Killerxp100
Gawd
- Joined
- May 20, 2011
- Messages
- 1,007
Installed a EK Vector Waterblock on my 3080 FTW3 a few days ago. There's lots of discussion on the EVGA forum about people bricking their 3080/3090's while installing the EK Waterblock, so I decided to document my install and share the results.
The EVGA card is a pain to disassemble. The thermal pads they use is more like thermal putty, it adheres to the cooler and components like glue. Using a hairdryer to heat up the pcb, I was eventually able to separate the cooler from the card. Used a small plastic scrapper and alcohol to clean off the thermal pad/grease residue.
EK doesn't supply precut thermal pads anymore, pretty lame for such an expensive block. I measured and cut the supplied thermal pads, following EK's directions to the letter. Used the spread method to apply the thermal grease(kryonaut). I installed the block, then uninstalled to check the coverage. Both the pads and grease looked good so I reinstalled and tested the card without water, booted into windows no problems so far.
Next came the backplate. I have been suspecting for awhile that if this is a problem with EK that its the backplate causing problems. I applied the 3 different thermal pads as directed and installed the backplate. While installing, I realized that because the side with the power connectors don't have any thermal pads, as you start tightening the screws the backplate bows slightly. Looking between the pcb and the backplate, some of the components, especially the metal pins on the back of the card come extremely close to the backplate. I know very little on the tolerances for these kind of things, but having less then 1mm gap between metal parts seemed like a bad idea to me. I decided to use kapton tape to apply over any area I thought there might be a chance of touching.
Put the backplate back on, and tested in the system and it booted into Windows just fine. Hooked up the water loop, leaktested for 12 hours and here we are. Card is fully functional, has been running a looped 3dmark test for 4 hours. 48C core, 58C memory junction. I recommend anyone installing this to be very careful with the backplate and not to torque down the screws, especially the ones on the power connector side.
The EVGA card is a pain to disassemble. The thermal pads they use is more like thermal putty, it adheres to the cooler and components like glue. Using a hairdryer to heat up the pcb, I was eventually able to separate the cooler from the card. Used a small plastic scrapper and alcohol to clean off the thermal pad/grease residue.
EK doesn't supply precut thermal pads anymore, pretty lame for such an expensive block. I measured and cut the supplied thermal pads, following EK's directions to the letter. Used the spread method to apply the thermal grease(kryonaut). I installed the block, then uninstalled to check the coverage. Both the pads and grease looked good so I reinstalled and tested the card without water, booted into windows no problems so far.
Next came the backplate. I have been suspecting for awhile that if this is a problem with EK that its the backplate causing problems. I applied the 3 different thermal pads as directed and installed the backplate. While installing, I realized that because the side with the power connectors don't have any thermal pads, as you start tightening the screws the backplate bows slightly. Looking between the pcb and the backplate, some of the components, especially the metal pins on the back of the card come extremely close to the backplate. I know very little on the tolerances for these kind of things, but having less then 1mm gap between metal parts seemed like a bad idea to me. I decided to use kapton tape to apply over any area I thought there might be a chance of touching.
Put the backplate back on, and tested in the system and it booted into Windows just fine. Hooked up the water loop, leaktested for 12 hours and here we are. Card is fully functional, has been running a looped 3dmark test for 4 hours. 48C core, 58C memory junction. I recommend anyone installing this to be very careful with the backplate and not to torque down the screws, especially the ones on the power connector side.
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