GameBoy

I'm wanting to disassemble my HD 4850 so i can clean the cooler, and reapply the thermal paste as my temps have risen about 40 degrees since I bought the card.

Was just wondering how hard it is to take the card apart and put it back together? it is the stock reference design cooler, and do the thermal pads on the VRM's/memory need to be replaced once taken off?.

Is MX-2 fine to use on the GPU and will it yield any better temps than the stock thermal paste?

alex98uk

Just take the screws off and it should fall apart. The thermal pads on the memory and VRMs can be reused and should be fine. Just don't put conductive thermal paste on them if you decide to replace them.

Normal CPU paste on the GPU would work fine.

__________________
Winamp FLAC > Xonar D2 > Optical Zero DAC > Little Dot MKIII > Sony MDR XB700

British Overclockers Club

GameBoy

Is the fan attached to the cooler or will it come off with it?

alex98uk

should be attached to the heatsink, but not the plastic shroud.

__________________
Winamp FLAC > Xonar D2 > Optical Zero DAC > Little Dot MKIII > Sony MDR XB700

British Overclockers Club

GameBoy

I've just taken off all the screws but the cooler still won't come off, does it need to be forced off? and do i risk damaging the thermal pads?

alex98uk

Be sure to take off the screws on the back of the card (all of them) and there may be 2 screws on the PCI bracket.

__________________
Winamp FLAC > Xonar D2 > Optical Zero DAC > Little Dot MKIII > Sony MDR XB700

British Overclockers Club

banging34hzs

check for plastic snap in pins, if u do find them be VERY careful about getting them off cause they will break.

__________________

Timlander

Also, if you KNOW you have all the screws out, I know mine was hard to break the cooler off the chip cause of the thermal glue they used. Just be easy with it, and use a twisting motion, do not pull straight up on it.

__________________

HD 4890 vs GTX 285

GameBoy

where are these pins and what do they look like?

edit: i managed to get the cooler off, now, theres a small tear in one of the VRM thermal tapes, would this cause any problems?

also, i want to take the plastic shroud off the cooler , will the fan fall off when its removed and is it eas to re attach?

edit 2: cleaned the cooler, applied mx-2 and re assembled the card, before i was getting around 60c idle and 90c load at 500/750 (yes I had it underclocked) with 100% fan speed, now im getting 44c idle and 70c load at 700/1100 with 50% fan speed, not bad i guess, for the stock cooler.

Thanks to the people who replied. +rep

MintMouse

A small tear will be fine.

+Congrats on success with temps.