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7900GTX Chipset cooling help

A

artaq

n00b
Joined
Apr 1, 2006
Messages
8
I posted this in the Nvidia Forums here but haven't gotten any responses yet, so I figured it being a cooling question, I should probably ask here. I recently built a new PC, and am running a Thermaltake water cooling solution in it. I went ahead and removed my stock cooler on my XFX 7900GTX as well, so I could take advantage of water cooling, but in doing so left the surrounding chipsets bare, so I then went and purchased copper chipset coolers for those. Here's my problem: they wanna keep falling off. The thermal adheseve tape the blocks came with are pretty much crap, and I even tried applying a small amount of Artic Silver to the bottom which, for the most part, keeps them on. Any sort of jittering will most likely cause them to fall, and that's BEFORE turning on the PC, and letting the heat sink in. I was thinking of going and removing the stock thermal tape and replacing it with some I found at a local Fry's, but otherwise I'm out of ideas. Anyone have any suggestions?
 
You have to clean the BGA chip thuroughly before using any sort of thermal tape because the stock thermal pads leave a residue...
 
Thanks for that, yeah I planned on thoroughly cleaning all the chips before proceeding. One solution I have been reading about is using something like Artic Alumina as an adhesive, but I'm afraid of it being permanantly fixed to the chips (in case i need to go with another solution in the future). This is a permanant solution correct? Are there any thermal tapes that are a good substitute in this case? Thanks again.
 
mix 50/50 of Artic Alumina Thermal Adhesive with Artic Silver thermal paste. It should provide a more semi-permanent bond. Make sure to thoroughly clean the ram chips and the heatsinks before applying though.
 
Thanks Erasmus354! In doing the method you described, there will not be any issue with removing those heatsinks at a later time? I'm looking into maybe replacing my water block with a Koolance VID-200-L06 or even a Danger Den cooler, so a less "permanant" solution would be ideal :). Thanks again for the reply!
 
I'd look into getting some thermal tape as of all the horror stories of thermal adhesive, even in the 50/50 mixed form. you can get some decent thermal tape , they usually create a better bond after a few times turning it on and running it, I think the heat makes it stick a little better, any time I've used it, it will start off somewhat loose but after a few days its on there really good, heres a link
http://www.bestbyteinc.com/index.html?stocknumber=TIM-SEK-001
thats the stuff I use, they also sell it in a 50 meter roll for about 15 bucks, works great
 
I used a tiny bit of super glue on the corners of my ramsinks with AS5 in the middle to get my ICEBERGS to stay. I did a little forum fishing before I did it just to be sure it was ok, but permanent.
 
Thanks Toddm27, yeah I just went ahead and picked up that thermal tape from Fry's anyway. I found the manufacturer's website, and it looks like exactly the thing I need.

http://www.magaland.com/tape.html

Their website definately isn't much to look at; almost feels like a homemade product, but
it was also only a couple of bucks per pack so I figured I'd give it a shot. Thanks for all the suggestions guys!
 
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