GPU repair

Jim1348
Jim1348
Joined: 19 Jan 06
Posts: 463
Credit: 257957147
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RE: The truly brave clean

Quote:
The truly brave clean populated PC boards by putting them in a dishwasher.


You do not further an understanding of the situation. The object is not to introduce water, but to minimize it. Alcohol is a polar molecule, which means that water attaches to it. If it evaporates before migrating into the parts, then the water goes with it.

AgentB
AgentB
Joined: 17 Mar 12
Posts: 915
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Well the weekend was HD 7990

Well the weekend was HD 7990 GPU repair day.

Also had a SSHD to add to the system so time for downtime.

I had noticed a difference of 12C between the two GPUs and the higher one was tipping 93C at times. It used to be sub 80.

Thermal paste check
Thermal pads (1.0 and 0.5 mm) check
alcohol (ethyl (4%) and isopropyl (100%) - double check)
vacuum device check
brush check
magnetic screwdrivers assorted tools check

Out it came, and there was not a lot of dust - less than what i expected.

It's like a layer cake

Fansx3 in top case
some dust
two Artic coolers most dust in them
dust layer
metal chassis
thermal pads and a little more dust
gpu card itself
more thermal pads and more dust
plastic back cover

and some endy bits. (with dust)

Removed back cover and noticed immediately the back cover had a lot of thermal pads (0.5mm) which i didn't have enough of so decided to preserve / not replace them. I could do them easily later.

Its a heavy card and hadn't noticed the second fan connector was diagonally opposed, and and it came away from the mini molex connector - oops, that's the first major problem.

Normally the thermal paste holds a cooler on but the hot running GPU was wobbling around and must have had an air gap. It clearly had half the amount of paste compared to the cooler GPU which did need a little encouragement to let go.

Fans are probably ok, a bit of bearing play especially on the hot end, replacement fan sets are not that expensive on ebay, so an order placed, and these can be spares. I did think about bodging some other fans...

Cleaned everything took about an hour getting the old TIM and getting the dust off. Thought about dishwasher.

It's quite therapeutic, cutting the thermal pads to fit and sticking them on. Note to self, they have a stiff plastic and soft plastic cover, remove the stiff plastic then apply them all, then at the last moment - remove the soft and then reassemble - especially the 0.5mm pads - they are delicate.

Re-applied some more paste, the gpu surfaces are mirror-like the coolers ok, reassembled - surprisingly easy to be honest.

I'll post some photos if anyone is interested.

The hardest part is, the occulus rift arrived today and no gpu, the fans will be a few days away. So some crunching time lost.

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