Well, I finally got the CPU off the heatsink. The solvent didn't do it (it might have helped, but it wasn't critical); neither did freezing the CPU or heating it or even just Yanking Really Hard. I finally managed to separate the two things by wedging the tip of a screwdriver under the CPU and gently applying pressure until it separated from the cooling apparatus.
Queued up for tomorrow: get the right thermal material (the stuff I have is very prominently labelled "not for attaching CPUs to heatsinks"...whoops) and put the laptop back together. I halfway expect that it'll fail to boot once it's reassembled, after what I've put the poor thing through, but nothing ventured nothing gained.
Comment by natan05 at 8:47 AM:
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