Can you reuse thermal pads?

[klipschman]

I want to remove my 7800gt's heatsink and apply some Arctic Silver 5.

I'm pretty sure the memory has thermal pads on them. Will they be fine if they are removed and then reapplied?

 

[zagood]

no.

-z

 

[Rike]

Thermal pad=one use only

 

[klipschman]

Well is there anything I can do?

Can one buy thermal pads? Can I use Arctic Silver Ceramique? I heard it is safe for memory modules.

 

[Rike]

Originally posted by: klipschman
Well is there anything I can do?

Can one buy thermal pads? Can I use Arctic Silver Ceramique? I heard it is safe for memory modules.

You can use Ceramique or AS5. With AS5 you always want to be careful because it is slightly conductive and it could short out two leads that are close to each other and bridged by the AS5.

 

[klipschman]

Originally posted by: Rike

Originally posted by: klipschman
Well is there anything I can do?

Can one buy thermal pads? Can I use Arctic Silver Ceramique? I heard it is safe for memory modules.

You can use Ceramique or AS5. With AS5 you always want to be careful because it is slightly conductive and it could short out two leads that are close to each other and bridged by the AS5.

I've read this but if I use just a tiny but adequate amount of AS5 I should be fine? I don't want to mess up my card.

 

[Rike]

Yes, exactly. Remember a little AS5 goes a long way. If the layer of TIM is too thick, it reduces the efficiency of the heat transfer, not to mention the "spillover" problem.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: zagood
no.

-z

Confirmed!

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: klipschman
Well is there anything I can do?

Yep!

Jap frag tape...

You can thank me later!

 

[zagood]

Sorry, was in a bad mood earlier. I re-read your post and I've got more info for you.

If all you're planning on doing is pulling off the stock VGA heatsink and replacing the stock thermal grease with new thermal grease, 99% of the time it's not worth it.

HOWEVER if you feel you NEED to do it, a lot of the time you can get away with re-using the thermal pads that attach to the memory. The adhesive usually isn't very good and will pop off cleanly. Those thick stock thermal pads are fairly useless as far as cooling the video ram chips anyway. The problem is that without them, the copper/aluminum base of the crappy stock heatsink won't make a flat bond with the ram chips. If you rip even one you'll have to get ALL new ones so they're the same thickness. And no, you can't use ceramique or AS5 for video ram, because without the thickness of the pads you'll place too much pressure on the GPU chip.

The best thing to do if you want better cooling for your video card is to get an aftermarket heatsink. Otherwise, seriously, just leave it alone.

-z