Accelero Hybrid install on Radeon 7970 Ghz

[Face2Face]

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

Good luck :thumbsup:

 

[3DVagabond]

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?

You might want to check in Canada. Just because they honor it in the States doesn't mean they will any where else.

 

[Face2Face]

You might want to check in Canada. Just because they honor it in the States doesn't mean they will any where else.

Good point. Give them a call Makaveli to see.

 

[Makaveli]

You might want to check in Canada. Just because they honor it in the States doesn't mean they will any where else.

To be honest guys I'm not to concerned about it. I've been replacing stock coolers for years now which in general will void warranties. If I run into an issue that I caused during the install I won't be that jerk that boxes it up and send it back after I damaged the card. That shit causes prices to go up for all of us.

Take it like a man and move on to the next card and the next mod!

 

[3DVagabond]

To be honest guys I'm not to concerned about it. I've been replacing stock coolers for years now which in general will void warranties. If I run into an issue that I caused during the install I won't be that prick that boxes it up and send it back after I damaged the card. That shit causes prices to go up for all of us.

Take it like a man and move on to the next card and the next mod!

Good for you. Too bad more people (including those who work for the companies) aren't honest. Instead we end up with an adversarial relationship. :thumbsup:

 

[Makaveli]

My copper shim finally arrived after a small delay.

Will get to install abit later or tomorrow.

In the mean time Idle temps are with this stock msi cooler.

Now with a load ran this for about 5 mins.

 

[Tristor]

I look forward to seeing your results. I applaud your attitude about modifications, and it's one I share. I do the hobby for fun and to gain some benefit over what comes out of the box. If I make a mistake, that's my responsibility, not the company that provided me a working product when I opened the box.

Good luck, can't wait to see your next update.

 

[Makaveli]

Ok so I did the install last night.

I had to cut and shave off abit of the shroud to get better contact with the stock VRM/Memory plate.

I then booted up the PC and post was fine and I got into windows. My idle temps are good now and look normal I then proceed to test in valley again. This time no hard lock after 10 second and it continues to run I was happy.

However after some more testing I still have temp issues under full load which i'm still investigating.

My full load temps are 10c higher than with the stock cooler but the biggest concern is VRM temps.

i'm now hitting +100c on VRM 1 and about 86c on VRM 2.

Of course when I game temps are lower but still a work in progress here.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

100c is pretty ok. Nothing to worry about.

 

[Makaveli]

100c is pretty ok. Nothing to worry about.

after a bit of reading it seems most of the VRM's are good for up to 125c.

But i'm still not liking the huge difference I was getting 70c VRM temps with the stock cooler. I however think its because the stock cooler has two 80mm fans where as the hybrid only has 80mm fan.

One of my main objectives was met tho. Much less noise now under load.

 

[Face2Face]

Your VRM temps should be much lower than that. Is the fan sitting right above the VRM area? Your GPU temps should be a lot lower as well, not higher than the stock cooler. Did you put TIM on both sides of the shim? Something tells me it's still not making good contact.

 

[Makaveli]

Your VRM temps should be much lower than that. Is the fan sitting right above the VRM area? Your GPU temps should be a lot lower as well, not higher than the stock cooler. Did you put TIM on both sides of the shim? Something tells me it's still not making good contact.

Ya I think I will have to take her apart again and reset it.

Yes there was tim on both sides the first time I did the shim moved on me abit so it requires abit of trial and error to make sure there is no movement from the shim when mounting.

And yes its covering VRM area.

I can understand the gpu temps being abit higher but not sure why vrm temps are when i'm using the stock plate.

 

[Face2Face]

Very odd about the vrm temps. Are you sure the fan is spinning? Also, did you make sure to tighten everything up good when you put the vram/vrm plate back on? make sure the thermal pads are touching the mosfets. Sometimes on TF3 cards they can hover over them just a tiny bit, which would create higher temps.

 

[Makaveli]

Very odd about the vrm temps. Are you sure the fan is spinning? Also, did you make sure to tighten everything up good when you put the vram/vrm plate back on? make sure the thermal pads are touching the mosfets. Sometimes on TF3 cards they can hover over them just a tiny bit, which would create higher temps.

I was sure contact was good as my idle temps are lower than the air cooler.

I will be checking the fan and all the screws on the vrm plate I can do all of this without taking it all apart so that will be the first step.

 

[Makaveli]

So i've double checked the plate and screws everything was tight. Think a full disassemble is in order but I will save that for Saturday.

There area's i've highlighted in green are a concern.

Also not sure why my VDDC current is much higher with the hybrid installed.

 

[Silverforce11]

Your thermal tape is fubar on the VRMs, with a plate-sink with cold air blowing on it, it should be MUCH cooler than reference design due to the fans blowing hot air down through the heatpipes.

110C is definitely not safe for prolong use, and your current is so high is due to it running at such high temps. At around 100C there is a sharp decay in VRM efficiency and it gets worse real quick. More current, more heat, more heat, more current. Runaway POP anytime.

Old thermal tape on most cards get dried and fragile, if you noticed its dried out, and if you demount it, re-mounting it again means its no longer effective. Get a new thermal tape in there asap.

Edit: Actually i'm pretty damn sure your thermal tape is the culprit, since your VRM2 (for the vram) is running so hot. NAKED VRM2 on 7900 series card run around 65-70C with some cool airflow on them. Now what you have, is a defunct thermal interface thats acting as a insulator and preventing cool air flow over the VRMs, causing them to run worse than naked. Try it next time you take it apart, test it all naked with the hybrid fan blowing cool air down. Bet your VRM1 and 2 will be cooler than what you get here.

 

[KingFatty]

Also try putting the stock plate back on.

