste off with a 91% alcohol wipe. He told me to cut it out and use a coffee filter with a drop of alcohol instead, claimed the wipes leave lint fibers and a weird film that messes with temps. I was skeptical since I've done hundreds of repastes that way and never had a comeback, but he said he had pulled lint out of a socket on a laptop once and it cost him a board. So now I use filters. Here's my problem though: I can't tell if my temps actually changed or if I just want them to have changed. One side of me says the wipes are fine and this is old timer superstition, the other side says a filter costs basically nothing and if there's any chance of avoiding a dead socket, why risk it. I've done about 40 repastes since then and had zero issues either way, which proves nothing. What do you all use, and has anyone actually seen a wipe leave enough junk behind to cause a real problem?
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