How to Change your GPU's Thermal Paste (With Pictures)

[Noupoi]

Great guide! I've used a sandwich bag before to spread the thermal compound which seemed to work fine.

 

I too prefer to spread the TIM when directly applying it to the die, as opposed to doing the pea method on a heatspreader as full coverage is more important with the die.

[Roberto]

Thank you dude!

[blaze124]

very good walkthrough would the steps be the same for a MSI GTX 670 Power Edition?

[Wats]

very good walkthrough would the steps be the same for a MSI GTX 670 Power Edition?

Yes, the guide would work perfectly with that card.

 

Very similar to the 7870 in the guide with only four screws to remove. That card also has a dedicated VRAM+VRM heatspreader so you will not have to worry about damaging the thermal pads.

 

 

Nice choice btw, top shelf card you have.

[marcoolim]

Thermal performance affected/changed?

[Wats]

Thermal performance affected/changed?

Temperatures will change, hopefully improve. Lower temps will allow you to overclock your card further without having to raise the fan speed as much and that helps with noise.

[mrsocksman]

Is it OK for thermal compound to be around the pins where the GPU is located?

I have two pins on my CPU covered with it due to a botched thermal reapplication and nothing went wrong. That was with non-conductive paste though(That being said, try hard to not get anything on the CPU pins). With conductive stuff it would short out.

[EChondo]

I only spread the TIM if I'm working on GPUs.

 

If it's a CPU, definitely use the dot, X, or line methods.

 

Great guide!

[ologiic]

Wow thanks for the guide man. Never even thought about that. I'm sure I can get more performance out of my card if I did that.

[WorldDominator]

Do you have to spread the TIM on a GPU? Or can you just do the pea dot like with the CPU?

[Wats]

Do you have to spread the TIM on a GPU? Or can you just do the pea dot like with the CPU?

Nope. You do not have to. I prefer spreading when there is no IHS though, even coverage and very little spill over.

[LuminatX]

Been debating if I should use the conventional arctic silver, or mx tim's, or try out CLU.

I know it's conductive, but I've heard you can get much better temps using it. anyone here try it yet?

[Wats]

Been debating if I should use the conventional arctic silver, or mx tim's, or try out CLU.

I know it's conductive, but I've heard you can get much better temps using it. anyone here try it yet?

Don't use CLU unless you know what you're doing! (<- I beilive that is in the guide) One little speck somewhere it isn't suppose to be could really mess up your card. Otherwise it is great TIM.

 

Arctic Silver is ok, I've used it on video cards before. But save it for your cpu.

 

Use the MX paste. Applies and cleans up the easiest out of all of them.

 

 

 

 

 

This doesn't apply to the TIM reply...

I took some aluminum & mag polish to a copper heatplate on a video card's heatsink. Took 1C off load temp lol... I know there is polish just for copper but what I used did seem to help. I don't suggest this yet, just saying.

[atrash]

I personally find that if you have a quite old graphics card,chances are you might also have to replace those plastic washers underneath those screws because it might already loose its original shape due to high heat for long period. but it may varies between different cooler. 

[ztmj96]

Wow this is cool. But it looks risky thought and I don't want to try it without any practice.

If I'm a moderate gamer, how often should I change the GPU thermal paste to see a significant effect?

[Wats]

Wow this is cool. But it looks risky thought and I don't want to try it without any practice.

If I'm a moderate gamer, how often should I change the GPU thermal paste to see a significant effect?

A good time to do so would be every time you dust your GPU's heatsink. Tearing down the card makes it very easy to remove dust.

 

At least every 3 years thermal paste should be changed. But by then the hardware is outdated so... what is this scenario called again?

 

 

 

 

 

-------------------

If you're having serious temperature problems and do not wish to solve the issue by your self, RMA it. 

[it24]

Nice one! After seeing the temperature decrease i may try this!

[acepro71]

will people at saphire clean it or change thermal paste for free as it is still in warranty ? ? 

also can u tell me what TIM full form is ? 

[acepro71]

i bought this card http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1160&pid=1473&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

 

and from the day i bought it 

 

it easily reaches 70 C maybe because of my room temperature :L and now a days it reaches 100 C easily...

 

as u can see here

 

 idle temperature ~ http://prntscr.com/1sr00h

 

on load ~ http://prntscr.com/1sr44f

 

+ whats ur room temperature mine is around 33 C 

 

in case its like 39 C and my case has good airflow do u think its because  but gpu is dusty as hell as my case did not came with dust filter paper and local stores here do not have it ... also local stores here only sell some local thermal paste which is white in color and i do not know if its conductive or not ... and do not have isopropyl alcohol ** for cpu and heat-sink cleaning i only use microfiber cloth **  + do u think i can use micro fiber cloth instead of coffee filters also  can i use air from my mouth to blow dust off as they do not have air compressed cans as well  ?? 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Yes, Sapphire OC Edition. The improved, non-Black Screen of Death version.

