reseating hd4850 reference cooler

[felang]

I just thought I´d share my experience in case anybody else is having trouble with high temps of reference hd4850´s.

So i´ve had my visiontek 4850 for about 6 months now. Lately I noticed my GPU temp was reaching 106 degress C while playing Far Cry 2. A couple of months back I modified my fan profile in the Bios to try to keep my temps in check.

While this helped somewaht, the fan screaming at 100% (needed in order to keep temps in check) is just unbearable.

Last night I decided to Remove the heatsink and replace what seemed like a stick of chewing gum they used as thermal paste with a thin film of OCZ Freeze thermal compound. My temps immediately decreased to 70 C at 80% fan speed from 105 C at 100% fan speed while looping the Far Cry 2 built in Bench. I also removed a thin plastic film that covered the heatsink completely and blew out all the crap (dirt i guess) that was covering most of the exhaust.

Now, I´m idling at 53 C at what GPU-Z reports as 0% fan speed (minimum speed is around 1500 RPM and is inaudible over my case fans). I´m glad I tried this before spending 50 bucks on an aftermarket cooler.

 

[CrystalBay]

It doesn't surprise me, GJ and informative to boot...

 

[Modular]

Nice. When mine started hitting those temps I went with an S1 Rev2. I couldn't be happier. I just finished an hour of Company of Heroes maxed out with 2x AA and my max core temp (overclocked to 750mhz from 625mhz) was 47C.

 

[Lonyo]

My temps went up about 20c over new, but that was because there was a dust bunny in the fan. Once I removed that temps went back to about what they had been.
If your temps do rise, it's always worth checking for some kind of issue and cleaning out dust/checking heatsink before running to a new cooler.

 

[brblx]

i should probably reseat the one on my evga 8800gt, but i'm afraid that once i get it off i may find that it needs some kind of special pad to actually make contact somewhere.

if the cooler doesn't include the memory and seats right over the core with screws, though, it should be a non-issue. not sure why anyone would want to leave such huge gaps to fill with crappy heatsink pads.