Accelero Hybrid install on Radeon 7970 Ghz

[Makaveli]

I generally always replace the stock cooler on my gpu's and its time for my Radeon I picked up last June to get the treatment.

Went to Canada computers today and got the last Accelero on sale for $119 at the location close to me also picked up some dust off and a enermax 120mm fan to replace the generic one on my side panel.

I will post pictures if anyone is interested in seeing the install this will greatly reduce noise while the videocard is loaded. I hate listening to those fans ramming up while just about to start a game or encoding while the rest of my system is quiet.

Videocard with stock cooling

 

[Makaveli]

Hmm so my first attempt at an install resulted in delayed post beep then no video. I've since gone back to the stock cooler and will try again tomorrow.

There are alot of small pieces to this and I found the video installs on youtube more useful than the manual.

I believe I know what my issue is.

You can clearly see once I pulled off the stock cooling MSI has it own memory and VRM heat plate installed.

My first install I didn't remove this and tried to install over top.

 

[Makaveli]

So after removing the stock VRM/Memory plate I saw there was thermal tape under so I decided to reuse them.

closer shot.

I then reinstall the card and boot up to windows.

First thing I see odd is my idle temps are higher than stock cooler.

so 36c vs 42c.

And I then decided to run the valley demo it starts then system locks up.

I proceed to recheck all cable reboot a few times and everytime I load up the card even a game system hard locks.

So i've gone back to stock HSF again and now need to figure this out.

Anyone have experience installing one of these any ideas?

 

[Silverforce11]

Tahiti needs a copper shim to be properly cooled with waterpumps from AIO coolers. If you hold your card on the side and look at it, the die is slightly below the metal corners.

I think its common to use a 1mm thick copper shim for AIO mods on these cards, with good thermal paste on both sides.

Also, do not just use the thermal tape for the VRMs, they do not offer enough downward pressure to give good heat transfer. Thermal adhesives yes, screws yes, or even zip tie mods (refer to my sig) will work. Thermal tape alone is trash.

Edit: Actually it's spot on, Tahiti needs a metal shim for AIO. When you do it, be extremely careful you do not move the shim during mounting, as it could touch the resistors and ICs next to the chip and short circuit it = dead card.

 

[Makaveli]

Tahiti needs a copper shim to be properly cooled with waterpumps from AIO coolers. If you hold your card on the side and look at it, the die is slightly below the metal corners.

I think its common to use a 1mm thick copper shim for AIO mods on these cards, with good thermal paste on both sides.

Also, do not just use the thermal tape for the VRMs, they do not offer enough downward pressure to give good heat transfer. Thermal adhesives yes, screws yes, or even zip tie mods (refer to my sig) will work. Thermal tape alone is trash.

Edit: Actually it's spot on, Tahiti needs a metal shim for AIO. When you do it, be extremely careful you do not move the shim during mounting, as it could touch the resistors and ICs next to the chip and short circuit it = dead card.

Where does one find this copper shim?

It would have been nice if that was included in the package.

I checked on the site and it should be compatible with my radeon.

http://www.arctic.ac/worldwide_en/products/cooling/vga/accelero-hybrid.html

 

[3DVagabond]

Silverforce11 is right. Contact Arctic. They should be able to supply you with one.

 

[Silverforce11]

Lol why are there 3 different version... oh man thats just a nightmare for 3rd party partners.

The GPU manufacture date and card manufacture date may differ though. Look at your card carefully. If you get higher idle temps = bad contact, period.

As to where, if AC won't send you one, then Ebay has lots of them for cheap. Just make sure its copper.

 

[Makaveli]

Lol why are there 3 different version... oh man thats just a nightmare for 3rd party partners.

The GPU manufacture date and card manufacture date may differ though. Look at your card carefully. If you get higher idle temps = bad contact, period.

As to where, if AC won't send you one, then Ebay has lots of them for cheap. Just make sure its copper.

i'm going to email them in the morning thanks for the quick responses guys.

Thankfully I didn't permanently attach the sinks cause I checked and if I had I would not have been able to go back to stock cooler. Would have been stuck using my GTX 650 which at 1920x1200 would have been painful

 

[Makaveli]

Silverforce11 is right. Contact Arctic. They should be able to supply you with one.

They haven't emailed me back yet but i'm going to assume something like this will do.

http://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-vga-supreme-hf-hd7970-cu-adapter.html

 

[Face2Face]

Yes, that's it.

Check out FrozenCPU

http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g8/...mal_Pads_Tape-Thermal_Copper_Shims-Page1.html

Can the setup be returned?

