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TIM not drying up

T

thecrafter

I have LOVED the Cock for
Joined
Feb 11, 2011
Messages
571
Hello, yesterday I received TIM Consultants thermal paste and applied it to my
3dfx Voodoo5 5500. For some reason it isn't drying up and as a result my HSF is sliding
off.

I made several attempts. At first I thought I put too much, so I cleaned
it up and put too little and it still would not dry.

I also tried putting the card in the freezer afterwards for an hour and
still didn't help. I finally reapplied and left it on overnight. 12 hours
later, the HSF is still sliding off because it has not dried up any.

I understand that you don't want the TIM to "dry" up, but they do need to
dry enough to keep the cooling in place!

What's going on here? I don't think I put too much because when I take the HSF off, the thermal paste doesn't even cover the entire chip
 
how is the HSF sliding off?.....don't you have the mounting screws installed?

Thermal paste is not supposed to hold anything on...so I'm not sure what your trying to accomplish.
 
TIM doesn't keep heatsinks/coolers in place. You need thermal epoxy like this.
 
TIM is not supposed to dry out unless you get something like Arctic Alumina, which is a thermal adhesive compound. That is why you're having problems...
 
Crosshairs said:
how is the HSF sliding off?.....don't you have the mounting screws installed?

Thermal paste is not supposed to hold anything on...so I'm not sure what your trying to accomplish.
Click to expand...

Nope there's no mounting screws but great point, how could I forget about this fact.


Hmmm. As I said in the OP it's 3dfx Voodoo5 5500. There were reports online that 3dfx used super glue as TIM, and I lol'd at that claim. But yesterday when I was taking the heatsinks off, I found that might just be true. I had to put it in the freezer for one hour then use a flathead screw driver to pop them off.

It was yellow in color and rubbbing alcohol would not work! After hours and hours of Q-tipping I got a window cleaner knife and still took an hour or two to get it off.

So there's no mounting screws but you are freaking right. Now I'm really confused. There are screws but they're only used to secure the fan to the heatsink, which was apparently literally glued on to the chips! ??????
 
CruisD64 said:
TIM is not supposed to dry out unless you get something like Arctic Alumina, which is a thermal adhesive compound. That is why you're having problems...
Click to expand...

Is Alumina a replacement to TIM or is it used in addition?
 
if there are no mounting screws, the link that MrMike posted is what you need
 
thecrafter said:
Is Alumina a replacement to TIM or is it used in addition?
Click to expand...

Replacement. Both sides need to be as clean as possible, then you mix part A and B in equal amounts, spread the compound to the chip, press on the heatsink and let it sit for the suggested curing time.
 
thecrafter said:
Is Alumina a replacement to TIM or is it used in addition?
Click to expand...

There is regular Artic Alumina which is just a regular TIM.

Then there is Arctic Alumina epoxy which is what you probably want to use.. if you want to leave the crappy stock heatsinks on the 5500.

There is also an Artic Silver epoxy which may give you slightly better temps, but is not worth the extra cost, especially for a 5500.

What I did on my 5500 is to take a couple thin finned socket 7 heatsinks, lapped them, and drilled holes in the corners to match up with the holes on the 5500. I then used small bolts and nuts as well as some of those red insulating washers to attach the heatsinks to the 5500. It runs way cooler than the crappy stock heatsinks that the 5500 came with.

I have no idea what TIM I actually used on my 5500 since I did that mod quite a few years ago... probably Arctic Silver - regular... not epoxy.
 
Yeah they're crappy but but too much work for what you suggested. Any other option and it would cost me as much as the card itself, and they don't OC for crap to begin with so it isn't worth it.

I paid $30 or 35 for it, the TIM's now cost me 50% of the card lol

Thanks for the suggestion guys, ordered the Alumina. Hopefully I don't fuck it up
 
Last edited:
Another (cheaper) solution would actually to put the thermal paste in the middle and 4 small drops of super glue on the corners of the GPU and place the HSF ontop. Suggested by the company I bought the TIM from. Good solution I think
 
thecrafter said:
Another (cheaper) solution would actually to put the thermal paste in the middle and 4 small drops of super glue on the corners of the GPU and place the HSF ontop. Suggested by the company I bought the TIM from. Good solution I think
Click to expand...

I have actually done that before.... it works for a while and then the super glue stops holding after so many heating/cooling cycles and the heatsink falls off.
 
it was super glue it was epoxy, it was cheap at that.. the issue with the voodoo5 5500 was that when they applied the heatsink it involed a glob of thermal epoxy and then setting the heatsink on it, 4 out of the 5 gpus on my voodoo5s had "holes" in the epoxy where it didn't spread out evenly.

in the end i used a thermaltape product that i've been really impressed with to attach the voodoo5 heatsinks (similar to stuff used to attach memory heatsinks), has worked a lot better than the epoxy.

if you had a hot glue gun you could also use the thermal paste and then hit the four corners of the heatsink wth a dot a hot glue and then just hold in place until dry
 
cyclone3d said:
I have actually done that before.... it works for a while and then the super glue stops holding after so many heating/cooling cycles and the heatsink falls off.
Click to expand...

Uh oh, that doesn't sound good. If it does and I don't notice the GPUs will surely fry! How long would you say it took to fall off?

Is it possible to take the heatsinks off now without damaging the chips? I wasn't able to cancel the order of Alumina in time anyway, may as well apply it I suppose
 
I thought what you did was use the thermal paste to cover the name of the chip. Give the video card to one of those computer-recycling programs and let them get all excited until they remove the thermal paste and read 3DFX and remove a bit more and read 5500 and go ...'Ohh. Well, kids can play wolfenstein'.
 
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