Accelero S2 Installation questions

[quadomatic]

I've removed my X850 Pro's stock cooler, and now I'm trying to clean the thermal paste off of the gpu and ram chips before I put on the Accelero S2 that I bought. Its pretty difficult, and little bits of paste get lodged between the little transistors or whatever on the cards pcb and in the green area surrounding the gpu.

I'm not sure that I'll be able to get all of it off from between the little things on the pcb, and I'm worried about their being a short. Is the thermal paste on the card electrically conductive? Its a Sapphire Radeon X850 Pro.

Thanks

Also, another quick question. When putting on the ram sinks (there are 8 of them included with the Accelero S2), do I put one on each chip, or one on each side of each chip (on top of the card and on the bottom of the card)?

 

[smithkt]

Whether it's conductive or not would depend on what is is. If it's Artic Silver or some other similar compound, then yes, it will be conductive. If you don't know for sure then I would suggest making the extra effort to make sure it's all gone. What are you using to clean it off? I'd recommend using 91% isopropyl. You can get it from any drug store for a few bucks. You could also use an acid brush to help clear it out of the little crevices. Really, and very soft bristle brush should work.

 

[quadomatic]

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/2955/img1625hk9.jpg

That's a picture of the gpu. You can see the thermal paste in the top left corner stuck between stuff.

I took out a piece of that stuff and tested its conductivity with a multimeter...it doesn't appear to be conductive.

However, the thermal paste on the ram chips was different; its white colored stuff; not gray.

I finished using a toothpick to try to pick away what I could.

Does anyone know if it matters that the ramsink is larger than the chip I'm putting it on?

 

[IlllI]

q-tip + alcohol

 

[smithkt]

Originally posted by: clandren
q-tip + alcohol

the q-tip will likely leave fibers behind. A coffee filter works well as a lint free cloth.

@OP, given how much of that stuff is all over the place, I suspect it's not conductive. I'd still clean it all off though, but I'm pretty picky about that kind of thing.

 

[quadomatic]

Originally posted by: smithkt

Originally posted by: clandren
q-tip + alcohol

the q-tip will likely leave fibers behind. A coffee filter works well as a lint free cloth.

@OP, given how much of that stuff is all over the place, I suspect it's not conductive. I'd still clean it all off though, but I'm pretty picky about that kind of thing.

Yeah, I'm picky about it too. I tried picking away most of it using a toothpick. I finished installing the cooler, but I've yet to test it.

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/2229/img1629fk4.jpg

Hopefully its all good. I do realize that the clips are meant to be on the outsides of the fins, not the insides (noticed after i finished ) but it won't make a significant difference...I hope.

 

[Synomenon]

To get the hard to reach / hard to get stuff, use a Q-tip + alcohol. To clean the surface of the GPU and memory, use a coffee filter + alcohol. Use a can of compressed air to blow any leftover fibers away.

Looks good. Good job. Has it lowered your temps. any and are you using a fan with it?

 

[quadomatic]

I installed the video card. My comp has no case fans; I generally just leave the case open. I tried running ATITool in 3D Mode without any fans to push air through the Accelero S2; that time, the temperature just kept going up. I think it was getting close to 80, so I just stopped it. I shut it off and then plugged in a 120mm case fan I had lying around and set it up so that it blows air on the Accelero, though its not exactly oriented very close to the cooler. That time, when I ran ATITool in 3D mode, the temperature wouldn't go about 54 degrees celsius.

If that's the temperature I'll be running games in, then that's fantastic; the cooler I was using, which had been dying for a long time (and finally kicked the bucket) would idle at 40 some degrees celsius on a good day, and would be at 70-ish on load. So, this is quite an improvement (idles at 37, load at 54). If I get a Turbo module or something, then it would really be great.

Those ramsinks that came with the cooler are pretty bad though; the tape is very much not sticky enough. One of them came loose, so I put that one on one of the ram chips on the top side of the card so it wouldn't fall down.

 

[watek]

The accelero's cool so much better with a zip tied 120 on top.

 

[quadomatic]

Originally posted by: watek
The accelero's cool so much better with a zip tied 120 on top.

I'm afraid I'd have some serious issues with the fan doing some damage if I did that. I don't really care though. I tried OC'ing the card, and the temps raise maybe a degree or so. I can't OC it anymore than I already have; if I raise core past 585 then I get yellow dots, even though the temps aren't really increasing. I'm guessing I'd need a volt mod to get anymore juice out of this card.

I figure I'll just hold onto it for a while and once more GeForce 9 series cards drop, and they become more affordable, I'll pick up one of those. Hopefully the rest of my system won't be a bottleneck though.