My Video card heat sink fell off. Help!!!!

[OCNewBie]

Hi all,

My Video card has a heat sink but no fan. I bought a new heat sink that has a fan, removed the old heat sink, but unable to attach the new heatsink/fan to the GPU chip. I put the thermal gease on it it but it won't hold. Can someone help me to find out a way to glue it to my GPU chip?

Thanks all

[elroy]

You need a heatsink glue not a heat conductive paste.

[Bovon]

Sorry, but you put the wrong thing on the sink to attach it to the chip. You need to get the thermal epoxy to mount a sink to a chip that has no other way to hold it on...like clips, ect. Get your hands on some thermal epoxy, and if you don't know how to mix epoxy, repost. Clean that chip and sink VERY good to get all of the residue of the thermal goo off of it, and put a small dab of mixed thermal epoxy on the chip, and spread it out over the surface. Place the sink on it, and allow it to cure. I don't know the curing time of thermal epoxy, but most epoxies take an overnight curing time.

You can clean the thermal goo off with acetone. Acetone is the ingrediant in fingernail polish remover. I personally prefer commercial acetone (a paint thinner-remover) to fingernail polish remover due to that having other stuff added to it, which could also impeed the epoxy from sticking. Use acetone sparingly on a cotton swab to clean with...it dries super fast. Don't get any on the board, just the top of the chip.

[Bovon]

club_med

Epoxy is simular to fiberglass in as much as it comes in two parts. The resin and a hardner. You mix up a small amount on a piece of cardboard or something, I like a piece of glass if available. With epoxy, it takes equal amounts of part A and part B...mix together good. Then apply. It takes different times for different types of epoxys. Bondo, that is used to repair dents in a car fender, is epoxy. There are many types...that do different jobs. Some are designed to cure in and hour, others take maybe as much as 24 hours..these are generally the stronger ones.

Fiberglass on the other hand, only require one drop of hardner to a small amount of resin...maybe a pint of resin, and it will setup in 15 minutes..hard as a brick. I would suppose the thermal epoxy has some of the same stuff in it like Artic Silver does, to assist with heat transfer...but, I have made some with brass filings mixed with regular epoxy...I really don't know if that helped or not, but didn't hurt either.

EDIT: I made a boo boo...Bondo, and like kinds of auto body shop hole fillers are of a fiberglass base, not epoxy. But, the same thing applies. Both epoxy and fiberglass resin comes in two parts, one is the resin and the other is a hardner

[This message has been edited by Bovon (edited 05-14-2001).]

[OCNewBie]

Thank you all for your reply. One question, does common store like Fry's carry the thermal epoxy? If not, I guess I can go with JB Weld but I hope it will transfer heat the same as thermal epoxy.

Thanks again.

[Fingers]

JB Weld probably won't transfer heat as well as a thermal compound, but it has been used successfully by others. I personally wouldn't use JB Weld on a valuable video card though, because if it doesn't perform as expected, you're probably going to be stuck with it (pun intended http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif). JB Weld and Arctic Silver Epoxy are both permanent adhesives, here is some info taken from Arctic Silver's website.

CAUTION!
Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive is a permanent adhesive.

If you do not follow the instructions for diluting the adhesive with
Arctic Silver Thermal Compound, there is a very good chance that any components you attach with full-strength Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive will stay attached forever.

Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive IS NOT intended to be used between a CPU and the CPU heatsink.
On a CPU, only use Arctic Silver Thermal Compound.

<A HREF="http://www.arcticsilver.com/adhesive_instructions.htm" TARGET=_blank>Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive
Application Instructions</A> including instructions for diluting Arctic Silver Adhesive with Arctic Silver Compound to weaken the bonding strength. (http://www.arcticsilver.com/diluting_adhesive.htm)

other sites where Arctic Silver can be found;

Thermal Compounds and Adhesives - Coolerguys.com (http://www.coolerguys.com/CPUCOOL/compound.htm)

Thermal Compounds - 2CoolTek.com (http://2cooltek.safeshopper.com/9/cat9.htm?956)

Thermal Materials - Plycon.com (http://216.157.14.244/grease.htm)

[This message has been edited by Fingers (edited 05-14-2001).]

[alondra]

dont use JB Weld, it is a great product for sticking things together, you can saw it, file it etc. but if you use it you will have to saw it apart.

[club_med]

Sorry I'm butting in here..

What exactly is thermal epoxy?.
Where can i get some?.
What is meant by 'mixing', and why is this required?.

Thanks,
cm.

[Kuasimodem]

This (http://www.dangerden.com/product_pages/arctic_silver.htm) is one brand of thermal epoxy (on the right), it works great, and has a thermal transfer rate about equal to the paste (on the left).

If you can't order online or find it locally, there are substitutes. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but I used JB Weld to attach my Blue Orb to my Radeon LE. I've got it overclocked to 180Mhz and it's running fine.

[club_med]

I would like to attach a heatsink to the graphics card.

How do i do this, there are no holders, so i would have to use some kind of thermal eopxy, but if i use it, does this mean that i will never be able to remove the heatsink ?.

cm.

[Imperion1]

Pretty much so.
Or you could use the regular arctic silverII and put a small, thin drop of epoxy on the four corners of the Graphics card cpu.
This would be a little easier to take off then since the whole cpu won't be glued.

[Fingers]

club_med, Arctic Silver 2-part Epoxy can be diluted with regular Arctic Silver compound to weaken the bond strength. There are other thermal adhesives available also.

Another option might be double sided thermal tape, which can be found at the link to 2CoolTek.com in my previous message. I've also heard of Imperion's suggestion of using regular thermal compound in the middle and a little "super glue" near the edges.

Read through the previous link to Arctic Silver's website as well as this (http://www.subzeropc.com/article/thermalinterface.htm) link and you'll have a better understanding of how to attach heatsinks with and without mounting hardware.