Replacing TIM on GPU made it 20 degrees worse!

Hardware Hub Cooling
41

Dont take this the wring way I am just going to write a few thing more if a suggestion/check.list.

Thermal paste is only to bridge the air gap between the thing making the heat and the heat sink to best transfer that heat the fastest. So with that in mind a very thing layer only is needed. Too.much will actually see a rise in temps as it is not transfering the heat fast enough to the sink and the core heats up a little more.

Let it bed in. It take a little while. This is known. It will thin out a little more and solidify a bit and transfer heat a little better after some time.

GPUs unlike CPUs do not have heat spreaders on them, they are just the bare die top. So thenpaste should cover the entire surface of the die when spread out no corners uncovered.

Also GPU dies when cleaning the paste off should be perfectly reflective like a mirror. If not then there was still.something in the surface potentially messing up the temps.

There are probably more but this is what comes to.mind first thing in the morning before getting out of bed.

42

It’s fine, but I have considered most of these things already. I know the purpose of the paste and I have succesfully applied paste on many cpu’s in the past, this is my first GPU however. If you looked in this thread you will se pictures when I removed the cooler after I’d applied the paste. As you can se it covers the gpu die perfectly. I have also tried using less and more on different tests and it the difference was just a few degrees. And yes I have cleaned the die each time so it reflects as a mirror. The Cooler block however is very rugged, and I could actually sand it down with some weat sandpaper to make it more smooth. But as it has worked just fine before, this should not be needed.

I set the fan at 100% and started furmark. MSI reports the gpu is 94 degrees while my temp sensor I have put in the cooler is around 40.

But yes, as I can’t afford a new card at the moment, I will have to use this for a while. But playing games with the gpu on 95 degrees and the fan spinning 100% will not be a very pleasent experience.

EDIT

I’m looking around the web for more tips and came over JayzTwoCents video here: https://youtu.be/26y_6bnXNkc

Isn’t he using extremely much paste?

I used more the amount that Linus used here; https://youtu.be/qDLQ7FjPMf8?t=5m43s

43

Not worth the shipping I’m afraid.

44

Before you go any further with thermal paste you really ought to try replacing the thermal pads that cool the memory, or at least verify that they are all intact/undamaged.

Here’s someone else who was having similar problems: http://www.overclock.net/t/1168481/i-think-i-just-threw-460-out-the-window-6970-tim-replace

It seems like their problem came from improper paste application and ,maybe, heatsink/shroud installation.

45

The pads aren’t the best condition, but It shouln’t affect the gpu temps i believe.

But I will try first by tightning the big bracket in the corners and then go for the GPU bracket and tighten it very slowly.

46

Apply any type of prescribed snake oils and you should be fine.

1 Like
47

Nope, no matter how I mount it will the temps get better. ;/

48

Well I seem to have partly solved it…Lowered the power limit to -20. Don’t know how big performance loss I will get but it will idle around 60 at that setting.

Edit:

Could it have with the VRAM to do with? Beacuse their thermal pads are quite crappy

49

I’m starting to wonder if perhaps the vapor chamber leaked and is now empty. Would leave you with a pocket of air with a thin copper jacket around it and a heatsink on top. Not ideal for cooling.

50

I guess that is possible…but if I run it hot for a while and then take it out, the fins are barley luke warm. Even if the gas was gone, the whole heatsink would heat up eventually, right?

51

Since heat isn’t effectively making it to them they don’t warm up. Meanwhile, the die is stewing underneath that copper jacket and receiving very little cooling.

Basically the heat stops at the vapor chamber jacket and the aluminum contact bracket around it. I’m sure if you unplugged the fan and disabled the thermal safety it would eventually heat the entire thing.

52

These are my temps with GPU-Z:
Idle:

GPU#1 = 63

GPU#2 = 67

GPU#3 = 68

VRM = 33LOAD(1 minuts furmark):

GPU#1 = 87

GPU#2 = 92

GPU#3 = 91

VRM = 36

Well that makes sense. Well I can’t seem to solve it so I guess I either have to replace the cooler or get a new card. I did plan to upgrade this summer to Pascal, and giving/selling this card to my brother. But I can’t do that with a defect cooler. Maybe I can find a dead 6950 on ebay.

53

did you put pads(new ones) back on your memory chips and vrm?

cause the heat from those can heat up your pcb

54

Nope, using the old ones.

It could, but as GPU-Z is saying, the vrm is just 40 degrees, no big deal.

1 Like
55

yeah but what about the memory? that surrounds your gpu? it think your card is getting heat soaked.

56

Maybe. But as I said, I still got the old pads there, they are probably better then nothing. Besides I have ordered new pads but it will take a while before I get them.

57

If all else fails, try undervolting. It can help quite much.

