How to tell If my graphic card heating is aluminum ?

[Dogost]

I bought this HP oem RTX 3060 Ti a few weeks ago and it seems that the cooler that came with it is not good and prone to overheating. So I'am planning  to re-paste it with liquid metal but I don't know if the heatsink is made of aluminum or nickel.  Please help 

 

 

Note : I have tried thermal grizzly kryonaut,  replace thermal pads but the gpu is still overheated 

[BiotechBen]

Most are aluminum. Aluminum has very good dissipative properties, nickel plating is usually on fittings rather than heatsinks. If you want, you can scratch it and see if it changes color, flame test wouldn't be helpful  both are white. If you are really determined you could get a dropper of nickel test solution.

[rippy4500]

Aluminum is common so theres a good chance thats what it is.

[RONOTHAN##]

49 minutes ago, Dogost said:

So I'am planning  to re-paste it with liquid metal but I don't know if the heatsink is made of aluminum or nickel.

First off, just don't. GPUs don't benefit a ton from liquid metal, even on the mediocre coolers, and it's very easy to kill the card if you don't conformal coat the board absolutely perfectly. It's just not worth the risk for maybe 5C performance improvements. You're better off trying to get something like a RAIJINTEK Morpheus, a dead 3060 Ti to salvage the cooler from (Zotac cards IIRC should use the exact same PCB as that card), or zip tying an AIO to it and just upgrading the cooler of that card like that rather than try and liquid metal the card. 

 

The only way to tell if it's aluminum or copper is to just make a gouge somewhere in the cold plate (somewhere closer to the edge so it won't interfere with the GPU contact) and see what the color is, if it stays silver it's aluminum, and if it's orange it's copper with a nickel coating. If it's orange without needing to take a gouge, it's just pure copper. Aluminum cold plates are pretty rare, even on mediocre OEM cards like that one, but at the same time this is HP and I wouldn't be surprised at any possible corner cutting they do. 

[Mick Naughty]

You sure it isnt the case and poor airflow? Doubt the card itself is to blame for overheating, assuming you know what temp it needs to hit for that to actually happen.

[tkitch]

100% that's loaded with aluminum.

 

FYI:  Compared to MX-5 or other good paste, you're looking a a ~2 degree change with LM.  Don't destroy your card with LM over 2 degrees.

[BiotechBen]

2 minutes ago, offweek said:

The numbers, Mason!

What do they mean?!

[Dogost]

Thanks for the replies.

For numbers : after the gpu reaching 200w for around 5 mins,  its temp are 90°c and start to throttling down to ~135w with open pc case and ~125w with closed case while the hotspot remain ~105°c  at full load.  So that why I think it's overheated.

 

I guess that I just gonna use this card until I get the new one which definitely not hp oem card again. 

[Dogost]

Just now, offweek said:

What are the fans doing?  Are they at 100% and all actually spinning?

Yes they are all spinning,  I also tweak the fans speed in MSI after burner and at the time gpu reach 90°c they are already at 100% (case opened) 

[Winterlight]

Actually I don't know even single 1xxx-3xxx card that use full copper heatsink until is not second hand card with some modification. That 99% is almiunium.

[xAcid9]

Did you spread the thermal paste to cover the whole die? Or you use pea/x method?

I'd check if the thermal paste actually spread evenly and the heatsink give enough pressure.

[Andrea87]

The card looks like an OEM that is bought and branded by Dell, HP and many others.

Have a look here, pics look identical to yours.

 

The heatsink looks to have a nickel plated copper base. However, on a GPU, I would absolutely avoid liquid metal. Too much hassle to comformal coat everything and avoid short circuits. Just repaste, buy some proper thermal compound and see how it goes. The difference will be minimal (at best 2-4°C compared to metal) but you won't risk damaging the card.

[Jimmy Buckets]

Try undervolting, it should get temps to around 80, which is "manageable".

[Dogost]

2 hours ago, xAcid9 said:

Did you spread the thermal paste to cover the whole die? Or you use pea/x method?

I'd check if the thermal paste actually spread evenly and the heatsink give enough pressure.

I think I spread the thermal paste like X method, I also measure thermal pads size too.

 

2 hours ago, Andrea87 said:

The card looks like an OEM that is bought and branded by Dell, HP and many others.

Have a look here, pics look identical to yours.

 

The heatsink looks to have a nickel plated copper base. However, on a GPU, I would absolutely avoid liquid metal. Too much hassle to comformal coat everything and avoid short circuits. Just repaste, buy some proper thermal compound and see how it goes. The difference will be minimal (at best 2-4°C compared to metal) but you won't risk damaging the card.

Yes the heatsink does look like this with just a bit different near vrms that why I'm wonder if It is copper base or aluminum. But yeah thanks to everyone here, I now understand that I should just use thermal compound which I just bought kryonaut extreme and It does help a bit. Now my card power consumption around 175w at 90*C.