What is this stuff?

[alienomane]

I just removed my gpu heatsink (3080 aorus xtreme) to change thermal paste and found this, is this normal? Should i try to remove it with rubbing alchol?

 

i bought this card used in 2022 never had problems

[Poinkachu]

15 minutes ago, alienomane said:

I just removed my gpu heatsink (3080 aorus xtreme) to change thermal paste and found this, is this normal? Should i try to remove it with rubbing alchol?

 

i bought this card used in 2022 never had problems

I'm guessing the previous owner used an electrically conductive thermal paste, so he put some sort of material as conformal coating (the brown stuffs) to prevent the paste from causing a short circuit.

 

edit:

Idk what material he used for the coating, though looking at that color, that looks like shellac to me.

But yeah, not like I know every conformal coating out there, so I could be wrong.

Edited July 10, 2024 by Poinkachu

[Hinjima]

5 minutes ago, alienomane said:

I just removed my gpu heatsink (3080 aorus xtreme) to change thermal paste and found this, is this normal? Should i try to remove it with rubbing alchol?

 

i bought this card used in 2022 never had problems

 

 

To me that looks like someone did liquid metal on it or used a conductive thermal paste and coated the outside of the die to prevent a short.

[alienomane]

Any ideas how to remove it? Ive been trying with alchol and a towel but it wont come off

[podkall]

1 minute ago, alienomane said:

Any ideas how to remove it? Ive been trying with alchol and a towel but it wont come off

there's no need to remove it

[alienomane]

Just now, podkall said:

there's no need to remove it

I mean the shiny part on the heatsink

[ToboRobot]

4 minutes ago, Hinjima said:

To me that looks like someone did liquid metal on it.

Looks like that to me.  Isopropyl alcohol  should clean it up

[alienomane]

5 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

Looks like that to me.  Isopropyl alcohol  should clean it up

I’ve been on it for 5 minutes but still wont get off

[SpookyCitrus]

6 minutes ago, alienomane said:

I’ve been on it for 5 minutes but still wont get off

What percentage isopropyl are you using? If it's not coming off with a Q-tip and 90% or higher iso, with a bit of force then it may be something else. A plastic scraper and a firm but gentle scraping may be needed if it's really stuck. Seems to be a used card someone did a custom thermal paste job on, without knowing exactly what they put on it may be difficult to remove. Who knows if they even put something proper on it, was it having thermal issues? Why are you repasting it?

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, alienomane said:

I just removed my gpu heatsink (3080 aorus xtreme) to change thermal paste and found this, is this normal? Should i try to remove it with rubbing alchol?

 

i bought this card used in 2022 never had problems

What was the reason for the paste change?

 

Gpus aren't maintenance items, so if it worked fine...

 

 

[Stahlmann]

Looks like the previous owner used liquid metal. Use very high percentage isopropyl alcohol and some q-tips to  get it off. But if you intent to switch to normal thermal paste, expect temps to be worse than before.