Lapping GPU heatsink

Tony359

Tony359

Tony359

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Joined
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42
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United Kingdom
Hi all,

I've recently got a 2060 and when I re-pasted it I found that the cooler is really poorly machined. See picture below. I thought I could lap it a bit. In order to do so I am sourcing a piece of glass and 2000 grit sandpaper.
Now, to lay the heatsink flat on the sandpaper I will have to remove the 4 stands. Being aluminium I am a bit concerned the whole thing might fail on me when removing them.

Does anybody have any experience in removing those stands? I will use a proper spanner of course.

(I've replaced the paste and also the pads of course, particularly the one which was never fitted properly at the factory! Gigabyte...)

Thanks!

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Yes, that's why I am a bit concerned. Aluminium is soft so my concern is that it'll just crumble on me and goodbye cooler.

I hope there is enough material left on the heatpipes for me to lap a bit without making an opening on them! :)
 
I don't think you will achieve a great deal through lapping the biggest issue is the gaps between the heatpipes, I'd make sure they are full of thermal paste where the core is as this will be a better conductor of heat than the air that would otherwise be there.
 
@ALD, I'm going to do that anyways :) What I am looking for is for previous experience in removing those stands from the aluminium base.

@PieEater
I agree but I'd like to give it a go - at least to smooth out the roughest parts. Indeed I cannot remove the gap between heatpipes - that will be thermal paste of course.
 
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I may be wrong but is it not the heatpipes that does the cooling, not the the actual block?

As long as the pipes move the heat to the fins, that should be sufficient.

Like i say, i may be wrong and quite often am. :p

IMO not worth the effort or the risk.

Good luck if you do attempt it though. :)
 
Well the pipes will take away the heat to the rest of the heatsink. The block is only dissipating it locally.

Say I damage the heatsinks (the stands strip or whatever) what are my options then? Can I buy an aftermarket block or something? I'm just anticipating options.
 
I have the Prolimatech MK26 GPU cooler a bit larger than the one above as it supports 140mm fans, it's a great piece of kit as it allows you to get the maximum performance from your card whilst keeping it quieter than stock, but yeah not cheap, space can be an issue as is the additional weigh on the card and socket.

Let us know how you get on and post some after pictures. You can use metal polish to remove the finest scratches but a lot of them have wax included which will leave a wax coat on the block, purists will say that could affect performance but I doubt it would do and if so not by much, just make sure to clean out any debris in the gaps between the heatpipe with a toothbrush or something before smooshing some thermal paste in them.
 
I'm sure those are proper heatsinks and they'll surely drop the temps a lot on my 2060. However I hope I won't need them! :) But thanks for mentioning. It's nice to know there is a "plan B" is things go pear shaped. (to be honest finding a broken similar card might work as well...)
 
you really wont be seeing much advantage to lapping that part of the block imo. at best 3 or 4 degrees. you would see maybe a 10 to 15 degree drop going to one of them after gpu coolers though. you stick a proper case fan on them and dont even need to run it fast.
 
plus if you lap that part of the block it might make the gaps between other parts on the pcb not big enough and stop you from connecting it back up.
 
3-4 degrees would be great to be honest. When I got it, Furmark would reach 86 degrees in 4:40, after re-pasting it (MX-4) I had 79.4 after the same time. Sustained use won't change much between before and after (but I am also addressing the case as I don't think I have enough ventilation). The reason I'd like to give it a go is that I can feel a step between the pipes and the block. I don't intend to lap away a lot, just trying to help a bit. I'll have a look at the clearance on the stands before beginning but again I won't lap a huge amount away. I am very conscious that I won't get 10 degrees drop - but I appreciate your heads up :)
 
Ok, I've lapped the heatsink and all went well. The stands came off nicely. BTW - because I removed the stands, there was no risk to lap too much so that the die would not touch anymore as the stands were untouched.

I've used 600/1200 and 2000 on a piece of glass. With 600 I noticed the whole block was helpless! The alluminium is convex so no way to make it flat - not without removing too much material I reckon. But the pipes are protruding so I started seeing fresh copper coming out. Interestingly there were two small dips on the pipes exactly where the die is! I managed to remove them.

In the end the copper came out pretty nice. Since I noticed there was too much thermal paste on the die when I removed the cooler - which IMHO means that the heatsink did not apply enough pressure (that was before I touched the cooler) - I mildly sanded the stands a bit to make them shorter. In fact the whole cooler was a bit wobbly when standing on the 6 stands so I made it flat!

I then replaced the VRM pads - I was waiting for a 1mm delivery. (Obviously forgot to remove the plastic so had to take the GPU out of the PC twice!)

The outcome is probably not worth but I like it. I got 2 degrees with furmark (fan fixed at 75% and case open). The most important number though is comparing BEFORE I touched the board to AFTER I re-pasted it and lapped it: 10 degrees improvement after 4.5 minutes!! That is a shock!

Since I was there I took a look at the fans. One of them was making a weird noise when starting which was getting on my nerves. Surprisingly I discovered those fans can be opened. I opened them, cleaned and re-lubricated. They are definitely quieter, whether they stopped making that noise time will tell as it used to happen after a while.

All in all, I am happy with the outcome, particularly if compare to how I got the card - it was second hand.

Thanks for all your help and inputs!

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Great result. I was going to recommend a lazy fix: using one of those very thin thermal pads that replace thermal paste. They would be more efficient filling large gaps, but nowhere efficient as a proper flat surface. Well done.
 
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