 

as far as my card goes i never had this problem for awhile my gpu was not giving any signals to my pc but i changed my ram and reset bios to default it starting working again so i think i never had this problem but what happens if u do have this problem  ? ? ?

 

and u said oc model is improved but this thread states it wrong .. http://prntscr.com/1stprf

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

**were there any thing like stickers etc on mouse ** in the gpu which let sapphire know u opened the card ? ? 

 

and can u tell just what screws to open to clean dust off the gpu fans ??? or can u give me or add that in tutorial ?? ?

 

THANKS IN ADVANCE 

 

[acepro71]

also my friends nvidia card stopped giving signal any ideas how to fix it as its out of warranty ? 

[Wats]

@acepro71

 

My room temp is 23C. 

 

There are four screws holding the cooler onto the PCB. The other eight? screws are for the VRM and memory heatsink, you do not have to remove that. 

 

To remove the fans from the cooler, there are four more screws within the heatsink. Be very careful with these, they are small and can strip easily. Use your best screw driver. 

 

Remove the dust is easy to do with a small flat 10mm paint brush. You can brush the dust from the PCB too if you do not have compressed air.

 

No there are no stickers or anything preventing you from changing the thermal paste or disassembling the video card. Just do not remove the P/N and S/N stickers if you care about warranty.

 

 

 

Try to find some 90%+ rubbing alcohol, ask a neighbor. Even a little alcohol wipe is enough. Un-flavored vodka or something similar will work too, not recomended though.

 

Take your time, never force anything while doing this. The cooler may be "glued" on, gentle wiggles will help. Remember if you do not feel comfortable doing this, you can always RMA. 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Oh and when I said "improved non-black screen of death version" I was joking. It's a refurbished video card from when I RMAed my first 7870. It would black screen all of the time, same problem as in the link you provided. The "OC edition" part is just a bios change, the OC and non-OC are the same cards. The OC edition just happened to be $20 cheaper at the time.

 

also my friends nvidia card stopped giving signal any ideas how to fix it as its out of warranty ? 

If your friend's video card is very old/worked hard, could just be dead. There are ways to bring her back to life, but that is for another guide.

 

Did I miss anything? Wish you luck!

[acepro71]

whats RMA?

 

and i just need to get the black body and fans of can u mark the screws for that in pic ?? 

 

also do u think my gpu has black screen of death?  

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1160&pid=1473&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

 

 

+ do u think i should use micro fiber cloth to clean thermal paste and i can not find any other thermal paste in stores except the local one

 

but i do not know if its conductive it or not but it gives temperatures exactly like  the original paste which came pre applied on cooler of amd cpu cooler its white in color do u think i should try it ? 

 

also can u give link to fix dead gpu's too  ? 

 

thanks again 

[Wats]

whats RMA?

 

and i just need to get the black body and fans of can u mark the screws for that in pic ?? 

 

also do u think my gpu has black screen of death?  

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1160&pid=1473&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

 

 

+ do u think i should use micro fiber cloth to clean thermal paste and i can not find any other thermal paste in stores except the local one

 

but i do not know if its conductive it or not but it gives temperatures exactly like  the original paste which came pre applied on cooler of amd cpu cooler its white in color do u think i should try it ? 

RMA = Return the broken thing for another

 

These four screws to remove the cooler from PCB

 

Then there are four more tiny screws within the heatink to remove the bezel/shroud and get access to the fans. 

 

You can use just about anything to remove the paste, as long as you don't leave any of the old stuff behind. It is ok for some of the paste to "spill" off of the die

 

As long as it is good paste, it'll be fine. Find out the name of the paste and google to see what it is made of or if it is any good. Or just say what the name of the paste is here. 

 

 

 

EDITY: As for the black screen of death issue, you could have that problem. Are your games suddenly going black and your sound buzzing? If so, open a support ticket with Sapphire and title the Email BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH. It is a common issue with 7xxx series and Sapphire, they wont ask many questions and you'll get a refurb card in about two weeks.

[acepro71]

wouldn't removing those four screws break the bond between thermal paste and heat sink  ?

 

i do not want to change thermal paste for now i just want to remove the dust off ... 

 so i need the unscrew the lower 2 screws right ? 

 

i will post pic of thermal paste tomorrow as i can not find on google ...

[Wats]

wouldn't removing those four screws break the bond between thermal paste and heat sink  ?

 

i do not want to change thermal paste for now i just want to remove the dust off ... 

 so i need the unscrew the lower 2 screws right ? 

 

i will post pic of thermal paste tomorrow as i can not find on google ...

Ohhhh. Unless you have some kind of magical screw driver, you'll need to re-do the thermal paste.

 

You can just get a paint brush up under the fan blades and knock the clumps out, it'll be kind of difficult but it is possible without taking the whole thing apart. You will not be able to dust the heatsink without taking it apart.

 

 

There are four screws holding the heatsink to the shroud by the way.