My experience is that you want that nice pressure on the thermal tape that is provided by the plate, pushing the metal down on top of the tape and underlying VRMs.

The plate is a big heatsink itself, it's just flat without fins. Likely the fan blowing on it will be enough to keep the VRMs cool, maybe even cooler than if they are left naked.

 

[Makaveli]

Your thermal tape is fubar on the VRMs, with a plate-sink with cold air blowing on it, it should be MUCH cooler than reference design due to the fans blowing hot air down through the heatpipes.

110C is definitely not safe for prolong use, and your current is so high is due to it running at such high temps. At around 100C there is a sharp decay in VRM efficiency and it gets worse real quick. More current, more heat, more heat, more current. Runaway POP anytime.

Old thermal tape on most cards get dried and fragile, if you noticed its dried out, and if you demount it, re-mounting it again means its no longer effective. Get a new thermal tape in there asap.

Edit: Actually i'm pretty damn sure your thermal tape is the culprit, since your VRM2 (for the vram) is running so hot. NAKED VRM2 on 7900 series card run around 65-70C with some cool airflow on them. Now what you have, is a defunct thermal interface thats acting as a insulator and preventing cool air flow over the VRMs, causing them to run worse than naked. Try it next time you take it apart, test it all naked with the hybrid fan blowing cool air down. Bet your VRM1 and 2 will be cooler than what you get here.

I'm going to try running it without the heat plate to see what my temps are good suggestion.

Also try putting the stock plate back on.

My experience is that you want that nice pressure on the thermal tape that is provided by the plate, pushing the metal down on top of the tape and underlying VRMs.

The plate is a big heatsink itself, it's just flat without fins. Likely the fan blowing on it will be enough to keep the VRMs cool, maybe even cooler than if they are left naked.

I never took the stock VRM/Memory plate off. And everytime I go back to the reference cooler my temps go back to normal.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far guys.

I will get to the bottom of this eventually!

 

[Silverforce11]

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

Very surprised you get normal temps with reference coolers installed back on that stock plate which you did take off to install ram/vrm sinks (which are a bad idea without thermal adhesives or some mount for pressure).

Does the reference heatsink installation somehow apply more downward pressure on the plate?

 

[realibrad]

So the issue you are having is the VRM and not the GPU now right?

It looks like the Accelero does not have a way to coll the VRM other than the fan at the back of the card. I would assume that means the other VRM chips have little to no cooling and that is why you are seeing the temps. The stock cooler blows down on those chips, and thus you would see better cooling.

Unless you can get air on those chips, you may have to either downclock the VRM, or try and get some air over them.

 

[Makaveli]

Very surprised you get normal temps with reference coolers installed back on that stock plate which you did take off to install ram/vrm sinks (which are a bad idea without thermal adhesives or some mount for pressure).

Does the reference heatsink installation somehow apply more downward pressure on the plate?

The picture you have there is when I first started later on in the thread I went back to using the stock Heatplate.

The reference cooler may actually be pushing down on top of the heat plate providing more downward pressure.

So the issue you are having is the VRM and not the GPU now right?

It looks like the Accelero does not have a way to coll the VRM other than the fan at the back of the card. I would assume that means the other VRM chips have little to no cooling and that is why you are seeing the temps. The stock cooler blows down on those chips, and thus you would see better cooling.

Unless you can get air on those chips, you may have to either downclock the VRM, or try and get some air over them.

And I think you may also be correct on this. The stock cooler has two fans that seem to push air across the whole card. And the Hybrid only that single fan on the back end that may not be directly on top of the VRM like it is with the stock cooler.

There is a 120mm side panel fan blowing onto the card but its more toward the front of the card and not the end with the VRM.

Another test I can do is hold a small fan in the area of the vrm's to see if direct air flow is the problem.

From all the research i've done it seems most people are getting great vrm cooling with the hybrid setup so i'm just starting to wonder if that just varies per card and if my MSI card has the vrm's in a place that the hybrid cannot cool properly.

 

[realibrad]

The VRM chips are pretty much in the same place they always are as spec'ed by the card. Each card can use different chips as decided by who ever makes the actual card. You could have hotter chips.

I would suggest getting some air moving over the chips to see if that changes the temps. I would bet the issue is that.

 

[Makaveli]

Ok so I just got home from work and tested this by holding a 120mm fan in my hand next to the back end of the card while running valley.



This fan is one of the generic ones that comes with this CM case so it isn't great but I believe this shows the problem has been air flow this whole time. The fan on the hybrid doesn't seem to be powerful enough or in the right position. Need to go thru my junk to see if I have a more powerful fan to test with.

 

[Silverforce11]

84C core is not right. A 120mm AIO will keep 7900 to less than 50C. It keeps R290X at around 50C.

With proper mount and good heatsink contact on VRMs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N9dZhEC4as&feature=youtu.be

I find similar results in my own ghetto AIO mod, look in my sig. My 80mm fan for the VRM is low airflow.

Your problem is poor pressure on the VRMs and re-using old thermal tape.

 

[Makaveli]

Your problem is poor pressure on the VRMs and re-using old thermal tape.

If that is the problem why is it when I take the hybrid off and put the stock cooler back on with the "old thermal tape" do my temps go back to normal?

The stock VRM plate is screwed in from the backside of the videocard and I made sure it was tight. The stock thermal tape i never removed from the videocard I mearly tried once with the heatsinks then when back to the plate.

*Update*

So I decided to try something I haven't done yet changing where I had the hybrid rad and actually a nice improvement in temps. I still think i'm abit high but its a step. I think I will still try as someone suggested above to remove the heatplate and test it bare bones for a few mins just to see what the temps are.



Temps with heatplate off and memory and vrm naked.