I think a better setup would be a G10 bracket with a cheap H55. Then you can keep the thermal plate on your card and not have to mess with heatsinks on your vram and vrm. You still would need a copper shim though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...140415140633:s

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835181029

 

[Sohaltang]

Hold my hand here and explain what you are trying to accomplish? The MSI cooler is pretty damn good. Realistically you spent 120$ plus a lot of time and effort to at best get another 3% performance? It still has a fan so its not going to be a ton quieter. At worst you end up with the above situation where your machine wont boot and have to order more parts to fix it. I get tweaking but this I don't get. You could have just sold the 7970 and put 150% with it and got a 290 for like 400$.

 

[Makaveli]

Yes, that's it.

Check out FrozenCPU

http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g8/...mal_Pads_Tape-Thermal_Copper_Shims-Page1.html

Can the setup be returned?

I think a better setup would be a G10 bracket with a cheap H55. Then you can keep the thermal plate on your card and not have to mess with heatsinks on your vram and vrm. You still would need a copper shim though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...140415140633:s

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835181029

I just ordered the shim from

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=33466

This item was on sale so cannot be returned.

That is an awesome suggestion for an alternative!

The NZXT RL-KRG10-B1 Sleeve Kraken G10 GPU Bracket is out of stock on newegg canada and I cannot order from Newegg US so this wouldn't have been something I could do right now if I could return.

What I will do is when I get the shim I will install without any of the heat sinks and monitor temps.

My case has very good air flow and alot of fans so I may be able to do without.

 

[Makaveli]

Hold my hand here and explain what you are trying to accomplish? The MSI cooler is pretty damn good. Realistically you spent 120$ plus a lot of time and effort to at best get another 3% performance? It still has a fan so its not going to be a ton quieter. At worst you end up with the above situation where your machine wont boot and have to order more parts to fix it. I get tweaking but this I don't get. You could have just sold the 7970 and put 150% with it and got a 290 for like 400$.

Noise reduction friend.

The MSI cooler is good but under full that SOB is loud compared to the rest of my computer and that is the primary reason for this to reduced noise at full load.

As for performance i've left it at stock clocks and not overclocked the card will do 1150 core on stock vcore will see what I can do with the arctic when setup.

Also I would have never of sold my 7970 Ghz to upgrade to a 290. The jump in performance is not enough this card will be replaced when I get something 50-60% faster. My days of incremental upgrades are done.

The shim cost me $3.95

So at the end of the day this has been a great learning experience its my first time mounting a Closed loop cooler on a videocard.

And had I of given up that easily when we had our first computer in the house a 286. I would not even be here and be as good as I am with computers.

Had I of fried my card the tone would be different but I was careful enough not to do that.

 

[Face2Face]

What I will do is when I get the shim I will install without any of the heat sinks and monitor temps.

My case has very good air flow and a lot of fans so I may be able to do without.

I wouldn't advise not installing any heatsinks on your vram or vrm. You will need to use the thermal glue that came with the kit or you can use thermal tape. I would personally use thermal tape. Make sure to keep track of you vrm temps, as the heatsinks Arctic provides are not the best, and as Silverforce stated, without pressure applied to the vrm, it's really hard to keep them cool.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...&search_in_description=1&keyword=thermal+tape

If you could somehow keep the vram/memory heatplate installed your card, that would be your best bet, so you wouldn't need to mess with the heatsinks from Arctic.

EDIT:

+ 1 on the noise reduction. My PC sounds the same at idle as it does when gaming overclocked @ 1306/1656. The MSI TRI-FROZR gets annoying loud past 65%.

 

[Makaveli]

I wouldn't advise not installing any heatsinks on your vram or vrm. You will need to use the thermal glue that came with the kit or you can use thermal tape. I would personally use thermal tape. Make sure to keep track of you vrm temps, as the heatsinks Arctic provides are not the best, and as Silverforce stated, without pressure applied to the vrm, it's really hard to keep them cool.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...&search_in_description=1&keyword=thermal+tape

If you could somehow keep the vram/memory heatplate installed your card, that would be your best bet, so you wouldn't need to mess with the heatsinks from Arctic.

EDIT:

+ 1 on the noise reduction. My PC sounds the same at idle as it does when gaming overclocked @ 1306/1656. The MSI TRI-FROZR gets annoying loud past 65%.

That transition from IDLE to full load is what I hate so i'm with you on that I had an aftermarket cooler on my previous 6970 so machine sounded the same at both. After upgrading the stock cooler while good has been pissing me off with that ramming up for the fan speed. Some people don't mind the noise but for me I don't like it. This isn't 2000 with a bunch delta fans in a case I need it quiet


I will have to go back and add the thermal tape to my order.

What size tape should I be getting 0.2 0.4 0.5? or the 3m branded stuff hmmm..

I tried to install over top of the Stock Vram/memory plate but the contact wasn't good enough gpu wouldn't boot.

 

[Face2Face]

That transition from IDLE to full load is what I hate so i'm with you on that I had an aftermarket cooler on my previous 6970 so machine sounded the same at both. After upgrading the stock cooler while good has been pissing me off with that ramming up for the fan speed. Some people don't mind the noise but for me I don't like it. This isn't 2000 with a bunch delta fans in a case I need it quiet


I will have to go back and add the thermal tape to my order.

