7970 thermal paste replacement

[laughingbear]

My Sapphire 7970 has been a PAIN in the ass ever since I got it.  I switched over to LTC a few weks ago, and it took me forever to get the hash rate up to 725 kh/s.  Once I finally got that sorted out, my temps started to become a problem.  When I first started mining ltc, my temps were around 75-80c. The temp slowly kept rising till they were in the 85-87c range!  I had the side of my pc open and a box fan blowing right on the card, and it helped a little at first, but then the temps were back at the 85c range.  This is in an air conditioned room. 

I tried cleaning the card, maxing out fans etc, nothing helped, and it was driving me nuts.  The pc kept restarting itself from high temps.  I finally ordered some thermal paste and replaced what came with the factory.  It was super easy, 4 screws and a twist and it was open.  The factory paste was thick and had spilled all over the transistors surrounding the chip.  I cleaned everything the besi I could, used a toothbrush to get the paste off the transistors, and added the new paste.

I am now running at max load, an hour later, I am at 735 kh/s and gpu-z says my core temp is at 58c!  my VRM temps are at 78-80c!

I hope this helps any one else struggling with rising temps this summer.

[1714097689]

1714097689

[crazyates]

Hmm I repasted my 7970s a year ago, but I can't remember if I used my nice stuff, or my cheap stuff. I'm starting to get some higher temps that I used to, so I might take em out again, clean, and repaste em.

Thanks for the reminder!

[soulmann]

Did you try to undervolt? I have sapphire 7970 with 700 khash/s - GPU 62c, VRM 85c, the ambient temperature is 30c. Coolers are set to 100%.

[Zanatos666]

I personally use Arctic Silver 5 on all my re-pasting jobs.

[de704]

When I first started mining ltc, my temps were around 75-80c. The temp slowly kept rising till they were in the 85-87c range!  

I just started mining yesterday for the firs time ever, I'm mining LTC with 2 7970s.

I was going to ask what is a good temperature for the GPU to be at, but you answered that. so..

I'll ask you did you install the Sapphire "TirXX" application?? I've been able to control the GPU Fan speed to keep the temperature of my card under 80c.

I haven't pushed them to hard yet I'm at 516Kh/s per card.
https://photos-5.dropbox.com/t/0/AACHXJRw2BtfBDo2wAkrjf5XA_nTRdJsxcJjvOCboI8aKg/12/25615087/png/2048x1536/3/1371837600/0/2/MiningDay1.png/xv_HGrkbBJ7bFz9y0x68ZSf2Yk-YvpXflCIXdFukaiQ

[laughingbear]

That's way too hot to be going that slow.   I used afterburner for overclocking an fans.  Good luck, your going to have a LOT of tweaking ahead. You should be at least at 700kh/s and no more than 75c tops

[de704]

ok thanks I'll do it now,

I not gutsy enough to leave my Rig unattended yet. I can access it remotely over https using a Lantronix SpiderDuo KVM over IP http://youtu.be/978cSi_SG-o?t=15s From work.

Can you tell I'm an IT guy

[SirMintALot]

I've searched the internet for repasting GPUs a while back. First thing I found is that it is strongly not advised to use arctic silver 5 (9.0 W/m•k, which I wanted to use first), as the cooling result isn't that much better than standart grease because it is very thin and that it takes a long time to get thick and therefor could be a troublemaker (it should only be used for CPUs). Then I found a site with an older test where Thermaltake TG-2 was the best paste with a 6°C cooler running GPU compared to stock paste. So I searched for a cheap supply of TG-2 but found out that there also it TG-1 and TG-3. TG-2 has only a thermal conductivity of 1.5 W/m•k (temperature range -40°C to 150°C) while TG-1 has a thermal conductivity of 3.0 W/m•k (temperature range -40°C to 150°C) and TG-3 even 4.7 W/m•k (-50°C to 250°C). So I went with TG-3 and my ASUS HD7950-DC2T-3GD5 is now 11°C cooler than with stock paste. The only problem with TG-3 is that it is very thick, it's like plasticine and a bit hard to apply.
Maybe I will try be quiet! DC1 (7.5 W/m•k) or Phobya HeGrease Extreme (8.5 W/m•k) soon to see if I could get even better results.

