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Cleaning GPU

Darkr
By Darkr
in Graphics Cards
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So, the heatsink of my MSI r6950 is full with dust, and I needa clean it. It'd be nice to have s tutorial on it, and is it safe? Like replacing the thermal compound with a CPU-made one? 

Ty

Clean is with air dusters and anti-static brushes. You can replace the TIM with a CPU-designed one, yes, but only do so if you feel it is necessary.

My arsenal: i7-9700k Gaming Rig, an iPhone, and Stupidity.

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I've never needed to take off a heat sink to clean it. I just use a vacuum and q-tips for the fan.

 

Don't ever use a vaccuum cleaner to clean your computer...

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 I completely disassemble mine. Clean them with canned air, Q-tips, sometimes blow the dust off with my mouth. The heat sink gets cleaned with rubbing alcahol on a soft cotton rag. Yes, the thermal paste for cpu's is the same stuff used on gpu's.

 

 you guys that don't pull them apart, you should. Sometimes there isn't enough paste, sometimes there's too much. Sometimes it's dry as crumbly cement or old plaster. I have never pulled a heat sink from a card, cleaned up old paste and reapplied new and regretted it. Ever!

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Done it for years no issue.

For a heat sink it's no concern.

 

You having it done for years without issue doesn't make it any more intelligent. Vaccuums create tons of static electricity, going anywhere near your PC with the nozzle is homocidal.

Pascal Undervolting topic, get more out of your card with less power!

Why high refreshrate monitors look better even without Freesync/G-sync in one image.
Stutters, framedrops, "lag". How to provide detailed information with your "bottleneck" question, as well as a few solutions.

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You having it done for years without issue doesn't make it any more intelligent. Vaccuums create tons of static electricity, going anywhere near your PC with the nozzle is homocidal.

I live life on the edge. Maybe someday it'll kill something but it has yet to happen after 7 years of doing it. For the PCB itself you may want to blow it off with a can of difluoroethane first. For the fans/shroud/heatsink it's perfectly fine.

4K // R5 3600 // RTX2080Ti

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I live life on the edge. Maybe someday it'll kill something but it has yet to happen after 7 years of doing it. For the PCB itself you may want to blow it off with a can of difluoroethane first. For the fans/shroud/heatsink it's perfectly fine.

 

This is coming from a guy who delidded his 1 month old i5. Maybe that puts it into perspective.

Pascal Undervolting topic, get more out of your card with less power!

Why high refreshrate monitors look better even without Freesync/G-sync in one image.
Stutters, framedrops, "lag". How to provide detailed information with your "bottleneck" question, as well as a few solutions.

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So, the heatsink of my MSI r6950 is full with dust, and I needa clean it. It'd be nice to have s tutorial on it, and is it safe? Like replacing the thermal compound with a CPU-made one? 

Ty

Its quite easy, ive done it on my 580, it was just screwing out the screws at the pcb, taking it off. Its pretty much self expanitory, just unscrew stuff and see where it doesnt come off and search for a screw there :P. Replacing thermal compound is quite a good idea, depending on how big the gpu is (the 580 core was MASSIVE like as big as my CPU) you need to adjust how much.

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Lighter fluid works wonders for removal (dunno which one I used lol, but two days ago at any rate I did this)

 

Breaks it down really quickly, enough to just dab/swab it away in one swoop...mostly.

Also handy for those excess bits that get outside the surface area when clamping.

 

Didn't have any removal stuffs I normally use...

 

/Makeshift solutions work wonders... say all the Nutella thermal paste people ;)

Maximums - Asus Z97-K /w i5 4690 Bclk @106.9Mhz * x39 = 4.17Ghz, 8GB of 2600Mhz DDR3,.. Gigabyte GTX970 G1-Gaming @ 1550Mhz

 

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