Oils in my GPU's thermal pads??

[Vasllo]

I need some help to understand what is going on.

July last year I bought a G1 Gaming GTX 1070 Ti used from a miner, he used it for 3 to 6 months (the receipt when he bought was from 6 months before), and have been using it since then.

The first time I opened it, I noticed some oils in the VRM, VRAM and specially in the backplate thermal pads, but since it was working I didn't care much about it (my first mistake).

A couple months ago my GPU completely stopped working. Out of desperation, I decided to bath it in isopropyl alcohol and dry it. It worked. But I noticed some memory artifacts in COD Warzone, and only there (probably because it's the only game to use over 7GB VRAM) and this has been in the back of my mind, was it shorting from the oils? Is it still shorting in one of the memory modules?

Today I decided to make a complete clean up in my PC and I have my GPU open again. There is oil all over the place again, and it's mostly in the backplate thermal pads and coming through to the VRAM and VRM.

I'll clean it with isopropyl alcohol again, buy anyone has some light in what's going on? I've seen people saying about fan bearings oil, but in the backplate thermal pads??? And my fans are fine, not noisy.

Welp.

Here are some photos: https://imgur.com/a/1uZyHVw

But I only had the idea to post about after I cleaned most of it, so you won't be able to see much. It's mostly on top and around the backplate thermal pads

[TempestCatto]

The thermal pads are probably just shitty. Happened to a big range of MSI mobo's back in the 9xx series of chipsets. The issue was a junk thermal pad on the VRM's, which then leaked it's oils all down the side and back of the boards. Then the pad was useless and the boards would overheat. You can buy replacement pads from Thermal Grizzly, just make sure you buy the right thickness. They come in big squares and you just cut them down to size. Make sure you then clean off the oil really well. Card should work like a champ then, my MSI 990FXa Gaming works wonderfully after all that.

[Enderman]

Yeah some thermal pads leech fluid.

It happens.

https://forums.evga.com/Some-type-of-oil-like-substance-comming-out-from-under-the-backplate-GTX-1080ti-sc-gaming-m2732177.aspx

[minibois]

Apparently it's a type of oil that these thermal pads are soaked in:

 

[Vasllo]

11 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

The thermal pads are probably just shitty. Happened to a big range of MSI mobo's back in the 9xx series of chipsets. The issue was a junk thermal pad on the VRM's, which then leaked it's oils all down the side and back of the boards. Then the pad was useless and the boards would overheat. You can buy replacement pads from Thermal Grizzly, just make sure you buy the right thickness. They come in big squares and you just cut them down to size. Make sure you then clean off the oil really well. Card should work like a champ then, my MSI 990FXa Gaming works wonderfully after all that.

Well, where I live it would be rather hard and expensive to get some new pads, and I don't have money rn, the only pads I have are 1mm or so, this one is huge and in perfect condition, I'll just clean it, since it's just a backplate pad, but thanks for the insight. 

10 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Yeah some thermal pads leech fluid.

It happens.

https://forums.evga.com/Some-type-of-oil-like-substance-comming-out-from-under-the-backplate-GTX-1080ti-sc-gaming-m2732177.aspx

Hmm, didn't think it would be a thing, can it be problematic or something? Cuz if this causes no problems, I can't understand how I brought my card back to life with just a isopropyl alcohol bath. 

6 minutes ago, minibois said:

Apparently it's a type of oil that these thermal pads are soaked in:

 

That is exactly how it looked like, but in the VRM and VRAM. And I'm having some memory artifacts when loading over 7GB, like stated in the post, if this isn't the cause, what possibly could it be? Maybe I fucked up one chip by drying the card with a hair dryer in hot mode in the first time I cleaned it? (I know it was a dumb idea in hindsight, but I was desperate)

[Enderman]

10 minutes ago, Vasllo said:

Hmm, didn't think it would be a thing, can it be problematic or something? Cuz if this causes no problems, I can't understand how I brought my card back to life with just a isopropyl alcohol bath. 

 

Supposedly it's non conductive, but if you don't like it you can ask to RMA.

[TempestCatto]

4 minutes ago, Vasllo said:

Hmm, didn't think it would be a thing, can it be problematic or something? Cuz if this causes no problems, I can't understand how I brought my card back to life with just a isopropyl alcohol bath. 

