Always put new TIM on your video cards!

cabech984 said:
This thread got me thinking and I'm now ordering a new tube of AS5 and am gonna do both of my 5770s as well as my 1090t. My 1090t with corsair h50 Idles at 40 degrees Celsius in a 70-72 degree Fahrenheit room and my 5770s idle in the mid to high 50 degree Celsius range.

I think I need to do the northbridge screw mod to my crosshair iv formula also. It idles near 65-70 degrees Celsius.
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My room is also 70f and my 1090t runs at 38c load under an H50 push/pull with the stock fan as push and a cheap fan I got from Fry's for pull. If you're at 40c idle then you really have some issues. My paste of choice is MX-3. I used to use AS5 but I switched to MX-3 because several tests have shown that it results in lower temperatures than AS5, no cure time (AS5 takes a few days to reach maximum effectiveness) and is electrically nonconductive.
 
My temps are great on my PNY 580 but going to change it anyway..anyone know what PNY has to say about warranty doing this?
I know I know this is [H] :))
 
Do you guys have any ideas as to why some people report large differences in temperature after replacing the TIM while some people report almost none none at all? It's really weird.
 
XacTactX said:
Do you guys have any ideas as to why some people report large differences in temperature after replacing the TIM while some people report almost none none at all? It's really weird.
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Applying it wrong for one thing could be why,not installing it correctly could be another.
 
Absoultely a good idea. My temps dropped a full 7 degrees C on my 4850 when I took the stock gunk off the stock heatsink and replaced it with IC Diamond 7*.

*nope, it wasn't because I cleaned out the heatsink. I did that, tested it, THEN changed the TIM.
 
every video card I have bought has had way too much paste on it.
Evga 8800gt, visiontek hd4850, xfx 9800gtx, xfx hd4850
 
mhenley said:
My room is also 70f and my 1090t runs at 38c load under an H50 push/pull with the stock fan as push and a cheap fan I got from Fry's for pull. If you're at 40c idle then you really have some issues. My paste of choice is MX-3. I used to use AS5 but I switched to MX-3 because several tests have shown that it results in lower temperatures than AS5, no cure time (AS5 takes a few days to reach maximum effectiveness) and is electrically nonconductive.
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Yeah, I was running at 4ghz and both video cards overclocked. I'm gonna stock clock everything and check out the temps. I also ordered two tubes of the IC Diamond and am going to use it on my cpu, gpus, and fix the crosshair northbridge heating issue. Ill probably post up some results!
 
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I do it on almost all my new cards. Only problem I have is I would love a place to pick up some nice thermal tape that I know is quality. Anyone?
 
Every test I've ever done with thermal tape has shown much worse performance than no interface at all. So now I use thermal epoxy. Yes its permanent, so do it right the first time.
 
My brand new asus ares was idiling at ~65c and crashing at 100c when benchmarking. I removed the heatsinks to find a mess. Stock thermal pads and gobs of white paste. Cleaned it up and replaced it with some AS5. Runs about 40c cooler.
 
negative ghostrider, never had to replace any TIM on any card I have ever owned. Not going to start doing it now........
 
00PS said:
Honestly...the chances are pretty small of that happening. I'm not worrying about it and neither are my SLI GTX470's. Good thing you caught it, but it really was nothing more then a bad contact of TIM, probably.
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I'm with you. in the 13 yrs of buying video cards and installing them into my systems, I have never ran into that problem at all. Doubt I will too. Unless I purchase my own cooler and install it on the card..
 
Amen my brother! I put on MX 3 on this 5970 and it dropped my temperature in furmark by 3 degrees or so. Very well worth it :)
 
I've usually replaced the TIM on my cards before, but my Hawk 460 runs so cool (33-60) I'm not gonna bother any time soon.
 
The only time I ever replaced the TIM is when installing something like an AC Accelero on a card. Other than that I don't touch it and they don't seem the worse for it. My current reference GTX 460 (OC'd to 820 Mhz) idles at 30C and tops out at 68C. Why would I mess with it?
 
bkiserx7 said:
I do it on almost all my new cards. Only problem I have is I would love a place to pick up some nice thermal tape that I know is quality. Anyone?
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I spent a while looking for thermal pads too. I ended up buying some from ebay in China. They looked okay and so far haven't given a problem.
 
Put some AS5 on my XFX 5870. No temp drops at idle, or at full load in furmark.
 
Suprised to hear that. How was the original OEM TIM application? Thick and smeared on? Thin layer of something that looks comparable to aftermarket?

Is the XFX a reference card or custom cooling?
 
Just my opinion, but I'd bet they can tell. The stuff that comes on the cards is much different looking than the paste you put on. The stuff that comes on the cards is so thick you usually have to peel it off.
 
