- Apr 20, 2013
- 2
- 0
- 10,510
Hi all, this is my first time posting on Tom's and I have gotten a lot of help from searching through this site in the past years. Glad I've finally signed up to this awesome community.
So I recently went on a cleaning spree with my computer removing a LOT of dust accumulation coupled with (gross I know, I was given this computer) nicotine buildup on all fans and most components inside the computer. I reapplied thermal paste to my CPU (for the first time) and though it took a few tries to get it down, I significantly lowered the temp on the i7 from 85+ to around 65 when gaming.
My Nvidia GTX260 had been consistently running at 85+ degrees as well (this is after thoroughly removing dust build up as well), so
I thought I would do the same with that. Well, it didn't work out so well. The computer is a couple years old (ASUS cg5290) and the GFX card had never been opened before. I looked at videos on how to replace the thermal paste, and when I began I unscrewed 14 of the backing screws from the gpu, but it wasn't coming apart. For some stupid reason I thought the 8 center screws (which hold a plate or something around the processor inside) might be holding it down, so I unscrewed those as well. Finally after some *semi-light* prying I managed to get the board off and there was a very small amount of paste covering maybe 1/2 of the processor.
Needless to say, when I did pry the back off, the plate that is around the processor popped off and hit the floor, but the processor stayed in place. I reapplied the thermal paste (arctic silver 5) using the "spread" method, and put it all back together. After that I installed it into the comp, and it was running 80-90 degrees idle. Tried out a game on max settings and alt tab to check the temp and it was 100+ degrees! I am using the coretemp and GPUZ temp monitoring software, and was using another one before so I know the reading was correct. I turned off the computer immediately, and opened up the GPU again. I removed a lot of the therm paste I put on, thinning it out by quite a bit. Put it back together, tried the game again, and STILL 100+ degrees. I waited a bit to turn it off for some reason, and then yet again, went back into the GPU.
I opened it to find that there was some pretty obvious heat damage around the chips that the thermal PADS cover. I don't think it is too bad of heat damage, but there is definitely evidence of overheating around the chips. I forget the proper terminology, sorry. So I then cleaned off the processor, applied the thermal paste using the "pea dot" method, and put it back into the computer. I waited awhile before turning it on this time.
So when I turned it on, it was running at around 70degrees idle, maybe a bit lower, and I thought: SUCCESS!! But no, because when I tried the game again, I looked at the temp and it kept climbing till it hit 105 degrees again.
And that is my problem. lol
So what I am wondering is this:
Is it possible that removing the 8 screws from the plate around the processor could have affected the cooling off by this much? If there is even a tiny bit of paste on the sides of the processor (very small amount if any) could this affect the temp by that much?
Do you guys think if I replaced the thermal pads above those chips that I would see significant cooling then? I don't mean like 10 degrees, I want this thing to be running max 85 degrees when I'm gaming. And I definitely think it's within it's capability.
I know this post is long, but I wanted to give as much background info as I could. If you guys can think of any possible way that I may have dislodged a certain component, or did something to increase the temp by THAT much please let me know.
I can't really afford a new gpu right now so I'd love to be able to rework this one to make it all it can be.
Any help appreciated..
M+T
So I recently went on a cleaning spree with my computer removing a LOT of dust accumulation coupled with (gross I know, I was given this computer) nicotine buildup on all fans and most components inside the computer. I reapplied thermal paste to my CPU (for the first time) and though it took a few tries to get it down, I significantly lowered the temp on the i7 from 85+ to around 65 when gaming.
My Nvidia GTX260 had been consistently running at 85+ degrees as well (this is after thoroughly removing dust build up as well), so
I thought I would do the same with that. Well, it didn't work out so well. The computer is a couple years old (ASUS cg5290) and the GFX card had never been opened before. I looked at videos on how to replace the thermal paste, and when I began I unscrewed 14 of the backing screws from the gpu, but it wasn't coming apart. For some stupid reason I thought the 8 center screws (which hold a plate or something around the processor inside) might be holding it down, so I unscrewed those as well. Finally after some *semi-light* prying I managed to get the board off and there was a very small amount of paste covering maybe 1/2 of the processor.
Needless to say, when I did pry the back off, the plate that is around the processor popped off and hit the floor, but the processor stayed in place. I reapplied the thermal paste (arctic silver 5) using the "spread" method, and put it all back together. After that I installed it into the comp, and it was running 80-90 degrees idle. Tried out a game on max settings and alt tab to check the temp and it was 100+ degrees! I am using the coretemp and GPUZ temp monitoring software, and was using another one before so I know the reading was correct. I turned off the computer immediately, and opened up the GPU again. I removed a lot of the therm paste I put on, thinning it out by quite a bit. Put it back together, tried the game again, and STILL 100+ degrees. I waited a bit to turn it off for some reason, and then yet again, went back into the GPU.
I opened it to find that there was some pretty obvious heat damage around the chips that the thermal PADS cover. I don't think it is too bad of heat damage, but there is definitely evidence of overheating around the chips. I forget the proper terminology, sorry. So I then cleaned off the processor, applied the thermal paste using the "pea dot" method, and put it back into the computer. I waited awhile before turning it on this time.
So when I turned it on, it was running at around 70degrees idle, maybe a bit lower, and I thought: SUCCESS!! But no, because when I tried the game again, I looked at the temp and it kept climbing till it hit 105 degrees again.
And that is my problem. lol
So what I am wondering is this:
Is it possible that removing the 8 screws from the plate around the processor could have affected the cooling off by this much? If there is even a tiny bit of paste on the sides of the processor (very small amount if any) could this affect the temp by that much?
Do you guys think if I replaced the thermal pads above those chips that I would see significant cooling then? I don't mean like 10 degrees, I want this thing to be running max 85 degrees when I'm gaming. And I definitely think it's within it's capability.
I know this post is long, but I wanted to give as much background info as I could. If you guys can think of any possible way that I may have dislodged a certain component, or did something to increase the temp by THAT much please let me know.
I can't really afford a new gpu right now so I'd love to be able to rework this one to make it all it can be.
Any help appreciated..
M+T
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