Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

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  • newtothis
    Badcaps Legend
    • Mar 2013
    • 1556
    • england

    #1

    Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

    Well had 2 cards come in today for repair... First was a GTX 780 that was shorted to ground... Blatantly obvious where it had gone as had 3 vaporized ceramic caps and a very burnt and cracked inductor. Swapped them all an all working

    Next was a HD 7970 that failed to display.. So off I go strip the card down ready to pull the GPU and reball and I find this :





    Took me some time to clean that off I can tell you!


    So anyone who needs to apply thermal compound and has never done it before... The above is NOT how you do it!
    Attached Files
    Last edited by Per Hansson; 04-10-2016, 12:13 PM. Reason: offsite image uploaded
  • eccerr0r
    Solder Sloth
    • Nov 2012
    • 8660
    • USA

    #2
    Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

    <sarcasm>MORE IS BETTER!</sarcasm>

    BTW your picture's not showing up for me... I'm just guessing what the picture looks like...

    Comment

    • blasterboomer
      Senior Member
      • Dec 2013
      • 135
      • United Kingdom

      #3
      Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

      Image is dead, shows the missing image icon for me.

      Comment

      • newtothis
        Badcaps Legend
        • Mar 2013
        • 1556
        • england

        #4
        Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

        Added link to post

        Comment

        • eccerr0r
          Solder Sloth
          • Nov 2012
          • 8660
          • USA

          #5
          Re: For the love of god do not do this

          :o

          I suppose Zinc Oxide thermal compound was made for people who do this... (since it's not electrically conductive.)

          Comment

          • ddscentral
            Senior Member
            • Mar 2008
            • 151
            • Lithuania, EU

            #6
            Re: For the love of god do not do this

            OMFG...

            Did you fix that card ?

            Comment

            • Joe Black
              eager to learn
              • Sep 2015
              • 173
              • southeastern europe

              #7
              Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

              Wow, that's impressive at least.
              stay classy

              Comment

              • newtothis
                Badcaps Legend
                • Mar 2013
                • 1556
                • england

                #8
                Re: For the love of god do not do this

                Yes both working now.

                Took some time and a lot of IPA to clean the card down though!

                Comment

                • newtothis
                  Badcaps Legend
                  • Mar 2013
                  • 1556
                  • england

                  #9
                  Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

                  Yes that must of been an entire LARGE tube of TIM!

                  GPU has been reballed and reworked onto the card = All working

                  Comment

                  • keeney123
                    Lauren
                    • Sep 2014
                    • 2536
                    • United States

                    #10
                    Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

                    Originally posted by newtothis
                    Well had 2 cards come in today for repair... First was a GTX 780 that was shorted to ground... Blatantly obvious where it had gone as had 3 vaporized ceramic caps and a very burnt and cracked inductor. Swapped them all an all working

                    Next was a HD 7970 that failed to display.. So off I go strip the card down ready to pull the GPU and reball and I find this :


                    http://imgur.com/1EgQEZV


                    Took me some time to clean that off I can tell you!


                    So anyone who needs to apply thermal compound and has never done it before... The above is NOT how you do it!
                    It would of been good if you also posted the pictures after you clean it up and re-pasted it correctly.

                    Comment

                    • newtothis
                      Badcaps Legend
                      • Mar 2013
                      • 1556
                      • england

                      #11
                      Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

                      Still can do... I only apply cheap compound after a reball for testing then change it for mx-4 or 5 for final application.

                      So when I clean the cheap stuff off later I will take some pics

                      Comment

                      • ChaosLegionnaire
                        HC Overclocker
                        • Jul 2012
                        • 3259
                        • Singapore

                        #12
                        Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

                        man wtf is this? thermal paste shaving cream? no surprises why the gpu failed there from too much thermal paste!!!

                        Comment

                        • newtothis
                          Badcaps Legend
                          • Mar 2013
                          • 1556
                          • england

                          #13
                          Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

                          Originally posted by ChaosLegionnaire
                          man wtf is this? thermal paste shaving cream? no surprises why the gpu failed there from too much thermal paste!!!
                          Non conductive, it was a BGA connection fault - Reball sorted it out.

