2080 Super with bad thermal contact

[the23rdwarrior]

I bought a used 2080 Super for a relative. The card was watercooled by the last owner but came with the original cooler. I build it back to air cooling but I don't get a good contact on the die. Even if I put the 4 screws in to the max. What do I do wrong?

[GameBully2k]

does the dye have Nvidia marking  on it? if not he may be an extreme overclocker and sanded a bit of it. this is an extreme possiblity but you never know how far people will go to reach their satisfaction

[the23rdwarrior]

Good idea, but this looks good to me...

[the23rdwarrior]

If I look through the holes (when I place the pcb on the cooler), it looks like the pcb makes full contact with the stand-offs, which indicates to me, that it should be full contacting...

[m9x3mos]

1 hour ago, the23rdwarrior said:

I bought a used 2080 Super for a relative. The card was watercooled by the last owner but came with the original cooler. I build it back to air cooling but I don't get a good contact on the die. Even if I put the 4 screws in to the max. What do I do wrong?

Dumb question but are you sure this is the correct cooler for this card? 

Also do you know if those are the stock thermal pads? 

I ask that because the contact appears closer on the side without the ram chips. It might be possible that those thermal pads are too thick for the cooler clearances. 

[Bombastinator]

There are really a bunch of possibles.  Without knowing what you did it’s a hard one to pick out.  The only thing likely at this point is “something”.  The only possibility I know of that does not include user error is die flatness issues (so still user error but the former user)

[Neggy-Z]

I would start with carefully removing all the thermal pads, apply fresh paste and see how the contact turns out, if it's fine then your problem is likely due to some of the thermal pads being too thick.

[the23rdwarrior]

Yeah, that was it. I removed the thermal pads and now I get a good contact. Thank you!