Passive Cooling, Graphics card |
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I wanted to improve the passive cooling on an older graphics card. The onboard memory modules became wuite hot, which could cause problems i a soon-to-be mod. I decided to change the cooping profile on the GPU and to ad cooling profiles to the memory modules. |
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Original cooling |
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A before-image. First the existing cooling profile must be removed. It is glued to the GPU, which calls for radical measures. After 1 hour in a freezer the glue becomes slightly brittle and the coolig profile can be removed. The remaining glue on the GPU were removed with a knife. |
Cooling profiles |
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Just a picture of the new and old profile to show the differene in height. The new profile were original used to dissipate the heate from a Pentium 133MHz CPU passively. |
Cutting profiles |
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The new cooling profile must be cut into appropriate sizes. It is not the best tools I have; a blade to a hack saw. With some tape to form a handle it is usable. |
Adhesive |
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To ensure proper mounting I chose a thermal adhesive. I had some Arctic Silver Premium Thermal Adhesive which is perfect for the job. |
Mounting cooling profiles |
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All that is left is to mount the new cooling profiles. A user's manual comes with the adhesive. Such manuals are also available online: User's manual for Arctic Silver Premium Thermal Adhesive. |
Epoxy |
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The mod this graphics card will be used in, requires the hardware to be perfectly sealed. The epoxy is not required to keep the aluminium profiles in place. |
Defect? |
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After the cooling had been improved I saw that a small component was missing on the back of the PCB. Fortunately the graphics card still works. A few years back I painted the back of the graphics card, which explains the blue color. |