                          I think it was more of a case of the owner thought it would fix it by changing the thermal compound (Seems a lot of people auto think that changing it will somehow bring the card back to life :S ) and had no idea what they were doing! I have moaned before when finding a mess under the heatsink but this took the biscuit! I ended up just dropping the entire card into a bowl of IPA and getting the toothbrush on it.. bloody messy job!

                          Comment

                          • stj
                            Great Sage 齊天大聖
                            • Dec 2009
                            • 30915
                            • Albion

                            #14
                            Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

                            you say non-conductive, but it has a capacitance.
                            you cant use it on high voltage parts!

                            Comment

                            • ChaosLegionnaire
                              HC Overclocker
                              • Jul 2012
                              • 3259
                              • Singapore

                              #15
                              Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

                              no, im talking about the way how applying too much thermal paste acts as a thermal insulator instead. the ideal proper way to apply thermal paste is as thin a layer as possible. too thick of a layer just acts as an insulator instead of a conductor. that is the proper way!

                              Comment

                              • blasterboomer
                                Senior Member
                                • Dec 2013
                                • 135
                                • United Kingdom

                                #16
                                Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

                                holy fuck... That reminds me of my friends laptop that he used to bring to college, It would overheat and get really hot so that it would shut itself down. He told me he put a few new tubes paste in it. immediately i was like "a few tubes?!?!", so i took it home and opened it up and there was literally thermal paste spread over the entire motherboard and all over the casing, i dont know how it even managed to boot still, cleaned it with water and let it dry for a day infront of a fan, reapplied paste the correct way. The next day when i saw him i asked wtf he had done and how many tubes he put in and he said 12 tubes so then i had to teach him how thermal paste is meant to be applied. The laptop still works to this day since i cleaned it up

                                Comment

                                • clearchris
                                  Badcaps Veteran
                                  • Dec 2013
                                  • 686
                                  • United States

                                  #17
                                  Re: For the love of god do not do this

                                  A little is good, a lot is better, right?

                                  Comment

                                  • momaka
                                    master hoarder
                                    • May 2008
                                    • 12160
                                    • Bulgaria

                                    #18
                                    Re: For the love of god do not do this

                                    WOW!
                                    That is quite a bit of thermal compound on there.

                                    I would have scooped it and saved it for non-critical re-use. There's enough to last you for a year worth of repairs with this!

                                    Comment

                                    • stj
                                      Great Sage 齊天大聖
                                      • Dec 2009
                                      • 30915
                                      • Albion

                                      #19
                                      Re: For the love of god do not do this

                                      Originally posted by momaka
                                      I would have scooped it and saved it for non-critical re-use. There's enough to last you for a year worth of repairs with this!
                                      i was waiting for someone to say that!

                                      Comment

                                      • TechGeek
                                        Computer Geek
                                        • Jan 2015
                                        • 2254
                                        • USA

                                        #20
                                        Re: Need to change thermal compound? How not to do it!

                                        12 tubes!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
                                        Don't buy those $10 PSU "specials". They fail, and they have taken whole computers with them.

                                        My computer doubles as a space heater.

                                        Permanently Retired Systems:
                                        RIP Advantech UNO-3072LA (2008-2021) - Decommissioned and taken out of service permanently due to lack of software support for it. Not very likely to ever be recommissioned again.
                                        Asus Q550LF (Old main laptop, 2014-2022) - Decommissioned and stripped due to a myriad of problems, the main battery bloating being the final nail in the coffin.


                                        Kooky and Kool Systems
                                        - 1996 Power Macintosh 7200/120 + PC Compatibility Card - Under Restoration
                                        - 1993 Gateway 2000 80486DX/50 - Fully Operational/WIP
                                        - 2004 Athlon 64 Retro Gaming System - Indefinitely Parked
                                        - Main Workstation - Fully operational!

                                        sigpic

                                        Comment

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