Graphics Card Funeral?

[DazzerJ]

Hello All,

 

I'm new here, and probably going to feel like an idiot and probably roasted in this thread but here's the story.

 

Yesterday, I decided to repaste my gpu (MSI ARMOR AMD RX580 OC 8GB) despite being a little scared to do so, I went ahead and took the card apart.

Now I think this is where I went wrong, upon inspecting the thermal paste application from factory (terrible application in my opinion) I put some Artic paste remover on the die, unfortunately it spilled out to the edges so I was quick to get  some paper towel and start cleaning up (being sure not to catch solder points) 

 

I digress, so upon cleaning everything up and spreading the new thermal paste with my finger. I go to test the card, and each time I attempted to test for thermals and check I didn't bork anything I get a green screen and the pc reboots. (I was still getting video out, just if I threw anything graphically intensive at it it crashed) 

Now here's where it get's interesting, after a few reboots voila it works...perfectly fine, so I stress tested it and thermals seem fine and the card now works as intended. 

I guess my question is, what did I do wrong? and why did it suddenly come back to life? Also, will it die on me soon?
 

P.s, Before the card decided to work properly, I heard what kinda sounded like a cap popping or something... I'm not too sure.

[sk8rs_dad]

My guess is you didn’t wait for the card to be thoroughly dry before using it again.  Some liquid was shorting somewhere and it eventually evaporated. 

[DazzerJ]

2 minutes ago, sk8rs_dad said:

My guess is you didn’t wait for the card to be thoroughly dry before using it again.  Some liquid was shorting somewhere and it eventually evaporated. 

This was my first thought also, I just wanted to get others opinions. Appreciate your answer thank you  will keep the thread open for others to wage in so I can get a general consensus