What size tape should I be getting 0.2 0.4 0.5? or the 3m branded stuff hmmm..

I tried to install over stop of the Stock Vram/memory plate but the contact wasn't good enough gpu wouldn't boot.

Take a look at these options.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...&keyword=+Alphacool+Double-Sided+Adhesive+Pad


Was the contact not good enough because you didn't have a shim? Does the arm that goes from the heatplate to the PCI bracket get in the way. Like I said, if you can get that to work, it would be your best option. You may need to cut some of the plastic shroud on the cooler?

 

[Makaveli]

Take a look at these options.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...&keyword=+Alphacool+Double-Sided+Adhesive+Pad


Was the contact not good enough because you didn't have a shim? Does the arm that goes from the heatplate to the PCI bracket get in the way. Like I said, if you can get that to work, it would be your best option. You may need to cut some of the plastic shroud on the cooler?

Yes what you circled is the issue.

I may considering cutting some of the shroud to get around it.

When I tried with the Stock VRM plate I couldn't even boot. After I pulled it off I could atleast boot to windows. The shim not being there is an issue both ways.

 

[Face2Face]

Yes what you circled is the issue.

I may considering cutting some of the shroud to get around it.

When I tried with the Stock VRM plate I couldn't even boot. After I pulled it off I could atleast boot to windows. The shim not being there is an issue both ways.

Hopefully you won't have to cut too much. It's up to you though, once it's cut, you can claim any warranty on it.

 

[Makaveli]

Hopefully you won't have to cut too much. It's up to you though, once it's cut, you can claim any warranty on it.

I'm not too worried as its only the plastic shroud if I had to cut the VRM plate that would be a different story

Any suggestions what I should use to cut plastic?

I'm not worried about the warranty on either the cooler or the gpu I voided the warranty on the gpu when I replaced the stock thermal compound with MX4. Had to break those stickers to remove the HSF do to it.

 

[Face2Face]

I'm not too worried as its only the plastic shroud if I had to cut the VRM plate that would be a different story

Any suggestions what I should use to cut plastic?

I'm not worried about the warranty on either the cooler or the gpu I voided the warranty on the gpu when I replaced the stock thermal compound with MX4. Had to break those stickers to remove the HSF do to it.

Keep in mind with MSI you won't void the warranty if you replace the thermal compound. I did the same on my Lightning, before I did, I called them to see if it would void the warranty, they said as long as the card doesn't have any physical damage the warranty is good. My card also had a sticker on one of the screws. With MSI warranties you don't need a receipt either and they are 3 year transferable warranties. My last 6 cards have all been MSI I bought a GTX 560Ti 448 used and it started to artifact only a week after owning it. The card still had a year or so left on the warranty. Filed an RMA with MSI and they sent me a GTX 570 back :wub:

Anyway, I would use a dremel tool if you have one..?

 

[Makaveli]

Keep in mind with MSI you won't void the warranty if you replace the thermal compound. I did the same on my Lightning, before I did, I called them to see if it would void the warranty, they said as long as the card doesn't have any physical damage the warranty is good. My card also had a sticker on one of the screws. With MSI warranties you don't need a receipt either and they are 3 year transferable warranties. My last 6 cards have all been MSI I bought a GTX 560Ti 448 used and it started to artifact only a week after owning it. The card still had a year or so left on the warranty. Filed an RMA with MSI and they sent me a GTX 570 back :wub:

Anyway, I would use a dremel tool if you have one..?

I wasn't aware that MSI will still honor with the broken sticker, there is no physical damage to my card at all so good to know for the future.

I don't have a dremel will have to see if I can borrow one.

Any suggestions on what type of dremel tool?

 

[Face2Face]

I wasn't aware that MSI will still honor with the broken sticker, there is no physical damage to my card at all so good to know for the future.

I don't have a dremel will have to see if I can borrow one.

Any suggestions on what type of dremel tool?

Just something like this. This is the one I have. I use it to cut plastic, wood and metal often.

http://www.amazon.com/Dremel-200-1-1...ds=Dremel+tool


If you are good with a sharp knife that may fit the bit as well? Don't know how much you have to cut?

 

[Makaveli]

Just something like this. This is the one I have. I use it to cut plastic, wood and metal often.

http://www.amazon.com/Dremel-200-1-1...ds=Dremel+tool


If you are good with a sharp knife that may fit the bit as well? Don't know how much you have to cut?

1cm to half an inch at most an only on a small section of the shroud.

 

[Face2Face]

1cm to half an inch at most an only on a small section of the shroud.

I would use a sharp knife or scissors if that's all you need to cut.

 

[Makaveli]

I would use a sharp knife or scissors if that's all you need to cut.

Will give that a shot as soon as the copper shim shows up.