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Refurbing an old GPU for better performance

Figo

Figo

Figo

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Joined
19 Sep 2016
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343
Location
Jensen's Leather Jacket

Morning folks, thought I'd share this, I've been wanting to refurbish my R9 280X since I built my budget gaming rig since it was bought new.

Being worried I'd end up gimping the GPU or something I bought an old HD5850 1Gb on eBay to mess around with.

In short, refurbing the old GPU was really easy, took about 20 minutes and was totally worth it. Frame rates in games up, benchmarks higher and temperatures much lower.

I know we can be a sucker for getting things to run as cool as possible but sometimes the simple stuff like cleaning up components can make as big a difference as adding fans or changing out to the latest and greatest cooling gadget.

Settled in my mind now that the 280X is next to get the refurbishment treatment!
 
The card was Sapphires 'Xtreme' edition HD5850 so a 2011 card and over 5 years old.

The fact the OEM TIM had turned to dust in that time should serve as an alarm to anyone running an older Gpu or thinking of buying used on EBAY
 
Mine gets done once a year tbh, like to strip the PC out, clean it, put it back together...
 
This is very interesting.. the PC at my parents house has an ATI in it... must be at least 8 years old, but still plays well on older games (and even low detail new ones). Probably about time it gets a repaste..
 
Apparently op you are one of the few people on this forum who seem to realise this.

There is another thread on this page where someone's card is overheating and instead of people suggesting for the op to try and do what your doing they are running to tell him to get a new card.
 
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I'm still gaming on an HD 5870 I've had since 2011, and I'm 100% positive it's absolutely disgusting. However, I bought the computer prebuilt (it's a Dell XPS 7100) and I've never come close to doing anything like removing a component and taking it apart....I'm not sure I'd have the courage to take everything to bits, clean and reassemble if it's running ok at the moment.
 
I had a broken R9 280 Sapphire dual X that died with a red screen. Took it apart and cleaned it up. It works.. thanks for the info Figo, below some pics of what I did. It was quite gunky inside, cleaned it all out and hey-presto. One working card!

2e2mmw2.jpg

29b0a55.jpg

t4z76r.jpg
 
glad to hear it!

also did a little review of some of the games i managed to run on the card afterwards


And before you say it... I know I look like a knob... that's the dangers of placing bets with mates..
 
Vale said:
I had a broken R9 280 Sapphire dual X that died with a red screen. Took it apart and cleaned it up. It works.. thanks for the info Figo, below some pics of what I did. It was quite gunky inside, cleaned it all out and hey-presto. One working card!

2e2mmw2.jpg

29b0a55.jpg

t4z76r.jpg
Click to expand...

Watch that small heatsink in the corner, one of the plastic pegs/pins seems to have popped out going by the pictures?
 
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