Thinking of repasting my RX 580.

[digitalwanderer]

Someone mentioned it in another thread and I've been thinking about it for years since I've never, ever seen a good paste job from a factory. (Or at least one I couldn't do better)

I've been fearful because of the TIM on the memory units and VRMs and such, I've ripped it before trying to take apart a 5870 to clean it and it never went back together quite right.

I'm just starting to do the research now, gonna watch at least 3-4 videos of someone else doing it before I decide if it's feasible or not. I currently don't have any TIM onhand and I'd have to find out the size/thickness and such first. ("TIM" = "thermal insulation material", it's that padded sticky stuff on your memory on your GPU and such.)

Any advice/recommends? I just looked up my card on Amazon and almost fell over laughing. I picked mine up a few years ago at Microcenter on a whim since it was $140us on the open box shelf:

 

[digitalwanderer]

I'm a lazy assed coward who should have looked this up years ago! G'damn it, too easy!

I've taken the shroud off before and swapped the fans, but I never pulled the heatsink. Check out what's underneath:



No excuses, this is an easy one.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Oooh, better! How to add TIM!

https://vimeo.com/382179123

 

[digitalwanderer]

THE INTERNETS LIED TO ME!

There was TIM on my VRMs when I removed the heatsink. Fortunately it all came off and went back together fine.

The paste was the cheap grey stuff and it was so brittle it all cracked off before I could hit it with rubbing alcohol. Replaced with Arctic Ceramique II and it all seems to be working. Gonna heat it up and cool it down a few times to set the paste...

 

[Davros]

Important Reminder:
Due to the unique shapes and sizes of the particles in Céramique 2, it will take a minimum of 25 hours and several thermal cycles to achieve maximum particle to particle thermal conduction and for the heatsink to CPU interface to reach maximum conductivity. (This period will be longer in a system without a fan on the heatsink.) On systems measuring actual internal core temperatures via the CPU's internal diode, the measured temperature will often drop slightly over this "break-in" period. This break-in will occur during the normal use of the computer as long as the computer is turned off from time to time and the interface is allowed to cool to room temperature. Once the break-in is complete, the computer can be left on if desired.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Yup, I read that one too. I'm doing some gaming then letting it idle.

I was playing Days Gone last night and averaging 72-75c, just fired it up and I was getting 48c pushing it's way to 51c in an intense scene.

EDITED BIT: Moving "Control" from a storage drive to my SSD to give that a spin, it always maxed out my 580 fast.

 

[swaaye]

The original "brittle" paste may have been a phase change TIM. They liquify when heated. It's not uncommon for OEMs to use that. There are some advantages.

I don't think 50C is a realistic load temp btw. Keep playing.

 

[digitalwanderer]

You're right, I got it up to 61c after an hour or so of heavy load.

I under volted my 580 a long time ago, mebbe that's helping. But this is still at least 10-13c less than I was doing yesterday.

 

[Davros]

Moving "Control" from a storage drive to my SSD to give that a spin

tip of the day : SSD's dont spin

 

[swaaye]

How are you monitoring the temps? I like to use HWInfo. You can just leave the sensors panel running in the background while you game.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Just the AMD overlay.

 

[WhiningKhan]

I vote digitalwanderer for Man of the Year.

You inspired me to inspect how the die and TIM of the crashing 7870XT in my desktop looks like. Well it was too runny on the die and dried up on the edges. Rubbed it clean, smeared new paste (actually 15y old tube), and... Its demons appear to have been exorcised. It used to crash within 5 minutes in ED Odyssey (heating to well over 70C), but it stood up more than hour without problems and temperature rising barely over 60C.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I vote digitalwanderer for Man of the Year.

You inspired me to inspect how the die and TIM of the crashing 7870XT in my desktop looks like. Well it was too runny on the die and dried up on the edges. Rubbed it clean, smeared new paste (actually 15y old tube), and... Its demons appear to have been exorcised. It used to crash within 5 minutes in ED Odyssey (heating to well over 70C), but it stood up more than hour without problems and temperature rising barely over 60C.

Ain't it amazing what some fresh paste can do? Really glad to hear you got your card working again!

 

[WhiningKhan]

Ain't it amazing what some fresh paste can do? Really glad to hear you got your card working again!

Indeed.
Several hours of quality time with my sons on Elite Dangerous today - something I was almost given up on ever happening again. They've been playing their own online games in solitude while my gear was incapacitated, but now the galaxy may still tremble under the rule of our house.

 

[swaaye]

It does sound like it was a poor quality paste, hardened and became essentially an insulator. It probably was not a phase change material as those are supposed to have excellent longevity.

 

[orangpelupa]

This thread makes me wanna punch the computer shop that wasted WHOLE TUBE of thermal bear astronaut (spelling?) thermal paste and the bloody thing still overheats in just ~5-10 minutes.

they blamed my thermal bear thermal paste is low quality, and they used stock AMD thermal paste. Then it overheats in just a minute or two. Then they blamed me for buying ram sticks with local brand.

then I brought a ~15yrs old nocturnal (spelling?) thermal paste to them, they assembled the thing. it overheats again.

Then i inspected the UEFI... turns out by default MSI enabled PBO with an unwavering 1.45 volts. disabled PBO, problem solved.

AND I STILL HAVE TO PAY THE COMPUTER SHOP for wasting my thermal bear paste, for the shoddy assembly (missed a bunch of screws, panels, etc) and baffling troubleshooting.

It does sound like it was a poor quality paste, hardened and became essentially an insulator. It probably was not a phase change material as those are supposed to have excellent longevity.

AFAIK most (all?) consumer electronics use thermal paste that became hard and brittle after many years.

But i don't know whether any of them are phase-change thermal paste as i never inspect them when they are hot.

 

[WhiningKhan]

Typically the stuff preapplied in the bottom of boxed CPU coolers is phase change stuff - it is 'dry' to touch instead of toothpasty gel like normal thermal pastes.

The paste on my 7870 was pretty standard looking silvery 'silicon grease' - as mentioned, what was left on die was very runny and nearly transparent looking, while the spillovers on the edges of die were crumbly-dry.

Could not find the old Arctic Silver tube I've used the last couple of decades but found almost equally old white Arctic-branded compound that AFAIR came with an aftermarket cooler for 9600Pro back in the day...

 

[swaaye]

AMD has used phase change TIM on some cards. I remember the reference Radeon 9700 and Radeon HD 69x0 cards used it. But yeah usually I find a grey paste with GPUs.

I think the stuff that "dries out" is cheap silicone-suspension goop. Arctic Silver AFAIK doesn't use silicone. I've seen several year old Arctic Silver 5 applications and it's still a thick paste but with some separation. Ceramique lasts a really long time too. I have a >10 year old tube of that stuff around and have had applications of it in use for years.

A problem with pastes though is they apparently slowly pump out after many heating cycles. So I imagine air moves in. This is something the phase change TIM is supposed to avoid.

 

[Davros]

thermal bear astronaut

but knowing Orangelupa he probably did buy a knockoff brand called thermal bear astronaut
ps: paste is rated in Thermal Conductivity WM / K the top end paste's have a wm/k between 10 + 12.5

Ceramique lasts a really long time too

Artic claim 8.5 years

 

[orangpelupa]

but knowing Orangelupa he probably did buy a knockoff brand called thermal bear astronaut
ps: paste is rated in Thermal Conductivity WM / K the top end paste's have a wm/k between 10 + 12.5


Artic claim 8.5 years

haha thanks for the grizzly keyword.i managed to use it to search my shopping history. its this one