AS5 on an x850xt

T

Tanatz

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 13, 2006
Messages
271
I've been having an overheating issue with a game I play so this weekend I plan on taking my system apart, blowing out every speck of dust and putting a fresh bead of AS5 on my CPU.

I'd also like to put some on my video card but I've never done it - is it hard? Can anyone provide a walkthrough?

I don't put the AS5 on where the card actually connects to the mobo correct? I imagine I have to take the fan off and put it somewhere on the card itself?
 
You have to take off the heatsink (not necessarily all that hard), wipe away the old thermal paste with alcohol and some sort of cloth, and then use a razor blade or credit card to smooth a small amount of AS5 over the exposed core, then put the heatsink back on. You have to spread the AS5 out over the entire core in a very thin layer, you can't just put a dot on it and then have the heatsink spread it out for you like you can on lidded CPU's.

Probably a 15 minute project in total. I'm not sure if it's really going to help a lot though. Usually the thermal paste and HSF connection is pretty good on video cards. Usually case airflow is a better way to cool video cards.
 
kirbyrj said:
You have to spread the AS5 out over the entire core in a very thin layer, you can't just put a dot on it and then have the heatsink spread it out for you like you can on lidded CPU's.
Click to expand...

Why not? I did that and it's fine, and I have changed back and forth from water cooling a few times.
 
Zefram0911 said:
how about posting something useful?
Click to expand...

Most video cards will have either screws holding the heatsink down, or push pins.

For push pins, you need plying to squeeze the pin head together and push it through the PCB.

For the screws... just unscrew them.

This will reveal a black silicon chip underneath, which usually already has a white or silver compound on it.

A rice grain of Arctic Silver 5 on a GPU core is fine. Spreading it over the whole chip is just more work.

Happy?

Tanatz kind of answered his own question, obviously he knows not to put Arctic Silver 5 on the PCI-E pins, since he didn't put any on his CPU pins, because he clearly knows how already.

So why don't you post something useful.
 
It safer to just spread a very thin layer. Even though it probably wont make a difference you dont reapply it often so might as well do it the "right" way. Main problem with a drop is that AS5 may get squeezed off the die and somehow short something. The chances of that is very very low but I would rather take a few more minutes to carefully spread it than to just put a drop on their and hope it goes where I want.
 
Borgschulze said:
Most video cards will have either screws holding the heatsink down, or push pins.

For push pins, you need plying to squeeze the pin head together and push it through the PCB.

For the screws... just unscrew them.

This will reveal a black silicon chip underneath, which usually already has a white or silver compound on it.

A rice grain of Arctic Silver 5 on a GPU core is fine. Spreading it over the whole chip is just more work.

Happy?

Tanatz kind of answered his own question, obviously he knows not to put Arctic Silver 5 on the PCI-E pins, since he didn't put any on his CPU pins, because he clearly knows how already.

So why don't you post something useful.
Click to expand...

see how easy it is to post useful things? stop acting like a teenager.
 
lixuelai said:
It safer to just spread a very thin layer. Even though it probably wont make a difference you dont reapply it often so might as well do it the "right" way. Main problem with a drop is that AS5 may get squeezed off the die and somehow short something. The chances of that is very very low but I would rather take a few more minutes to carefully spread it than to just put a drop on their and hope it goes where I want.
Click to expand...

I guess I would spread it out for this reason also.
 
I think the first reply was like that partly because it is fairly easy to torch a video card compared to a CPU when messing around with AS on it. I managed to take out my 6800GT a few months after I'd grabbed it when applying AS5 for the NV Silencer installation, and the only guess I had was something went wrong with my AS5 application. Never had any other problems besides that in seven-odd years, but I've still got that grain of fear in the back of my head...
 
I think if you look at the Arctic Silver website they have instructions for how to apply the paste to different types of processors. IIR, it says to use the thinly-spread method for GPUs and the dot method for CPUs with spreaders.

:)
 
I don't put the AS5 on where the card actually connects to the mobo correct? I imagine I have to take the fan off and put it somewhere on the card itself?
Click to expand...

Again.. if you are asking this question, you shouldn't be doing it.
Want proof? Just look at the front page of the videocard section.. go to any "omg, I think I fucked up", "is my videocard dead" or "what did I do" threads and see what happens when people who don't know what they are doing play with their videocards.

(Not that you are going to listen.. so I will just chill here and wait for your "omg I just screwed this card over.. how can I fix it?" thread. lol).
 
Zefram0911 said:
how about posting something useful?
Click to expand...
What he's trying to say is you don't need to take a credit card or razor blade to spread out the thermal paste. (in fact don't take a razor blade anywhere near your GPU/CPU)
Why is that not useful to say? In fact, if memory serves me well - Arctic Silvers website shows you how to apply the paste and it was with a bead or a very small line across the middle. The point is to use the smallest amount as possible - you only want to fill in the tiny tiny spaces where the heatsink may not contact the core.
 
seanmcd said:
What he's trying to say is you don't need to take a credit card or razor blade to spread out the thermal paste. (in fact don't take a razor blade anywhere near your GPU/CPU)
Click to expand...

On an exposed core? The least you should do is the CC method (I personally just use CC's instead of a razor blade). There's no way you can guarantee that a little dab or a line is going to spread out over the entire core without spreading it out yourself. That's how AS recommends installation on exposed cores on their website.
 
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