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3090FE - changing Thermal pads
- Thread starter xPETEZx
- Start date
This has been my mantra the entire time...
So far I haven't seen a single case posted where somebody had there claim declined because of changed pads.
Infact the only cases I have seen of warranty refusal is before the card even gets back to the manufacture. Somebody basically admitting to something not covered.
Like saying they put a water block on it.
On these forums one guy opened up his 3080FE, saw a broken component and filed a warranty claim. He stated that he opened the card in his claim, and they initially rejected it. After some back and forth he got them to honour it.
People seem to forget they have rights when it comes to products they purchase. Its not as cut-and-dry as a companies terms would have you believe.
I for one dont even believe nVidia routinely checks the cards in any great detail. Probably a visual to see its physically not damaged or obviously tampered with. Throw it in a test rig and confirm non-working. Then probably move on to ship a new or re-conned card back to customer.
The faulty card probably gets sent on for repairs. At that point maybe they would see the changed pads... but too late. Pure speculation on my part that this is how it works. But I just cant see the value add for them to take every card apart on the off chance they find something to decline the claim.
But hey, till somebody thats changed the pads reports there warranty experience, I guess we are all guessing.
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Maybe many don't need it sending back for warranty just yet, and that's a good thing as it shows the cards might have been built to last etc.
What I do know is that a warranty is valuable, and to me I would not void it or risk voiding for running the card 5c - 8c cooler. Yes, We have rights , but then when we don't have a card , the last thing I want to be doing is arguing with the Warranty people, when I basically have stripped the card and molested it.
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- 8 Jul 2016
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- 179
Mine is going under water…. To buy a card with a block on it is 2400 on OC or an fe plus a block and take the chance for a big saving is a no brainier for me.
Associate
Unfortunately, the last time I used Arctic pads on my 3090 FE was last year, before any hotspot or VRAM temperatures could be monitored.
So any information I would have would be useless. However Arctic pads can not be worse than stock pads. But there is no reason to use Arctics unless you have a supply emergency because you will absolutely get lower temps with Gelid Extremes or Gelid Ultimates. Gelid Extreme 1.5mm pads (On the core side!) work the absolute best. Gelid Ultimates work the best on the backplate side, but Ultimates can also be used on the core side. Just try to manually compress them about 0.1mm FIRST before using Ultimates on the core side (so that core to heatsink contact isn't compromised).
And for the Arctics, just remember to use the correct thickness--1.5mm on the GPU Core side (VRAM and VRM's), 1.5mm on the backplate side for VRM's. A couple of small IC's and a single long hotspot strip "might" be able to use 2mm, along with the 1.5mm on the VRAM at the same time, but I haven't tested that on anything except the areas on the backplate that have "small square indents" for a few IC's that go right above them (the stock pads have miniature square pads in those locations)
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If you are ONLY using Gelid Extremes, I would get 4 packs, not 3. You don't want to push things.
If you cut *perfectly* and slightly stretch the pads a bit (this is good for the core side anyway), you can cut along the 40mm edge and that will "fit" the 3xVRAM chip bank perfectly, and a single 80x40mm pack can do one side of the card for VRAM only with a small amount left over for the little square IC's. So TWO 80mm * 40mm packs will do VRAM on both sides of the card.
The third pack will then do the two VRM long strips (one strip is longer than the other) on the core side of the card, and a few of the hotspot areas on the backplate side. Then you can finish up the remaining hotspot areas with the 4th pack and get any missing "square" chip IC's (you can see the spots for these on the indentions of the backplate).
A smart purchase are the 120mm * 120mm packs of Gelid Extreme, but those are ONLY available from China shops. NO "competitors" or any shop in USA, UK or anywhere seem to have them, so mentioning the China shops isn't against the rules. The 120mm * 120mm packs are also a different SKU (Gelid themselves mention it on their website), and they only come in 0.5mm, 1mm and 1.5mm thicknesses for some reason. So if you have the patience for slow boat shipping, the giant sized pads can save some coin.