Just to give an example, I’ve got a reference 7870:
-Stock clock & fan curve
-Undervolted
-28% fan speed
-64°C

And to compare to stock:
-Stock, including voltage
-35% fan speed
-76°C

During full load of course.

58

Sorry in advance for the wall of text.

Well it looks like you’re going to have these options
a) deal with the temps
b) replace the cooler
c) buy a new card (or used)
I got the impression you live in Sweden? Going to use prisjakt.nu to talk about prices.

Option B: Replacing the cooler.

I’d probably invest in an after market cooler vs buying a dead 6950/6970 and salvaging the blower from it.
What’s that gonna improve? Same blower cooler still. Same noise.

If we look at after market GPU air coolers, it’s a pretty stagnated market these days.
AIB stock coolers have gotten so good that the need for them has declined considerably.
So in other words, it’s pretty much the same stuff as we’ve had for few years.
Brands to look at, well it’s just Arctic and Prolimatech pretty much. Unless you include AIO watercoolers..

One of the cheapest solutions would probably be the Accelero Mono Plus from Arctic.
It doesn’t specifically support the 6970 because the official TDP rating is 250W vs. the rated 200W of the Mono Plus.
But that’s just TDP, realistically it will handle it just fine, reference 6970’s don’t consume no where close to even 200W of power under gaming load, of course it will sky rocket well beyond 200W if you’re running Furmark, which is just a silly thing to do..

Looking at prisjakt.nu it looks like it’s about 350-400 SEK without shipping. HD 6950’s on Ebay were about the same or more.

One step above that is the Twin Turbo II. (not III which doesn’t come with separate heatsinks for VRM/VRAM instead comes with backplate which cools VRM/VRAM through the freaking PCB, SILLY cooler, don’t buy that)
Like the name says, it’s got dual 92mm fans instead of a single 120mm fan.
Good cooler. Not much else to say about it, also officially supports the 6970 because of higher surface area/more airflow hence higher rated TDP handling.
Lowest price is 470 SEK

Aaaand I’m not gonna talk about the Accelero Xtreme or Prolimatech MK-26. They’re just too expensive (600-700 SEK) in my opinion to thrown on such an old card.
Of course you can reuse to cooler but if you buy a new card, you’re probably gonna look at something that has a decent cooler already. So.. Yeah..

Option C: Buying a new card!
Well, you said you were planning to upgrade when the new Nvidia cards arrive, Pascal. Or perhaps AMD’s Polaris. Whatever.
Have you thought about a sidegrade instead? I mean just for now while you wait.
When new cards arrive, you could then upgrade for a more powerful card while giving/selling the card you sidegraded to to your brother.

For example the GTX 750 Ti would get you pretty much the same performance as you now have.
The reference 750 Ti offering the performance of GTX 480 at ~1/5th the power consumption which in comparison trades blows with the HD 6970.
Factory overclocked 750 Ti’s are generally 5-15% faster than the reference and the overclocking potential is really nice.
While under gaming load power consumption is well below 100W. The reference card peak power consumption is below 60W… So a quiet card.

If you’d buy new, they seem to start at 1200 SEK.
Used 750 Ti’s here in Finland range between about 90-110€ or what’s that, 850-1000 SEK?

AMD card that would give you equal or better performance would be the HD 7850 / R7 265 / R7 370.
R7 370’s for example look like they start at around 1400 SEK.
I don’t know about the used prices off these and not gonna bother checking so feel free to look around yourself :slight_smile:

60

I am sure you have tried remounting it many times now. But unless the cooler has developed a problem the only thing that would be doing this is poor mounting pressure. Now you said you have tried tightening it up very tight so maybe something is obstructing/preventing it from getting enough pressure.

Its a long shot but maybe the damaged pads on the memory are not compressing down and and creating uneven pressure. Another idea, are any of the screws threads damaged. Also you said you have tried using different amounts of thermal compound so you may have already tried this. Try using an excessive amount just to eliminate some possibilities.

Edit: I have not remounted an AMD stock cooler in a while but from memory i think they are designed to be tightened as far as they will go, at least for the clamp behind the GPU. The rest of the cooler screws maybe not.

61

Get better Thermal paste. I would recommend the Noctua NT-H1. I love that thing but it can be a bit stringy if you play around with the syringe for awhile. It requires no Burn in time and its not conductive. I have a similar issue where some idiot that whacked on too much thermal paste on a 6950 XFX 1gb that I bought very recently. After cleaning it, I have managed to get the temps down to about 84c-ish it used to hit 90+. If that doesn’t work you can spend about 90USD on an aftermarket GPU from Artic same company as that thermal paste. From what I have seen about their coolers on the gpu its looks very promising. Just try out the thermal paste first before forking out the cash for an aftermarket gpu cooler.