how to train a dragon... no, i mean how to cool a gigabyte gtx 1080 ti

[Pachuca]

hi everyone, so i have a gigabyte gtx 1080 ti OC Gaming which recently caught fire, only slightly. There was a bit of black screening and smoke from the gpu, nothing crazy. I sent the card in for RMA, should get it repaired. One of the mosfets was smoking. I don't know if it's because the part was just faulty and it was going to break regardless or if it was due to a lack of popper cooling because I'm using the EKW universal gpu block, which basically only cools the core and literally nothing else. The mosfet that started smoking was towards the back of the gpu and closer to the motherboard so it was in an extremely hot area. I want to take precautions when I get the repaired gpu back and make sure that I have good enough cooling so I purchased this water block from Bykski which has really bad reviews, but for my gpu I wasn't able to find anything else that would work. From the pictures it doesn't look like this waterblock will cover the back end of the gpu. I would like to use something like Alphacool NexXxoS Fan Bracket but the problem is I don't have a backplate for it or anything of that nature. Does anyone have some suggestions or recommendations for me? I really don't want to burn out my card again, please help me.

[KarathKasun]

Buy some small FET heatsinks and some thermally conductive glue/epoxy.  Application is permanent.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Enzotech-Mosfet-Passive-Copper-10-pack/dp/B004CLDIHK

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0087X725S/ref=sxts_kp_bs_lp_1?pf_rd_p=8778bc68-27e7-403f-8460-de48b6e788fb&pd_rd_wg=XT6Ox&pf_rd_r=G6H046B1ACCJ7BNP59SP&pd_rd_i=B0087X725S&pd_rd_w=fuRVD&pd_rd_r=40f9b0a7-3c29-43b2-8a83-be3826f7ca40&ie=UTF8&qid=1548641045&sr=1

[Pachuca]

28 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

Buy some small FET heatsinks and some thermally conductive glue/epoxy.  Application is permanent.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Enzotech-Mosfet-Passive-Copper-10-pack/dp/B004CLDIHK

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0087X725S/ref=sxts_kp_bs_lp_1?pf_rd_p=8778bc68-27e7-403f-8460-de48b6e788fb&pd_rd_wg=XT6Ox&pf_rd_r=G6H046B1ACCJ7BNP59SP&pd_rd_i=B0087X725S&pd_rd_w=fuRVD&pd_rd_r=40f9b0a7-3c29-43b2-8a83-be3826f7ca40&ie=UTF8&qid=1548641045&sr=1

that would be a problem for me because I would like to sell this gpu in the future and that wouldn't be a good selling point.

Edit: thank you for the suggestion i'm going to consider it anyway. 

[KarathKasun]

Without heatsinks, most GPUs will have VRM reliability issues.  Selling the card after its broken again and out of warranty is going to be even more difficult than selling one with heatsinks glued to it.

[Pachuca]

1 minute ago, KarathKasun said:

Without heatsinks, most GPUs will have VRM reliability issues.  Selling the card after its broken again and out of warranty is going to be even more difficult than selling one with heatsinks glued to it.

i'm keeping the stock cooler so i was going to put it back and sell it in working/good condition 

[W-L]

1 hour ago, Pachuca said:

i'm keeping the stock cooler so i was going to put it back and sell it in working/good condition 

You can use heatsinking with thermal tape which is removable, ideally for VRM it should be done with mechanical fastening of the heatsink and regular thermal pads.

[KarathKasun]

7 hours ago, Pachuca said:

i'm keeping the stock cooler so i was going to put it back and sell it in working/good condition 

If you put it under water again with no heatsinking on the VRM, it will not be in good/working condition for long.

[AnonymousGuy]

I think I have that exact waterblock: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Bykski-N-GV1080TIG1-X-GPU-water-block-for-GIGABYTE-GTX-1080-Ti-Gaming-OC-11G-graphics/32942992578.html?spm=a2g0s.12269583.0.0.222137e3Va7gNB

 

It works fine.  Been running it close to 6 months now.

[Pachuca]

On 1/28/2019 at 12:30 PM, AnonymousGuy said:

I think I have that exact waterblock: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Bykski-N-GV1080TIG1-X-GPU-water-block-for-GIGABYTE-GTX-1080-Ti-Gaming-OC-11G-graphics/32942992578.html?spm=a2g0s.12269583.0.0.222137e3Va7gNB

 

It works fine.  Been running it close to 6 months now.

does it cover all the vital parts? do you know if it's possible to get a back plate for this gpu too? I found this fan that attaches to the back of a gpu, but it looks like it only works with the Alphacool NexXxoS GPX which doesn't say it's compatible with my gpu. Your thoughts? 

[AnonymousGuy]

1 hour ago, Pachuca said:

does it cover all the vital parts? do you know if it's possible to get a back plate for this gpu too? I found this fan that attaches to the back of a gpu, but it looks like it only works with the Alphacool NexXxoS GPX which doesn't say it's compatible with my gpu. Your thoughts? 

Backplates are cosmetic and not needed.  The Byski block to me looked equivalent to an EK block.

[Pachuca]

On 1/27/2019 at 11:10 PM, W-L said:

You can use heatsinking with thermal tape which is removable, ideally for VRM it should be done with mechanical fastening of the heatsink and regular thermal pads.

found an even better solution. I'm going to setup 3x80mm fans using this PCIe fan mount which should keep everything cooler in that area plus the new gpu cooler from Byski. 

[Pachuca]

Final solution : PCIe fan mount using 3x 80mm fans.

[W-L]

3 minutes ago, Pachuca said:

found an even better solution. I'm going to setup 3x80mm fans using this PCIe fan mount which should keep everything cooler in that area plus the new gpu cooler from Byski. 

If you are using the Byski full cover block then you shouldn't require anything else, but for the universal block that solution will be acceptable of the VRAM but the VRM will still require heatinking due to the small surface area of the chips and just the amount of heat generated. 

[Pachuca]

Just now, W-L said:

If you are using the Byski full cover block then you shouldn't require anything else, but for the universal block that solution will be acceptable of the VRAM but the VRM will still require heatinking due to the small surface area of the chips and just the amount of heat generated. 

I'll try both because I ordered both already since the heatsinks are relatively cheap. will I need thermal pads for the Byski? Have any good ones you could recommend? thank you

[W-L]

2 minutes ago, Pachuca said:

I'll try both because I ordered both already since the heatsinks are relatively cheap. will I need thermal pads for the Byski? Have any good ones you could recommend? thank you

They should come with some usually speaking but if not you need to make sure you get ones of the correct thickness for it's application. Some of the best one's would be the thermal grizzly ones but with that they come with a price, I usually recommend the stuff from 3M or what EKWB supplies.