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Reapplying GPU thermal paste

Aedus

Aedus

Aedus

Soldato
Joined
16 Aug 2009
Posts
8,577
Location
Luton, England
After having my 8800GTX for 3 years it's started to run extremely hot (62c idle and 102c load), so i'll be removing my heat sink to clean all the dust out and reapply the thermal paste, the question is, what is the best method to do this?

Apply a thin layer evenly on the processor? Put a dot in the middle and a press the heatsink down to it? Cross method?

This is what I'm using to reapply it: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=AC-000-AC

Cheers.
 
as-5 is conductive i belive (silver in it) so don't go overboard as there will be small resistors surrounding the gpu die. if you can get your hands on mx-3, it's ceramic, so not risk at all.

your main issue will no doubt be dust tho
 
I took the cooler off my 8800 GTS and the heatsink didn't make contact on the memory chips after I removed the thermal pads from them. I don't know if yours is the same but it might be worth checking that out before going ahead. I managed to recycle mine and add AS5 to the chip which I just added a dot in the middle for. It was very gunked up in paste prior so as long as you're frugal with it you can't go much wrong IMO.
 
Id do this... there was a CRAZY amount on my 8800 gt when i changed the cooler!

14112008223.jpg


Should have taken a better/closer picture, but you get the jist of it!
 
My 8800gt looked much like that before watercooling ^.

Arctic silver 5 is capacitive, not conductive, but this is probably still a bad thing for a bare die. That said, people use liquid pro on bare dies over at xs and they don't seem to die. Regardless I'm using arctic ceramique on mine. Put a dot on each ram module and on the gpu, fitted cooler, took it off, put more paste on the bits which hadn't shown a convincing impression on the heatsink, rinse and repeat.
 
Thin layer of arctic silvers been on my 4850 for ages since july08 when I applied it seems fine to me and low temps too.
Still idles 35c full load 40-45c but that's under an accelero s1 maybe apply a bit more than you would a cpu and it should be fine just keep an eye on temps carefully.
 
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Havent done it on a gpu (yet), but a few years ago i replaced the stock paste on the NB/SB and mosfetts on a 680i sli board with as ceramique, knocked over 10c of NB temps, the stock paste was very poorly applied.
 
Alright cheers guys, hopefully I don't bugger it up :(

If I do, then well, excuse to upgrade to a 5870 me thinks, so no loss either way :D Lol.
 
All done, loaded it doesn't go above 80c now :D Idle it's slightly lower than before, nothing major but it's load I was mainly concerned about hitting over 100c

So much better, my PC as a whole is a lot cooler too, CPU dropped like 2c, the thermal paste was completely dried off, there was basically none between the heatsink and processor it was all crusted and there was lumps of it around the processor, but none actually on it.

Edit: Well the heat does go up past 80 after a while, but doesn't go up over 100c so I guess it's some result :P
 
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