Radeon 6990 - Runs way too hot. Thermal Paste help

[adaseb]

Hello

 

My 6990 runs way too hot when gaming or doing benchmarks. Basically runs around 90-100C. 

 

If I increase the fan speed, the temperature actually goes down a lot but its horribly loud. 

 

I decided to try and change the thermal paste to see if I can improve the cooling.

 

I got some Arctic Silver 5.  

 

Took apart the GPU, the old thermal paste was hard and brittle. Reapplied it like you should reply to a CPU, and when I reassemled, it was even worse. Temperatures were even higher.

 

Watched a few videos on Youtube and many just put a DOT of thermal paste in the middle of the core and then just put the headsink back on. So I did the same and it pretty much exactly the same temperature as it was prior.

 

Does anybody know how much thermal paste should be applied exactly? Is too little better than too much?

 

Thanks in advance.

[WarWeeny]

Usually a thin x line should suffice, a dot will do fine as well because the force of the heat sink will spread the thermal paste.

Do not use to much of it tho, as it will result in the opposite effect of what you want.

 

Be sure to clean the core with alcohol before re-applying new thermal paste, this will ensure that there are no remains of the previous paste.

Do not screw the bolts to tight when you re-seat the heat sink, this may have an impact on your cooling.

 

And to top it off, how is the airflow of your case?

Are there enough fans to keep the case cooled for the heat that the videocard puts out?

[ccokeman]

The heatsink is rated for 400 watts and has the capability to dissipate that load with enough airflow. That leads to you noise concern. Thermal paste is going to be worth at most a couple degrees against your 90 to 100C load temperatures. A more realistic chance of reducing the temperatures is to improve case airflow so that the temperature inside your case is the same as the temperature outside the case. Outside of that making sure the heat sink on the card is blown out and setting the fan speed manually to a level that you find is not objectionable and retesting. At that point you can set up a fan profile in MSI's Afterburner to manage the fan speed so it only ramps up under a harsh 3D load.  You options are limited unless you go with liquid cooling.   

[RHKCommander959]

Clamping force is very important with heat sinks. The tighter the better. Also if the die is exposed you want to make sure all of it is covered in paste. Hot spots caused by no contact are bad.

 

Have you made sure the fins aren't clogged with dust?

 

As Ccokeman said, improving case airflow can help a ton - on one of my systems I dropped graphics card load temperatures by 9

[IlijaPlayerP]

I cover the whole chip with a thin layer of thermal paste. I put one rice-sized grain in the middle and spread it with my finger to cover the whole chip, and the rest of the thermal grease which is now on my finger, I put it on the heatsink. So cover the chip fully (but a thin layer, don't put too much) and try again. If you ask me, it's better to have more thermal grease than to not have enough. A balanced amount is the best though.

 

After this if you don't see any changes either don't worry about it because that card runs hot anyway, or remove the plastic shroud and mount quiet 80mm fans on the fins (they will be much better than a blower fan), OR if you want a fun project and you don't need any of the PCI slots, buy two Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVOs and put them on your card. It will look sooo beastly .