Cool Story

[Dirk Diggler]

I bought a MSI 1080 from the MM a few weeks ago. I just got round to gaming on it yesterday only to find that it was hitting 90C+ and 100% fan after about 10 seconds

First thoughts were that previous owner had replaced the heatsink after water cooling, however upon closer inspection the security sticker is still there.

I decided to re-paste regardless and this is what I found...

It barely had a 50% covering. God knows how long it was used at full pelt, throttling away. Anyway, it took 20 minutes to re-paste it and it's nice and quiet at 65C.

Moral of the story; don't assume they've done a proper job in the factory, although I wouldn't want to be risking the warranty if I'd just bought it new.

 

[FlyingFish]

The covering looks good, you've got goop across the entire surface of the die. Its most likely just old paste that's dried out and lost its performance. Then things spiral, as the temps gets higher the paste dries out even more etc...
Thermal paste is only there to bridge the imperfections between the two mating surfaces. So you could easily say that less paste is better, because the two surfaces contact well.
Glad it was an easy fix for you, and its always peace of mind when its done correctly

I did (paste & pads) my 3090fe shortly after owning it, the temps came down by quite a chunk, and as I used quality stuff the temps have stayed that way.

 

[BigBANGtheory]

1080 Pascal era GPUs are dinosaurs now.

Interesting to share experiences but yeah don't expect miracle performance

 

[Grim5]

The covering looks good, you've got goop across the entire surface of the die. Its most likely just old paste that's dried out and lost its performance. Then things spiral, as the temps gets higher the paste dries out even more etc...
Thermal paste is only there to bridge the imperfections between the two mating surfaces. So you could easily say that less paste is better, because the two surfaces contact well.
Glad it was an easy fix for you, and its always peace of mind when its done correctly

I did (paste & pads) my 3090fe shortly after owning it, the temps came down by quite a chunk, and as I used quality stuff the temps have stayed that way.

Yep, paste looks old and dry thats the problem. Clean and replace and enjoy 20c lower temps

 

[cjgardens]

If that's what you think is 50% covered, you have probably put to much on when re-aplying. You might want to watch a few noob guides for applying paste

 

[Rroff]

1080 Pascal era GPUs are dinosaurs now.

Interesting to share experiences but yeah don't expect miracle performance

They aren't that bad, yet - anything which isn't the very latest generation of games they'll handle at high or ultra no hassle.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

1080 Pascal era GPUs are dinosaurs now.

Interesting to share experiences but yeah don't expect miracle performance

Yes, fair comment on the age and the fact it's more a case of the paste being dried out - however I've used older cards that haven't had the issue as bad as this one.

As for performance, I'm using it to play older titles anyway as anything new is being played on the PS5. It'll definitely tide me over until I pick up a 4000 series (if I don't decide to skip that generation).

 

[clone]

It's always a good idea to repaste every now and then, my old 780 paste was terrible and had dried so re did it and it was back to like new.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

It's always a good idea to repaste every now and then, my old 780 paste was terrible and had dried so re did it and it was back to like new.

Yea, that's probably the main point I was trying to make - it's not so much the fact it was performing so badly, because it's a second hand older card and won't be perfect. It's really the huge improvement that 20 minutes and a little blob of paste makes, it's well worth the effort.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

If that's what you think is 50% covered, you have probably put to much on when re-aplying. You might want to watch a few noob guides for applying paste

I'm just quoting this to give you a little bit of the attention you've cried out for. The sentence below should provide you with the ideal opportunity for a counter reply should you wish to gain maximum spotlight. There's no doubt we could turn this into a 10 pager on blob v's spread v's cross hatch.

You might want to learn how to spell re-applying before attempting to share advice on the subject.

 

[clone]

Was a good save on a very hot card.

 

[cjgardens]

I'm just quoting this to give you a little bit of the attention you've cried out for. The sentence below should provide you with the ideal opportunity for a counter reply should you wish to gain maximum spotlight. There's no doubt we could turn this into a 10 pager on blob v's spread v's cross hatch.

You might want to learn how to spell re-applying before attempting to share advice on the subject.

I might be dyslexic, but I know how to apply TIM

 

[clone]

Lol great come back

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Lol great come back

Yea, I'll give them that one.

 

[varkanoid]

Title should be Hot Story with a Cool ending.

 

[cjgardens]

Yea, I'll give them that one.

Him*

 

[Drumroll]

When temperatures start to shoot up, fresh quality thermal paste is my first course of action.
With new cards is risky regarding warranty, but lately, quite a lot of cards being sold badly assembled.
Got a Suprim X 3080 and the performance is great, very quiet, but the thermal pad from the VRM still have the blue plastic clearly visible without even opening the card. 5 minutes job to fix it. Not too bad no thermal pad was damaged in the process.
The 3080 is a replacement for the Sapphire 6800 XT Pulse. The delta between Core temperature and hotspot was unacceptable. Fresh thermal paste sorted it. Also the cooler wasn't evenly installed.
The only issue when re-applying thermal paste is that some won't keep good performance for too long. Usually the stuff used by manufacturers isn't the best regarding absolute performance, but should (at least in theory) last a long time without requiring maintenance (re-paste).
I would usually use thermal grizzly kryonaut, but lately I'm favoring the MX-5 as it feels thicker and not as runny.

 

[Alt0153]

When temperatures start to shoot up, fresh quality thermal paste is my first course of action.
With new cards is risky regarding warranty, but lately, quite a lot of cards being sold badly assembled.
Got a Suprim X 3080 and the performance is great, very quiet, but the thermal pad from the VRM still have the blue plastic clearly visible without even opening the card. 5 minutes job to fix it. Not too bad no thermal pad was damaged in the process.
The 3080 is a replacement for the Sapphire 6800 XT Pulse. The delta between Core temperature and hotspot was unacceptable. Fresh thermal paste sorted it. Also the cooler wasn't evenly installed.
The only issue when re-applying thermal paste is that some won't keep good performance for too long. Usually the stuff used by manufacturers isn't the best regarding absolute performance, but should (at least in theory) last a long time without requiring maintenance (re-paste).
I would usually use thermal grizzly kryonaut, but lately I'm favoring the MX-5 as it feels thicker and not as runny.

i hate kryonaut, thick as hell and difficult to spread, mx-5 was a lot easier

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I've used Arctic Silver for years on both GPUs & CPUs, air & water. Always been spot on.

 

[House]

My 6 year old EVGA 1080 Hybrid has recently started sounding like its about to explode when ever the temps rise, i think its the pump and I cant find a replacement cooler kit (not surprising its old as hell now), my fear is if i strip it and repaste then it may die out right so im just holding my breath it lasts till the 4000 series come out.