Thermal adhesive?

[Ulrezaj]

I'm trying to attach ramsinks to my 8800gtx, but for some reason the ram appears to be coated in teflon or something and won't allow anything to stick to it. I considered using arctic silver thermal adhesive but apparently that stuff is like superglue and will rip the ram right off your board if you try to remove it. Can anyone suggest something less permanent?

 

[Morpheus'rig]

I just hit the same problem this past weekend when I switched to a watercooling solution on the GPU. I was originally going to go the same route as you with the AS adhesive but ended replacing the thermal tape with some new tape. Here's the link

http://www.crazypc.com/products/PQ5-5025.html

Worked like a charm. Worst part was getting the old stuff off.

 

[JKownz]

FIx the cleaning problem use this. http://www.arcticsilver.com/arcticlean.htm

Helps me so much. Does the job reallllll well. and with the smalls bottles you can clean alot of cpus/gpus and ram chips and all that fun stuff. Just make sure to use maybe q-tips or lint free cloths and put a few drops before hand.

 

[BillParrish]

or if you are a cheap bastid like I am. 90% rubbing alcohol then lightly sand the top of the ram chips with 600grit wet and dry (used dry), just a little, just enough to rough up the shiney/slick surface of the top of the chip. Clean again with alcohol. This gives the adhesive on the tape something to stick too. However I dont use tape.

A couple of popular solutions.

Use regular AS5 or Ceramic under the ramsink, at each corner apply a tiny drop of super glue with a toothpick while you press lightly down on the ram sink with your finger and hold it in place for a couple of minutes. Later you can slide a exacto knife blade under the ramsink and remove it fairly easily.

If you mix Artic epoxy 1/2 and 1/2 with regular AS5 you reduce the bond strength by a lot. This makes it easy to remove the sinks later. You put it the board in the freezer for an hour and then gently twist and the sink should pop off or use the razor blade method. (I have done this and it works well).

Even a drop of hot melt glue at each ram/ramsink corner will work.

I wonder why you need to remove the sinks. I guess if you had to return it for warranty is your concern ? In that case I would not sand the tops but just clean well, use AS5 or ceramic (and just a tiny bit,) and the hot melt glue. Its easy to remove hot melt glue "balls" from PCBs. We used it all the time to hold down mod wires where I used to work. It holds fairly tightly but the coating on the PCB prevents it from bonding so it can be easily cleaned off later if the need arises.