Today: Replacing GFX Card Cooler

So I've taken £15 of my cash to buy myself the VGA Silencer 5 (Rev3) for my Albatron 7800GT which has begun sounding like a chainsaw. It's the only component in the PC to emit any noise and it is thoroughly putting me off.

Question I need answering is to do with the Thermal Paste and any other little tid bits of information you guys can spare :)

At the moment I have no commercial Thermal Paste remover, the only thing I have that is 99% isopropyl is my sisters nail polish remover :/ Which I've used plenty of times with removing CPU's of thermal paste but thats before I read about it being a risk due to contaminants. Then I have this Silicone Heat Transfer Compound from UNIK which I used for my AMD64 and it keeps it below 40 degrees even during heavy gameplay :)

So can I use these products to do the job? Or should I really go out and spend £10 on some Arctic Silver 5 and the ArctiCleaner? Or maybe I should just open the box the cooler is in to see if there is any in there..which I highly doubt :P

EDIT: Looks like the good folks at Arctic Silver have already taken into account my Thermal PAste problem:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...s/P7080001.jpg :D

Sorry for double post but just curious about something. I know that 7800GTX has the backside memory chips but the 7800GT doesn't. Does this mean that the other bracket used for placing onto the back of the card is therefore unnescary to me?

I think it is pointless on your card, if there are no memory chips then there is no point for the heat sink.

And if you really do want to get some TIM remover I saw the Akasa TIM Removal fluid for £3 from PCworld not so long back so you might want to check that out.

I've always used nail polish remover to clean thermal paste and i've never had any problems, just ensure that the surfaces are wiped clean before applying paste. As for thermal paste I have used Arctic Silver for the past 5 years, ever since it came onto the market infact, the latest version Arctic Silver 5 does an excellent job.

Fitting new graphics coolers is pretty straight forward nowadays, I remember replacing the cooler on my Creative GeForce 256 DDR (the stock heatsink was plastic!) which was glued on, that involved a flat blade screwdriver and some patience followed by a scraping and clean up operation before fitting the cooler (a classic Blue Orb GeForce cooler). The end result was a card that ran cooler and responded well to overclocking.

So in short you should be able to use what you have with no problems, also if there are no memory chips on the back of the card then the cooling plate on the back won't be needed, unless removing it compromises the installation of the cooler, in which case I would leave it alone.

Oh my whats that I hear?! Why It's..NOTHING! At last! No chainsaw added sound effects to my WoW sessions, or being paranoid that my room is inhabited by a swarm of wasps! GPU is idling at 38 degrees which is a 4 degree decrease from it's original 42 degrees on startup :)

Thanks for the help guys :D Both my ears and I are greatly thankful!

Ha Kev nice one, I bought one of those for my 6800 Ultra :D I managed to knock off a tiny cuboid capacitor thing, and since it had a custom fan plug, I had to solder it myself, which apparently is rare. Glad it went well for ya :)

Thanks Keith :D

Unfortunately my £5 Alloy Bezel for my DVDRW is now in the bin ¬_¬ The eject slot on the bezel didn't match the one on mine >:/ and therefore didn't work. I didn't actually expect it to be like that....As it is possible to remove the front panel from my DVDRW I thought that this would simply be a replacement for the front panel :confused:

Might put it up for trade for anyone who wants to get rid of a black DVDRW and wants a beige one (Unlikely I bet ;))

Zalman V900 is the best around and it comes with a led :)

You can pick up a small tube of thermal paste from ebay for a couple of quid.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Metroid

Zalman V900 is the best around and it comes with a led :)

---

Nah, outside exhaust ftw in this season, if you have the room for it.

you can get pure acetone from any chemists

thats whats usually in nail polish remover but i had a look at my girlfriends and its got "apricot oil" and a load of other crap in it so that will all get left behind when the acetone evaporates

acetone is not good if you spill it - it can attack plastic etc and probs not that great for a gfx card. IPA (isopropyl alcohol, not india pale ale!) is the best.