7970 stock cooler refit

[fizzy]

Hi,

Trying to refit the stock cooler back onto my original 7970, but having a strange issue.

Replaced the memory thermal pads with 0.5 junpus, and doubled up for the vrms. They seem to match up fine.

However, I put some thermal paste on the gpu, and when double checking fitment there is no paste transfer to the heatsink? Can't see anyway to get things any closer - all screws in tight, card flush to heatsink/plate/mounts etc and gpu cooler is fixed to rest of it anyway, nothing to move independently.

Tried using the junpus on the gpu but I don't think it likes gpu heat changes - fine in desktop, but as soon as I run any benchmarks temps ramp up and screen goes black. Tried in a low res and card throttles right back but works, with temps around 80 - so just not transferring heat properly? Not that much heat out the back either.

Had this issue when trying the junpus on gpu with an after market cooler some time ago, with normal paste it was fine.

Checked old reviews of the stock 7970 an all pics seem to show a small amount of paste on the gpu, no pad etc.

Any ideas why there would be a gap? All screws are tight and everything looks flush otherwise. Was some thicker paste or a suitable pad used on some HIS 7970's? (Can't recall if there was on mine but it was taken off some time ago).

Can vapour chambers "wear out" or go bad?

Card worked fine with aftermarket cooler so definitely a fitment issues with stock cooler rather than a card fault.

Thanks.

 

[katinacooker]

I know on my 7950 IceQ the heatsink has a shim on it that fits in the recessed part of the GPU, cause i needed to get one when i took it off for my Kraken G10. What model of card do you have?

 

[fizzy]

It's the original HIS stock 7970. With the AMD rotary cooler. (not the twin fan one they did a while later).

I know that for some aftermarket coolers a shim is required as the die sits a little lower that the surrounding metal protector thingy, but the stock cooler has a raised square section in the middle to cater for this.

It's the actual cooler that was on it when I bought it, and card looks straight, all screws tight and right up to their supports.

It doesn't have the X brace piece as in some pic, but it never did. That would only make any real difference if the gpu cooler was separate to the rest of it, but it isn't.

Just ordered a grizzly 0.5mm thermal pad. Will see if that's up to the job, otherwise I'm a bit stumped...

 

[fizzy]

Used the thermal grizzly pad on gpu, and while things are a lot better (can run heaven 4 on really low settings without any throttling kicking in) temps are still getting high - 90-95c with a 60% fan+. That's only about 50% gpu load too.

I can feel a lot of heat coming out the back of the card, so this pad is actually transferring heat.

Just don't know why it's running so hot. If I up the quality and gpu load it black screens after a few seconds, temps get above 95+..

When on desktop and gpu/mem speeds step down, fan goes to 20% and gpu temp stays around 45c.

 

[wazza300]

vapour chambers are sealed far as im aware,its like a bubble with water or similar inside and it heats up wicks the heat away

why would you wanna refit the stock cooler? stick and accelero on it

 

[fizzy]

It had an accelero on it, but now want to rehouse in a friends pc which is isn't big enough for it, but will be ok with stock cooler. Noise is not an issue.

As a test just refitted the accelero and crm sinks (need some more tape for memory sinks) and quick test and that's fine. So card is ok. Odd.

 

[TaKeN]

I had this exact same problem Fizzy.

The pads are too thick for the memory chips, leaving the GPU core too far away from the cooler to make proper contact

I still haven't refitted the stock cooler, it's left with the Accelero on it.

 

[fizzy]

I had this exact same problem Fizzy.

The pads are too thick for the memory chips, leaving the GPU core too far away from the cooler to make proper contact

I still haven't refitted the stock cooler, it's left with the Accelero on it.

I'm using 0.5mm pads on the memory - and the board is flush to the mountings on the cooler assembly so can't go lower. Board doesn't look bowed. I may try it without memory pads (just fitment) and see if there is any material transfer at the gpu then.

edit: Well I'll be.... no memory pads, and contact with GPU is fine. Looks like there should be 0.2 or 0.3 mm pads on the memory then contrary to what I've read. Tried a little paste on a memory chip and no transfer to metal, so not close enough for paste.