When I changed my cpu cooler recently, it became apparant that the old combination of a Radeon 5850 with a Thermalright VRM R4 heatsink did not mix with the cpu cooler, so I took off the VRM R4 heatsink thinking it would have to do in order for me to still fit my old 5850 card inside my computer.
So a few days passed and I noticed the VRM temps rose as expected into the 90's degrees C, but I was ok with that for now and though nothing of it until installing Civ 5 and then I noticed some screen artifacts. It turned out that the VRM temps had maxed out at 110 deg C, which I thought was too much.
For the next minute I thought " well no more Civ 5 for me", but then it occurred to me that I could perhap cut off the offending heatsink, so I did that.
I used pliers to cut the heatpipe and it was fairly easy to cut through. The cut itself seemed to almost seal off the now opened heatpipe.
When powering it all up again and putting some heat into it, I kept an eye on it and then I noticed almost right away a droplet of fluid amassing on one of the heatpipes. I wiped that one drop and never saw anything like it again.
Now my VRM temps keep at steady 69-71 deg C while playing Civ 5 and it is a solid drop in temps, maybe 10-20 degrees hotter than it used to be iirc (heh, a wild guess off my memory). I guess I should keep an eye on this further and see if this work. Having some kind of heatsink on the VRM's are probably better than nothing, else the after market fans would just blow air onto the VRM's.
Update: Temp did rise again after some additional playing time. At the very least, I hope I can keep things down below 90 deg C. I am thinking that whatever was inside the pipes probably will dry up, but hope that the metal heatshink touching the VRM's are good enough in itself.
Edited by Decoman - 5/18/12 at 5:21am
So a few days passed and I noticed the VRM temps rose as expected into the 90's degrees C, but I was ok with that for now and though nothing of it until installing Civ 5 and then I noticed some screen artifacts. It turned out that the VRM temps had maxed out at 110 deg C, which I thought was too much.
For the next minute I thought " well no more Civ 5 for me", but then it occurred to me that I could perhap cut off the offending heatsink, so I did that.
I used pliers to cut the heatpipe and it was fairly easy to cut through. The cut itself seemed to almost seal off the now opened heatpipe.
When powering it all up again and putting some heat into it, I kept an eye on it and then I noticed almost right away a droplet of fluid amassing on one of the heatpipes. I wiped that one drop and never saw anything like it again.
Now my VRM temps keep at steady 69-71 deg C while playing Civ 5 and it is a solid drop in temps, maybe 10-20 degrees hotter than it used to be iirc (heh, a wild guess off my memory). I guess I should keep an eye on this further and see if this work. Having some kind of heatsink on the VRM's are probably better than nothing, else the after market fans would just blow air onto the VRM's.
Update: Temp did rise again after some additional playing time. At the very least, I hope I can keep things down below 90 deg C. I am thinking that whatever was inside the pipes probably will dry up, but hope that the metal heatshink touching the VRM's are good enough in itself.
Edited by Decoman - 5/18/12 at 5:21am