I use GTX 480s and replaced the TIM. Video cards are running much cooler now. Thanks for the suggestions.
 
tc17 said:
Just my opinion, but I'd bet they can tell. The stuff that comes on the cards is much different looking than the paste you put on. The stuff that comes on the cards is so thick you usually have to peel it off.
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Most manufacturers do void your warranty if you do anything to your card. The only two I know of that do not care is XFX and EVGA. As long as your card isn't physically damaged, they will accept it.

Although, in this case, I think most do not even check TIM. They just check the board for any visible damage, and then process the RMA if they don't see any.
 
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[H]jimmy;1036607850 said:
Just wanted to relate an experience.

Today I was putting a MSI gtx 460 in a customers new gaming pc. I pulled it out of the box and started overclocking it. Straight out of the box it was idling at about 40 degrees C. If I attempted OCCT or Furmark it would hit 80 degrees relatively quickly. This is with one of the best cooling designs around for a 460.

So I removed the heatsink and cleared off all the crappy tim that nvidia uses, and replaced it with Shin-Etsu x23. I added 3 tiny heatsinks on the VRM's and installed it again.

Now it is idling at 27 degrees C, and has no problem doing 850/1000 at 1.000mv. Max temp in OCCT is now 68 degrees C.

Moral of the story always check to make sure your video card has a nice thin coat of TIM and is properly mounted. Whoever manufacturers these things puts way too much on and its poor quality.
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Or turn up the fan speed that would be much easier, than trying to pry the heatsink off, and potentially fudging up a new card from the box.
 
00PS said:
Honestly...the chances are pretty small of that happening. I'm not worrying about it and neither are my SLI GTX470's. Good thing you caught it, but it really was nothing more then a bad contact of TIM, probably.
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Sorry to hijack, but curious what type of PSU you are running with this setup? I have a Corsair 650TX. You think it that will be enough?
 
I run 2 x 470s and a 460 on a 750W PCP&C PSU. Your 650 should be enough, but just barely.
 
BottomsUp said:
Sorry to hijack, but curious what type of PSU you are running with this setup? I have a Corsair 650TX. You think it that will be enough?
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Corsiar 750. It has been fine thus far with an overclocked i7 but I couldn't recommend overclocking the cards. I'd prefer a 850W+ but Corsair has some nice quality PSU's and it definitely shows. Check out the HardForum GTX 480 & GTX 470 Power Supply Unit Buying Guide


xbonez said:
I run 2 x 470s and a 460 on a 750W PCP&C PSU. Your 650 should be enough, but just barely.
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I would not recommend this.
 
This voids the warranty with almost every manufacturer. I do replace the thermal compound on my GPUs, but only after the warranty is up (the 2 year warranty you get without registering for the lifetime one is generally longer than I plan on having a card anyway).

Doing this on a client's machine is a really dumb move. If the card is actually defective, congrats on voiding his warranty and replacing the card out of your business' pocket if it goes bad.
 
Well everyone needs to make there own decisions, but I'm sure that I save my business much more time and money by making sure my clients computers are running cool and at their peak performance. If I would have never checked the card at all, that card is much more likely to break down, or over heat and than I have an unhappy customer calling about their brand new computer.

I personally have never had a video card malfunction in my personal systems in 10 years.

The problems I have seen with my business and video card malfunction have all been either user error or heat.

Why do you think there are so many successful stories in the baking thread? The only reason that can be a successful fix is if your card has run too hot, whether short term or over time.
 
Not a surprise that some see improvement and some don't.

Its not hard to imagine some cards TIM is actually not half bad, but there are lots that obviously suck.
 
agreed, did this with my 480 gtx and temps dropped very nicely. Also evga doesn't care if you modify the card basically as long as you put the stock heatsink back on if you need to rma
 
LAiN_OfTheWired said:
This voids the warranty with almost every manufacturer. I do replace the thermal compound on my GPUs, but only after the warranty is up (the 2 year warranty you get without registering for the lifetime one is generally longer than I plan on having a card anyway).

Doing this on a client's machine is a really dumb move. If the card is actually defective, congrats on voiding his warranty and replacing the card out of your business' pocket if it goes bad.
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Easy solution, just stick with EVGA :)
 
Omegas said:
But generally Asus is like the Navy of old, Don't ask, don't tell....
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Are any companies psychic?
The only way they'll know if you took off the heatsink is if the company puts some kind of sticker blocking the screws, which you have to rip to remove.
XFX does this, but the NA warranty covers heatsink removals. I haven't seen "Do not remove" stickers on any other card in a long time.

They might say "it voids your warranty", but they have no way of enforcing it.
 
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