[gbx]

I use Arctic Silver with good results personally.  I've found most factory shipped cards have too much thermal paste applied.. this is visible with the paste gathering up over the edge of the gpu creating a crust... most likely trapping heat and acting as an insulator.

I remove the old paste with some paper towels, q-tips, and 99 percent isopropyl alcohol.  Then I dab a bit of the arctic silver on the GPU, and spread it with a nitrile gloved finger tip evenly over the gpu.  Very thin, just enough to cover the gpu.  Then reassemble... and notice an improvement.

The only negative I've heard about arctic silver 5 is it's conductive.  So over application could lead to issues creating connections where there shouldn't be.  I would like to try some other paste, I just haven't found the holy grail yet. 

[de704]

That's way too hot to be going that slow.   I used afterburner for overclocking an fans.  Good luck, your going to have a LOT of tweaking ahead. You should be at least at 700kh/s and no more than 75c tops

Thanks for the feed back. It helped a lot.... Hows This?

https://photos-2.dropbox.com/t/0/AADZ9Fkbnwc-ucRFHw8HKUqYIfrggAQifECRqpMfmfeKkA/12/25615087/png/2048x1536/3/1372190400/0/2/MiningDay4.png/u3RLtxsAP8quMWESfT629hjxRDESvoLrKZlT2UkGsJU
Day 4 (I know there's still room for improvement.)

[laughingbear]

not bad....   keep tweaking with your settings to get your hash rate at least up to 700 kh/s, the temps are passable though.



This is what I am using:

"intensity" : "13",
"vectors" : "1",
"worksize" : "256",
"kernel" : "scrypt",
"lookup-gap" : "2",
"thread-concurrency" : "8192",
"gpu-engine" : "1040",
"gpu-fan" : "80",
"gpu-memclock" : "1500",
"gpu-memdiff" : "0",
"gpu-powertune" : "20",
"gpu-vddc" : "1.050",
"api-port" : "4028",
"expiry" : "120",
"gpu-dyninterval" : "7",
"gpu-platform" : "0",
"gpu-threads" : "2",
"hotplug" : "5",
"log" : "5",
"no-pool-disable" : true,
"queue" : "1",
"scan-time" : "30",
"scrypt" : true,

[de704]

This is what I am using:
...

Um I'm guessing that's the contents of a config file be I don't know which one. Could you tell me where to put those entries?

Thanks

[chinesechicken]

i repaste and reseat all my 7970s. I use only Arctic MX4. dont go with any of the cheap stuff. you wont really notice a difference in temps except for about one or two degrees. but then again this is thermal paste

[Zon44]

arctic silver would be ok.

real hard core is Coollaboratory Liquid Pro - one wrong drop - GraCa is dead.
but really good results.

[Book]

Cases and fans are precisely designed with airflow in mind. If you remove a side of the case that ruins it, so I seriously advise you to put it back.

[mazedk]

Artic silver 5 has a 200 hour "burn-in" phase. So you wont see the actual end result untill about that point. It might bring you down as uch as 2-5 degrees.

Doing a test atm with 2x 6870's with stock paste. I'll be putting as5 on it soon and will see what the end result is

[xide]

use ARCTIC MX 4 for gpu's not Silver...

[ZPK]

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%9F%D0%A2-8

[laughingbear]

Cases and fans are precisely designed with airflow in mind. If you remove a side of the case that ruins it, so I seriously advise you to put it back.

10 minutes of testing proves you wrong.  My temps are a LOT lower without the side on, and a box fan blowing on it.

[crazyates]

Cases and fans are precisely designed with airflow in mind. If you remove a side of the case that ruins it, so I seriously advise you to put it back.

10 minutes of testing proves you wrong.  My temps are a LOT lower without the side on, and a box fan blowing on it.

1) It depends on the style of GPU fan. I take it you're not using a stock, blower style fan? Blower style fans really like cold air being pushed in from the front of the case, and then vented out the back. Most Aftermarket coolers don't work that way, and just recirculate air around your case. Thus, taking the side off and using a fan prevents that hot air buildup inside your case, lowing your delta, and giving you lower temps.

2) A case is designed just as much for airflow as it is for keeping dust/bugs/critters/small children/gremlins out of your expensive computer components.