Best method of cleaning cpu and silicon compound?

[Shogun]

i remember the first time I had to clean AS off the die and I didnt have any rubbing alcohol, so I used some good vodka instead and it seemed to work alright (I WAS in a rush by the way!) so Ive kinda used that ever since. I'm sure someone will point out that this is a bad thing to do, but my CPU temps have been ok, so if it aint broke...

Anything with a high % of alcohol will be fine, You just want it to completely evaporate in the end which alcohol does at room temperature

[ultimate]

Isopropyl is the best as stated and the method I use to for getting an even coat of thermal paste on the chip is to put a very small blob of paste on then put some cling film on your finger and work the paste into the the face of the cpu and if you are using arctic silver then you should have just a silver sheen on the face, the actual idea of the paste is just to fill in the imperfections in the chip and the heatsink, a thick layer is no good at all as it can lead to a bad seal of the faces.

I use this method every time and my temps are always very low.

[Shogun]

I just use an edge of a credit card to do it. Can see the imperfections of the chip then showing where needs more thermal paste.