However I highly recommend Gelid Ultimate pads on the backplate, not Gelid Extreme pads, because the extreme pads can turn into sticky putty on the VERY HOT backplate due to lack of heatpipe/active cooling. This doesn't affect their performance but when they partially melt, it makes the backplate extremely difficult to remove without preheating the card to 90C or so.
There are a few sellers offering "two packs" of Gelid Ultimate pads (basically two 90mm * 50mm pieces in a single package), which seems to also be a special sku (the packing says two pack).
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Calm down sarge...
"molested" the card? you follow all the rules when it comes to using anything you own right?
You know the warranty people can be a pain to deal with even if you havent "molested" the card. Maybe they accuse you of overclocking it? Or dont believe your story.
What I don't understand on a forum with "OVERCLOCKERS" in the name, is how many people seem petrified to do anything with their hardware.
Despite the very activity in the title of the forums 'voiding your warranty' just the same.
They also act like taking a GPU apart and changing paste/pads is an order of magnitude more difficult or risky than building the rest of the PC. I grant you, the FE cooler is not the simplest thing in the world. However.... neither are the mounting brackets on many a cooler.
And there is plenty of risk in the building stage of a PC. Maybe you bend the CPU pins, or drop the motherboard while trying to line it up... basically the name of the game is to "take care" as you build the system.
What I find certainly gets on my ghost is constantly reading people nannying people that DO want to improve the cooling of their card. If you fear for your warranty so much, then sure don't do it.
There is no need to remind people that DO, that they MAY have issues claiming on said warranty in the future. Especially when this is done with no evidence or examples.
These same folks don't same to come out in such force when it comes to people installing a custom water loop, or just overclocking / undervolting there hardware.
Again... all that stuff technically voids the warranty too.
What we do thankfully see very little (if any?) of, is people actually reporting getting warranty rejected. (For anything, not just re-padding.) It seems that mostly companies will honour warranties and get things sorted.
/rant
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Sounds like you know your stuff with this. So 2 of the 90x50 and one pack of the ultimate?
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This will work since the Ultimate pads are a bit larger sample sized. I just like to have extras.
Associate
Hi Guys,
Does anyone knows where the thermal Pads can be changed in the UK?
Does anyone knows where the thermal Pads can be changed in the UK?
In my flat
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- 1 Jun 2019
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- 449
Do I sense a business opportunity ? 
You would have to do them yourself, it takes around 3 hours to fit, you need to buy the pads and do it properly.
After owing these cards for sometime, and doing it on one of my cards. I'd have to backtrack and agree Nvidia did use cheap thermal pads on the cards and it was purley to save costs, but the cards are still useable for gaming and I did not do it for my other cards as it is not worth it for me.
OMG...I just did the back plate thermal pad replacement ...managed it with one pack of 90x50 extreme....
So I was getting around 103c in gaming scenarios and 108c when overclocking and benchmarking in timespy. I just ran timespy and not only did I get a higher score, I peaked at 86c. That is a phenomenal improvement without messing around on the core side.
Its allowed an easy 1000mhz OC on the memory and 220 on the core. I am points away from tiping 20000 on timespy now...need to sweat my CPU some more.
So I was getting around 103c in gaming scenarios and 108c when overclocking and benchmarking in timespy. I just ran timespy and not only did I get a higher score, I peaked at 86c. That is a phenomenal improvement without messing around on the core side.
Its allowed an easy 1000mhz OC on the memory and 220 on the core. I am points away from tiping 20000 on timespy now...need to sweat my CPU some more.
Very impressive results. I only did the backside of mine, temp 'only' dropped from 104-106 before down to max of 96 after. Enough to stop the fans going crazy, which was the aim. You got another 10c lower so nicely done!
Also impressive TimeSpy. I barely touch 20k on GPU score alone, nevermind overall! So well done
