T-Rad2 installation Guide and Initial Thoughts

p4radox · 13 Jan 2009 at 16:59

sharpygsxr said:
Glat to hear it mate i do like to help the humans every once in a while

Did you still have the default thermal tape on your backplate or did you fashion somethin for yourself? Hows your load and idle temps?

I bought some Akasa Thermal adhesive tape, but ended up forgetting about it and sticking with the pre-applied stuff.

I'll get some load temps shortly as I'm busy encoding at the moment. But here are my current idle ones:

Bear in mind all my fans are at 5V as I'm aiming for silence.

sharpygsxr · 13 Jan 2009 at 17:03

i wouldnt fancy keepin the fans at 5v at load lol, im just runnin my fans flat out and tbh over the gaming or music i cant hear a thing

lettuce · 22 Jan 2009 at 21:21

sharpygsxr said:
Ok fellas here goes, i have to be honest the mod had results way beyond my expectations, i have knocked easily 50C off my VDDC temps at load, GPU is a little lower at stock and load but its the VRM's which show the value of this mod.

Heres a few pics during the mod

Base plate installed, removed all the heatsinks i had applied the first tie with the Trad-2, also as you can see removed the sinks from the raised chips as i feel they will cool great thru the gap.

Few shots of the trad fitted back on and in the case

And finally the GPUZ temps for GPU and VDDC's after the 20min run on Furmark

[will update temps after 1hr of furmark / EDIT here ya go after 1hr stability test on furmark 1280x1024]

not quite the 50C drop but not bad considering before the mod my temps would be over 100C after the 20min run so im well chuffed now to clock the nuts off it!

Any questions etc feel free to ask and Rjko get that table updated lol

Ok just tried doing this mod, after placing the stock base plate back on the card and fitting the T-Rad back on i fired up the PC, but i only got my Abit Ip35-Pros logo screen after that the screen went blank, the feeling of dreed started to over come me, as i though i must have over tightned some of the fittings for the base plate or something. So i took of the t-rad and noticed that it is not even touching the gpu core, as the thermal paste was untouched, so im guessing the card was over heading and thats why i was only getting my mobos logo screen and nothing else?? My quesion is how come you didnt have this problem when you did this mod???

sharpygsxr · 22 Jan 2009 at 21:28

take a few pics of your trad 2 installed mate, mine fits absolutely perfect in the gap in the sock base plate.

What way have you the trad 2 pins attached, from the inderside of the board the same as mine?

Do you have any vrm heatsinks ontop of your base plate that might be preventing the trad seating properly?

Honestly myself and paradox had no hitches whatsoever.

A few pics of yours will help explain it better

sharpygsxr · 23 Jan 2009 at 13:53

gonna be sticking my 4870 on MM next week as ive just ordered one of the offer 280's.

Ill be selling the 4870 with the trad2 fitted as you see in those pics so its prob as cool a 4870 as your likely to see.

Clairvoyant · 23 Jan 2009 at 14:38

sharpygsxr said:
gonna be sticking my 4870 on MM next week as ive just ordered one of the offer 280's.

Ill be selling the 4870 with the trad2 fitted as you see in those pics so its prob as cool a 4870 as your likely to see.

Traitor

.

If I had the pennies I would buy one aswell.

I hate being flat broke.

lettuce · 23 Jan 2009 at 15:46

sharpygsxr said:
take a few pics of your trad 2 installed mate, mine fits absolutely perfect in the gap in the sock base plate.

What way have you the trad 2 pins attached, from the inderside of the board the same as mine?

Do you have any vrm heatsinks ontop of your base plate that might be preventing the trad seating properly?

Honestly myself and paradox had no hitches whatsoever.

A few pics of yours will help explain it better

Heres a pic...

As you can see the yellow and red circled areas are resting on the base plate, and you can still see some of the thread from the pins that go through the card in the green circled areas, so its not even sitting flush!? I think i might has to cut these parts out so the T-rad fits?

sharpygsxr · 23 Jan 2009 at 16:02

somethin looks dodgy there in your pic, are there any bends etc in the cooler or heatpipes.

Mine fit perfect into the gap with a good few mm clearance to spare.

lettuce · 23 Jan 2009 at 16:14

No no bends nothing, its just the heatpipes dont let the heatsink touch the cpu core, as theres not enough clearance...

lettuce · 23 Jan 2009 at 16:24

BTW, what version did you guys have the 512MB or 1GB, i have the 1GB version, maybe the PCB is different on the 2 versions?

Clairvoyant · 23 Jan 2009 at 16:31

lettuce said:
BTW, what version did you guys have the 512MB or 1GB, i have the 1GB version, maybe the PCB is different on the 2 versions?

Sharpy has/had a 512

sharpygsxr · 23 Jan 2009 at 16:46

aye mines a 512mb

lettuce · 24 Jan 2009 at 14:38

Ok ive modded the base plate slightly.....

I had to use Akasa thermal tape, as i removed the tape that was inplace over the VRM (idiot!), as a single layer of akasa tape wasnt thick enough i had to stick 3 bits together! After putting the card back in the VRM temps seem worse!!! 52c idel and when under stress for 8 minutes 95c!!!! So im guessing you shouldnt stick 3 bits of thermal tape together, must not be transfering the heat that well!?

sharpygsxr · 24 Jan 2009 at 14:42

i cant see that that base plate is doing anything there mate, there wont be enough pressure applied to the VDDC chips to give good thermal absorption thats why your temps are up there.

IMO you would be just as well off without the base plate at all with that much cut away from it.

lettuce · 24 Jan 2009 at 16:21

I wouldnt see why there wouldnt be any pressure, the parts of the base plate i removed didnt have any mount screws on, so theres the same amount of pressure

p4radox · 24 Jan 2009 at 16:39

lettuce said:
BTW, what version did you guys have the 512MB or 1GB, i have the 1GB version, maybe the PCB is different on the 2 versions?

I've got a 1Gb. Mine fits fine with the original baseplate and the TRad.

ZXSpectrum · 26 Jan 2009 at 08:42

Well had my first ever casualty last night.. Playing the demo of Fear 2 and destroyed my 4870

Was playing fine then it just crashed the machine powered back up but no display then some nasty burning smell.. Took out the card and one of the VRM's has fried.. Gutted...

ashmanuk67 · 26 Jan 2009 at 09:30

I am very sorry to hear that mate, that is all our worst nightmare

The reason for that base plate was to apply more surface area and more pressure to those chips, I bought the AC acellero twin fitted without base plate card felt very flimsy and my GPU temps went through the roof so done some research and found SharpyGSXR thread so done the same thing made more sense card felt nice and rigid temps did come down a small bit but not enough, So I re-fitted my stock cooler with some nice thresh tim and temps dropped like a stone still not perfect. "Loud"

Now i have installed two 120mm fans one intake and one exhaust and all system temps are much better.

ZXSpectrum · 26 Jan 2009 at 09:38

yeah its not as if i fitted the cooler incorrectly either... oh well live and learn...

ZXSpectrum · 26 Jan 2009 at 11:58

Do these coolers fit on 4830? That said i am a little apprehensive at fitting at the mo...