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EVGA 680i problems possibly identified!

Ooh, now that's some ugly lookin' stuff right there. Probably doing more harm than good, actually.
 
I assume you only need to put thermal paste on the chip itself (the little 'square' in the middle), and not around it?

I wonder how one can remove the paste without removing the fragile compontnts around the chip...

I guess when you remove the NB / SB cooler to check if there is too much paste, you have to clean and reapply, and cant just put the cooler back on (if the thermal grease was applied good)
 
Can anyone briefly explain to me how to take off the North, South Bridge heatsinks? Do I have to take out the motherboard to pop it out? or is there a easier way? Thanks in advance.
 
You have to remove the motherboard from the case. The chipset heatsinks are fastened with push pins that need to be pinched with needle nosed pliers and pushed through from the back of the motherboard.

Chipsets do not have heatspreaders unlike recent CPUs, therefore you will need to apply a thin layer of AS5 instead of doing a small dab in the center.
 
Zinn said:
You have to remove the motherboard from the case. The chipset heatsinks are fastened with push pins that need to be pinched with needle nosed pliers and pushed through from the back of the motherboard.

Chipsets do not have heatspreaders unlike recent CPUs, therefore you will need to apply a thin layer of AS5 instead of doing a small dab in the center.
Click to expand...

Well! I wish I knew this before I assemble my new PC. I guess I will have to take them apart once again!
Thanks for the reply!
 
Those pictures are pretty disgusting. How on earth could they up with that much thermal paste on the board?? Mine is stable, and fully assembled so I'm not in any hurry to pull it apart and check, but I am nonetheless worried now that there may be a paste bubble surroinding my NB chip that is insulating it from the cooler environment that exists inside my case. :(
 
Klintus Fang said:
Those pictures are pretty disgusting. How on earth could they up with that much thermal paste on the board?? Mine is stable, and fully assembled so I'm not in any hurry to pull it apart and check, but I am nonetheless worried now that there may be a paste bubble surroinding my NB chip that is insulating it from the cooler environment that exists inside my case. :(
Click to expand...

same here, its gonna lurk in the back of my mind even though I am not having any problems
 
my comp needs to be cleaned anyways ...so I'll be cleanen' up that goo as well

:eek:


[F]old|[H]ard
 
I would like to know if the board kyle / hardocp reviewed and gave such high marks to had this insane "thermal puddy" (as it's being called over at the eVGA forums, i know how to spell putty :p) on it. If they didn't remove the north/south-bridge hsf contraption...i wish they would and let us know.

How could their (eVGAs) QA department not catch a blunder like this.
 
A friend of mine used AS5 before building the system. He still ended up having SATA and IDE problems.
 
merlin87 said:
A friend of mine used AS5 before building the system. He still ended up having SATA and IDE problems.
Click to expand...

The SATA problems are only one of the problems that people are having with the board. And from what I've read 680i boards from other manufacturers have the SATA problem too. The more drastic problems people are having with the 680i have to do with the chipset eventually degrading to the point where you have to lower your DIMM frequency below stock to boot at all, and other general instabilities like that.
 
This is absurd. A $250 - $300 motherboard should have zero stability problems. You shouldn't have to do all this custom crap to get a stable system when you are spending this much on your rig.
 
lol, I suggested this a while ago.. that it might be prudent to pull the sinks, clean and reseat them with AS5.. hrm.. maybe it was om XS.. I dunno, but I've done that which my last three mobos and have had great results... easy OCing, good stability, etc.. I kind of like giving the board a good inspection before it goes in anyways..
 
After reading about how pretty much everyone has found the grey gunk where thermal compound should be on this board, I went ahead and took my 680i apart and cleaned up the "puddy" as best I could and applied some AS. Here are some pictures I took (click the images for the hi-res version if you dare..be patient though it's hosted on my DSL ;)):









Pretty nasty stuff. It is the consistency of partially dried putty that is used on sheetrock. I've only had the motherboard running for about 3 days and already there is some darkening in the silicone on the northbridge. I'm going to RMA this mobeezee for sure (at 9am PST tomorrow, 888-881-EVGA (3842) option 2), and then I will apply thermal compound on the next 680i before it even boots up once (this mo also has a dead fan header, which I will use as the reason for the RMA).

You all might want to check the heatsinks that came with this board ASAP. It might run fine for now, but over time the damage is a sure thing.

Note to all you Non-[H]ard people who found this in google or are just going "you are voiding your warranty, i dont want to void my warranty, i don't even know how to remove a heatsink", etc: You are dum. That's right, dum, without a 'b' at the end. You are submitting to certain doom if you leave that grey sludge on the board and let it act as thermal insulation on the bridges.

Note to Kyle: How could you guys have reviewed this board and given it such high marks without bothering to check what kind of compound (or puddy, in this case) the mfgr used? Hello? Are you there?
 
posibly because they experienced no heat problems with nb or sb, and iirc, experienced no sata, sound, instability problems either. neither did they have to "lower their dimm frequency to below stock to boot at all". it was a review, not a surgical dissection.
if you bought a home, and had no prblems with heating during the winter, would you tear the walls down to check the insulation anyway?

i'm kind of wondering if anyone else who is having the above problems had them disappear by regooping their chips?
 
vanilla_guerilla said:
if you bought a home, and had no prblems with heating during the winter, would you tear the walls down to check the insulation anyway?
Click to expand...
If I were responsible for reviewing a house and the review would direct purchasing decisions for hundreds or even thousands of people, you'd best bet that I would get surgical on it. I would most certainly rip it up to make sure it was solid before giving it any "houes of the year" stickers or endorsements or anything like that. Anything less is in violation of true [H]ardness.

vanilla_guerilla said:
i'm kind of wondering if anyone else who is having the above problems had them disappear by regooping their chips?
Click to expand...
I'm not trying to be a jerk or be mean here, but if you had read through the thread linked to in the first post you would have read about people who have solved their problems by removing the puddy.
 
bitset said:
If I were responsible for reviewing a house and the review would direct purchasing decisions for hundreds or even thousands of people, you'd best bet that I would get surgical on it. I would most certainly rip it up to make sure it was solid before giving it any "houes of the year" stickers or endorsements or anything like that. Anything less is in violation of true [H]ardness.
Click to expand...

well, what can i say. you are a saint. and its a good thing that somebody knows the official rules of true hardness.


I'm not trying to be a jerk or be mean here, but if you had read through the thread linked to in the first post you would have read about people who have solved their problems by removing the puddy.
Click to expand...

no problem. you are not being a jerk or mean by just answering my question. i am sure there are completely different reasons that you are a jerk
 
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