While playing games noticed my 980Ti Poseidon GPU Temps were starting to rise up to the 80'c to 90'c after playing for a good while and GPU Fan was at Max Revs.
I had just checked my custom loop cooling CPU+GPU no leaks and all fans had been cleaned plus everything giving a blast of air, so had a quick check everything ok.
Put my waterpump at Max Revs tiled case all over the place no air locks or bubbles in reservoir.
Ran F1 2016 Benchmark setting it to rain and loop, well temps rose up to 90'c.
Powered down, shut off my ball valves on my radiator and reservoir drained loop and removed tubing/power cables from the GPU then removed it from the mobo.
As my GPU was just out of warranty decided to look into the problem, hopefully it was just the thermal paste.
Removed the backplate which included the 4 screws that held the circuitboard in place on to the fan heat sink and on checking noted that the GPU processer had not come fully in to contact with the thermal paste even though the screws had been fully home.
By the way Asus had used a thermal pad slightly larger than needed and that was not properly in place.
So cleaned the GPU processer and surrounding area of paste, also cleaned fan heatsink as well.
Placed a small pea sized blob of paste on the processer put the circuitboard in place making sure the screw holes were inline for the backplate.
With the Backplate back on and 4 screws in place but not fully home so l could just wiggle it slightly to help spread the paste before tightening the screws fully home but not to tight.
Re-inserted the GPU into the mobo then connected everything back, a quick check all ok
Bled the loop no leaks ran F1 2016 benchmark again GPU temps never went over 53'c/CPU temps 44'c max, room ambient 21'c so well pleased.
So if you have a Poseidon it might be worth your while to replace the old thermal pad with a descent thermal paste regardless if your watercooling or just on Air.
I had just checked my custom loop cooling CPU+GPU no leaks and all fans had been cleaned plus everything giving a blast of air, so had a quick check everything ok.
Put my waterpump at Max Revs tiled case all over the place no air locks or bubbles in reservoir.
Ran F1 2016 Benchmark setting it to rain and loop, well temps rose up to 90'c.
Powered down, shut off my ball valves on my radiator and reservoir drained loop and removed tubing/power cables from the GPU then removed it from the mobo.
As my GPU was just out of warranty decided to look into the problem, hopefully it was just the thermal paste.
Removed the backplate which included the 4 screws that held the circuitboard in place on to the fan heat sink and on checking noted that the GPU processer had not come fully in to contact with the thermal paste even though the screws had been fully home.
By the way Asus had used a thermal pad slightly larger than needed and that was not properly in place.
So cleaned the GPU processer and surrounding area of paste, also cleaned fan heatsink as well.
Placed a small pea sized blob of paste on the processer put the circuitboard in place making sure the screw holes were inline for the backplate.
With the Backplate back on and 4 screws in place but not fully home so l could just wiggle it slightly to help spread the paste before tightening the screws fully home but not to tight.
Re-inserted the GPU into the mobo then connected everything back, a quick check all ok
Bled the loop no leaks ran F1 2016 benchmark again GPU temps never went over 53'c/CPU temps 44'c max, room ambient 21'c so well pleased.
So if you have a Poseidon it might be worth your while to replace the old thermal pad with a descent thermal paste regardless if your watercooling or just on Air.