On some of those MSI motherboards, if the oils were let go for too long, it did kill them. Maybe the oils in those pads were different, but I would still be careful about letting it go for too long.

 

7 minutes ago, Vasllo said:

I'm having some memory artifacts when loading over 7GB, like stated in the post, if this isn't the cause, what possibly could it be? Maybe I fucked up one chip by drying the card with a hair dryer in hot mode in the first time I cleaned it? (I know it was a dumb idea in hindsight, but I was desperate)

If the pad is leaching its oils, it can become deformed and have bad or no contact with the heatsink. With the chip heating up under load and not having that heat drawn away, that may cause some of those artifacts. But a hair dryer won't get hot enough to melt solder. It could have caused damage to the chip itself because of all that direct heat though.

[Woxolifo]

33 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

The thermal pads are probably just shitty. Happened to a big range of MSI mobo's back in the 9xx series of chipsets. The issue was a junk thermal pad on the VRM's, which then leaked it's oils all down the side and back of the boards. Then the pad was useless and the boards would overheat. You can buy replacement pads from Thermal Grizzly, just make sure you buy the right thickness. They come in big squares and you just cut them down to size. Make sure you then clean off the oil really well. Card should work like a champ then, my MSI 990FXa Gaming works wonderfully after all that.

is the oil an issue? i know you just said it makes the pad not viable I just got a MSI x570 board and I noticed from one VRM there was oil on the board from it.,

 

should it be replaced asap? 

[Vasllo]

7 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Supposedly it's non conductive, but if you don't like it you can ask to RMA.

It's not an option, sadly, but thanks for the help though. 

6 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

On some of those MSI motherboards, if the oils were let go for too long, it did kill them. Maybe the oils in those pads were different, but I would still be careful about letting it go for too long.

 

If the pad is leaching its oils, it can become deformed and have bad or no contact with the heatsink. With the chip heating up under load and not having that heat drawn away, that may cause some of those artifacts. But a hair dryer won't get hot enough to melt solder. It could have caused damage to the chip itself because of all that direct heat though.

Well, if the heat didn't affect the memories, I'm out of ideas to explain this artifact. But I'm 100% sure the cord is fine, it works fine and overclocks fine, and it's been 2 months. And I'm pretty sure it's a memory artifacts by the look of it, it's a red ball semi-transparent (like a reflection from a laser) apearing sometimes in the gameplay, not often though.

[TempestCatto]

22 minutes ago, Woxolifo said:

is the oil an issue? i know you just said it makes the pad not viable I just got a MSI x570 board and I noticed from one VRM there was oil on the board from it.,

 

should it be replaced asap? 

Don't know about those boards. But replacement pads from Thermal Grizzly aren't expensive (depending on where you live). It couldn't hurt to replace them. But again, I don't know anything about those boards.

 

20 minutes ago, Vasllo said:

It's not an option, sadly, but thanks for the help though. 

Well, if the heat didn't affect the memories, I'm out of ideas to explain this artifact. But I'm 100% sure the cord is fine, it works fine and overclocks fine, and it's been 2 months. And I'm pretty sure it's a memory artifacts by the look of it, it's a red ball semi-transparent (like a reflection from a laser) apearing sometimes in the gameplay, not often though.

The first thing I'd do is replace those pads. But from my findings on the interwebz the pad dimensions are as follows: 0.5mm on memory chips 1.0mm on inductors (the gray block with R16/R15) and 1.5mm on mosfets/vrm. You said you had some 1mm pads lying around. Try those out, thicker pads will just squish down and work just fine where thinner ones are used.

[Vasllo]

30 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

Don't know about those boards. But replacement pads from Thermal Grizzly aren't expensive (depending on where you live). It couldn't hurt to replace them. But again, I don't know anything about those boards.

 

The first thing I'd do is replace those pads. But from my findings on the interwebz the pad dimensions are as follows: 0.5mm on memory chips 1.0mm on inductors (the gray block with R16/R15) and 1.5mm on mosfets/vrm. You said you had some 1mm pads lying around. Try those out, thicker pads will just squish down and work just fine where thinner ones are used.

The pads on the backplate seem to be 2mm. The only ones there aren't great are the VRAM ones, but I mounted it back before reading this and though I would be better off with the original ones in somewhat of a bad state instead of a thicker one, since it's a high power device, so I didn't want to mess with it. Next time I open it, I'll do that. Thanks for the help.