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Help this n00b replace the TIM on a GPU

E

Elledan

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - April 2010
Joined
Oct 18, 2001
Messages
15,913
Hi guys, I'm replacing my 8800 GTS 320 with a GTX260 and will be moving the first card to a new system. One of the issues with the 8800 GTS is that its cooling solution sucks. It's an MSI 8800 GTS 320 with the G80 core, idle it runs around 62C core, load (F@H) edging 85C. The fan noise is seriously getting on my nerves at times. To rectify this I intend to take off the 8800 GTS's cooler and replace the standard TIM with AS5. Now, this is the first time I'll be messing with a GPU cooler other than that time I replaced a GF4 MX's (also MSI) absolutely sucky cooler with a massive passive Zalman cooler.

Back then cooling the RAM chips was very much optional, but these days the cooler has to cool the GPU die and the RAM chips. This MSI 8800 GTS card has the regular cooler covering the card from front to back, with the hot air (mostly) exhausting outside the case. I'm guessing that I have to remove the TIM from both the GPU die and the RAM chips to prevent leveling issues since the default TIM is pretty thick?

Any other tips I should keep in mind while disassembling/assembling and such? I got the AS heatsink cleaning kit as well to ease the cleaning process, but I sure as hell don't want to break this GPU :)

Thanks!
 
Yes, you have to remove it all. Typically, the memory would have a 'double sided tape' kind of TIM, but not always.

Take apart the HS/F and blast all of the dust out <--this lowered my temps for a 8500gt (low profile...) by about 10C (for a slimline case... that's decent).

Have a credit card ready, to wedge between the PCB and the cooler, and use a screwdriver (twist it) to remove the HS/F from the card (because most coolers have epoxy that sticks a bit over time).

Good luck! (from a fellow folder... that can't seem to get anything to go right this week :mad:).
 
You will want to leave those thermal pads in place for the ram chips and VRM. Just replace the paste on the GPU. If you remove the thermal pads on the ram it wont make good contact when you go back together with it. If you want it quiet I would pick up an aftermarket cooler. Can probably get one for ~$30-35. Paste alone wont help much.
 
Plus dont forget, on the extreme rear corners of the GPU there are usually two small screws that need to be taken out, and sometimes two on the i/o plate.


Personally i dont recommend AS5 for gpu's as its slightly capicative/conductive and there are those capicator/resistors near the gpu die. I prefer OCZ Freeze, Shin Etsu, or MX-2 for gpu's.(And for cpu's as well because its better stuff hehe)
 
I thought that AS5 is supposed to be non-conductive electrically?
 
Shin Etsu :eek: it's expensive!

I have never delt with a card that has needed a 'full contact' (i.e. everything, everything is contacting the cooler) before, so I am just taking from my experience with GPU/RAM cooling.

Sorry!
 
Your GPU/RAM will be fine.

bomberboysk mentioned resistors and capacitors... just avoid them? Dunno. I never had an issue (on the fourth card I just reseated today). The electrical capacitence is not an issue to CPU/GPU dies, so I'm assuming it won't kill anything short of an open contact point.
 
Keep in mind that going from regular thermal paste (the $.99 Radio Shack stuff) to good thermal paste (AS5, MX-2, Shin Etsu, etc.) usually only gives you a few degrees.

However, replacing the crappy factory TIM application with any properly-applied thermal paste can give you massive improvements. The problem isn't that they use the cheap paste, the problem is that they use the thermal pads or put on two pounds of paste to make up for poor manufacturing tolerances. When I redid the TIM on my Dell laptop, I actually had to bend the heatpipes down a bit so the mounts would make good contact with the CPU and GPU.

With a full-coverage heatsink, you need to be careful that changing the TIM doesn't change component heights too much. Like Copyright said, if you replace the pads on the memory, the chips may not contact the heatsink at all. At least on the G92 boards, the RAM doesn't generate much heat anyway, so it's not a big deal if they get slightly better cooling from improved TIM. Whatever you do, just make sure you assemble it and take it back apart once. This will let you see if everything is making good contact like it should.
 
If I remember right AS5 is slightly capacitive? Ive always used MX-2 for this.
 
Anyone care to ship me some MX-2? Don't want to pay another 9.50 Euro for shipping :p
 
Okay, this really sucks :(

I disassembled the 8800 GTS without major issues, removed the TIM on the GPU core, replaced it with AS5 as per the instructions, put it back together to test for fit, disassembled to check and discovered that only two sides of the heatsink had some AS5 on them. Thinking that perhaps the TIMs on the RAM and VRM were raising the heatsink too much, I applied AS5 on those as well, and did another test fit. Same result. Nothing fits or makes proper contact.

It's as though this cooler was designed to only work with thick TIM pads or so :( I'm not sure what to do next other than to maybe order replacement pads...
 
Order replacement pads for the RAM and VRMs. I wish I'd seen this thread earlier, could've told you that G80/G92 cards (and probably all subsequent, though I don't have direct experience with them) all use very thick "gauze and goop" style pads for heat transfer on the RAM and VRMs. You simply can't replace these with paste type TIM, since putting enough TIM on to bridge the gap would leave you with an insulator, not a conductor. Worse off than you started. You can replace the TIM on the GPU core itself, but only the core.

At this point were I you I'd see if I could pick up a cheap second-hand aftermarket HSF for the card, rather than ordering replacement pads and putting the original HSF back on. No matter what TIM you use with it, it's always going to be lackluster at best.
 
silent-circuit said:
At this point were I you I'd see if I could pick up a cheap second-hand aftermarket HSF for the card, rather than ordering replacement pads and putting the original HSF back on. No matter what TIM you use with it, it's always going to be lackluster at best.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this may be the best option. Unfortunately I don't have the cash to do this :( Maybe next year or so...
 
i used as5 on my old gts 320 in it dropped the temps a lot. i would just leave the "tape" on the ram.
 
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