6700XT Re-paste Pump-Out Issues.

[Zenith251]

Hello fellow geeks and nerds. I'm seeking some advice about my 6700XT Red Devil and repasting.

Following advice from a user in the AMDHelp subreddit, I bought Gelid Extreme 0.5mm and 1mm thermal pads for the VRAM/VRMs. Overall, memory temps are actually a tad worse, but I believe that's because the Gelid pads are flat, stock pads were phat and fluffy mushed down, and the heatsink has a screw dimple that slightly overlaps one of the mem chips.

 

First tries: Using Kryonaut, I achieved -5c temp, -8c hotspot. This lasted for a few days, and then temps quickly climbed to +5c, +10c hotspot over stock. I repasted again with the same results and behaviors.

 

Then, following further advice, I switched to a higher viscosity paste: Gelid GC-Extreme. Temps were similar, noticeably below stock temps. A few weeks go by, and sure enough, temps are now much higher than stock. Talking +10c over on core, +15c hotspot.

 

WHAT GIVES?! I'm carefully and slowly tightening all the heatsink screws in a crisscross pattern, making sure they're all set and bottomed out. The thermal pads are all making contact, but don't look like they're so smooshed as to be causing resistance to the mounting pressure. What important detail am I missing?

 

Numbers from control tests in Superposition, fan speed set to 1450rpm manually, 2650MHz average frequency forced:

Stock paste Core/Hotspot: 65c/83-86c.

Gelid GC-Extreme: 57-60c/78c

Gelid After a couple of weeks: 72c/90-94c.

What can I possibly do? What did I possibly do wrong?

 

 

In case it matters, the GPU is mounted normally, horizontally in an ATX layout.

[SorryBella]

How do you apply your thermal paste?

[Zenith251]

9 minutes ago, SorryBella said:

How do you apply your thermal paste?

Whoops. Sorry, should have included those details! On all repasting attempts I carefully spread a full layer of compound over the die using an included spreader. I'd say .5-1.0mm thick. After each attempt I thoroughly cleaned the die and contact surface with 91% isopropyl alcohol. The pictures I took were mostly "before" pictures, so I don't have a good example to show myself, but it looked like a slightly messier version of what this person did. No part of the die was visible, and no excess lumps of paste were left on the die.

[Godlygamer23]

Check the thermal paste application after the next removal to see what it looks like, and post photos of both the heatsink side of the card, as well as the GPU die itself. 

[WereCat]

Same thing with my 6800 XT. It takes about 2 weeks for the temps to start going up after repaste, especially on the hot spot. I changed paste for the Thermal Grizzly Carbonaut graphene pad yesterday, quite good results but I had to use washers as the cooler did not have enough pressure to make a good contact.

 

 

 

[Zenith251]

1 hour ago, Godlygamer23 said:

Check the thermal paste application after the next removal to see what it looks like, and post photos of both the heatsink side of the card, as well as the GPU die itself. 

Ok, I looked again and I did have one set of photos from one of my repaste attempts. (No offense, but I'm not going to pull the card apart again until I have a possible solution to attempt. The card works...just sadder than before, lol.)

 

First two wide shots are from one attempt where the temps climbed over days. The two narrow die shots are from a cleaning and reapplication. I swear it's just a thin layer, not at all lumpy. It wasn't my prettiest application of the several I did.

 

[Zenith251]

Someone on r/overclocking recommended TPM7950 from here: https://www.moddiy.com/products/Honeywell-PTM7950-SP-Super-Highly-Thermally-Conductive-PCM-Pad.html Posted some convincing results on their VEGA 64. I saw the LTT video about it... but I suppose it didn't stick. I also didn't know it was readily available now.