Replacing CPU fan.

A friend of mine built a PC not long ago. His parents gave him a huge budget (it's a family computer) so he went out of his way to ensure it being the fastest, coolest, and quietest he could. He, bought a huge CPU fan/heatsink combo to make sure it stayed cool no matter what, but didn't realize how loud it would be. He has a controller for it but even at the lowest speed it sounds like a vacuum cleaner. He's gotten really irritated with it and asked me today what I know about replacing them.

The biggest thing is getting the thermal grease off safely so he doesn't mess up his CPU (his parents would rape him if he messed it up). He said he did some research and found that rubbing alchohol and Q-tips are the best bet, but I wanted to check with people here as to the safest way to do this.

Why the heck did he use thermal glue on the fan, is what I have to say :p It goes on the heatsink to make contact with the CPU holder thingy, since it's the heatsink that's dissipating the heat, not the fan. The fan only needs to be held in place with screws so it can circulate air.

If he'd done it correctly, it'd be a matter of unscrewing the fan, unplugging it from the motherboard, plug a new fan in, and screw the new one on :p

I must've worded it wrong - he wants to replace the heatsink/fan, and wants to know about removing the thermal paste from the processor.

But he could just replace the fan without replacing the heatsink? Because that'd be rather convenient.

Yes, I'd leave the heatsink alone then and only replace the fan :p I wouldn't consider using paste on my CPU in the first place, nor consider applying other possibly hazardous chemicals to a rather delicate CPU afterwards to try and remove the paste.