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Card changed for better? or worse?

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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Hello everyone!

I think I got myself into trouble again :(  My Inno3d GTS 250 previously ran at a scorching hot 70 degrees...... on IDLE! and up to 115 degrees on load. I had it like that since november 2010. And now that I had the guts to remove the VGA cooler, I found out there was little in between the GPU itself and the cooler, just some little rubble which I presumed was hardened (like rocks really!) thermal paste. So I applied left over thermal paste that came with my Hyper 212 Evo, applied very little because of the small size of the chip itself. Now, my temps dipped down to about 55 degrees idle and 83 on load. But when I was playing Crysis 2 (or pretty much every game I played) gameplay started very smooth (unusually smooth) , then slows down, then it returns to very smooth. It keeps cycling from fast to slow through out the game. Even though prior to reapplying thermal past it was running at constant speeds (whether it be constantly smooth or constantly slow). So, help? please :sweat: 

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Maybe the paste you applied keeps changing it's state depending on GPU temperature unexpectedly. So affecting performance. BTW, did you check any GPU benchmark?. Just check out some demo versions and first make sure your GPU is doing fine with heat characteristics.
Graphics card Master

TheMaristBoy said:
Hello everyone!

I think I got myself into trouble again :(  My Inno3d GTS 250 previously ran at a scorching hot 70 degrees...... on IDLE! and up to 115 degrees on load. I had it like that since november 2010. And now that I had the guts to remove the VGA cooler, I found out there was little in between the GPU itself and the cooler, just some little rubble which I presumed was hardened (like rocks really!) thermal paste. So I applied left over thermal paste that came with my Hyper 212 Evo, applied very little because of the small size of the chip itself. Now, my temps dipped down to about 55 degrees idle and 83 on load. But when I was playing Crysis 2 (or pretty much every game I played) gameplay started very smooth (unusually smooth) , then slows down, then it returns to very smooth. It keeps cycling from fast to slow through out the game. Even though prior to reapplying thermal past it was running at constant speeds (whether it be constantly smooth or constantly slow). So, help? please :sweat: 

You did not specifically say it so I need to ask: Did you clean off the hardened thermal paste from the chip before applying the new thermal paste? If not, it is probably the cause for the erratic performance. If you did clean it off, I pressume that the mounting may not be tight enough such that the conduction of heat from the chip to the vga cooler is not perfect. So when the game get intense & the chip heats up, it downclock to cool down itself to prevent damage.
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randomkid said:
You did not specifically say it so I need to ask: Did you clean off the hardened thermal paste from the chip before applying the new thermal paste? If not, it is probably the cause for the erratic performance. If you did clean it off, I pressume that the mounting may not be tight enough such that the conduction of heat from the chip to the vga cooler is not perfect. So when the game get intense & the chip heats up, it downclock to cool down itself to prevent damage.


I did clean off the old thermal paste, which looked like little hardened pieces of concrete. But they were practically useless as they were gapping the cooler and the die itself. I'm never trusting Inno3d ever again, even my old 9500gt from them had the same heating problem
Graphics card Master

TheMaristBoy said:
I did clean off the old thermal paste, which looked like little hardened pieces of concrete. But they were practically useless as they were gapping the cooler and the die itself. I'm never trusting Inno3d ever again, even my old 9500gt from them had the same heating problem

Are you saying that you tried to clean off the old thermal paste but was unsuccessful because the thermal paste was too hard (like concrete). So the old thermal paste was there & you applied a fresh thermal paste anyway? If my understanding is correct, then that is the cause of your overheating problem.

Take it off again & try once more to take all the old & new thermal paste from the processor & the heatsink base with strong isoprophyl alcohol (90% preferably but 70% will do). If it does not come off right away, try to moist a cotton ball with alcohol & put it over for some time on top of the chip to soften the old thermal paste & it will come off more easily.

Good luck.

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Graphics card Master

TheMaristBoy said:
On the die itself, there was none left, but on the cooler itself, yes there were O_O. I'll have to scrape that off somehow then.

If the die itself is clean, that's good as it is more sensitive. But be gentle with the heatsink base also. Do not scrape it as it may be scratched causing it to become more uneven. Try the moist cotton first before you do any scraping.
Graphics card Master

TheMaristBoy said:
Maybe I should buy a new cooler 'cause I kinda scraped it. But this is one crappy cooler, the intel stock cooler actually looks bigger than this.

Hahaha! Okay then & good luck. I have the Xigmatek BiFrost VGA cooler. It is quite cheap but is cool & quite & comes with lots of heatsink for VRAMs. But feel free to check on others.
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