The Victims :o)

Introduction

Hello again folks. Today I'm gonna take you with me as I decide it's time to ditch the old blorb on my Creative GeForce2 GTS card ( Read my original article here ) . I don't know if anyone else has had this problem, but My blue orb was making some kinda noise when I would boot up....Kinda a loud humming for a few minutes, then settle down....weird. That was just one reason I was looking to swap it out. Im in love with the Alpha wingfin ramsinks from 2cooltek. so they go nowhere! ....hehe. I will however reapply them more securely, and permanently this time around with some Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive. After I do up the GeForce2 gts, I'll be re-doing the cooling on my brand new Visiontek GeForce3 ti200 card. Since Quake 3 is my main game, and has been for along time, I noticed a nice boost moving to the GF3 card. Not that I really recommend moving from a gf2 to a gf3. It's probably not worth the cash for most of you. I scored myself a killer deal on it from a "5 hour after thanksgiving sale" at a local store (Best Buy) and I was able to pick up the Visiontek GF3 Ti200 for a measely $99! Being the gamer I am, I could not pass that up. I did however wait in the checkout line for 1hr and 40min....ugh! But looking back..it was worth it =)

This isn't a ground-breaking guide by any means so don't get your hopes up. This is just a little how-to on attaching some great cooling components to your video card. The procedures you'll see below could be used in just about any current video & chipset coolers out on the market today. So even if you don't use the ones I am, you may still be able to follow the steps for your own cooling solution. Ok, let's start the fun....

Creative GeForce2 GTS GPU Cooler...

Front

Back

The Creative GF2 GTS in it's (then) current state. Shall we say....the victim? :o) I don't think I need to explain the pics above are the front and back of the card......Damn! I said it anyway!

The supplies

The main focus

 The supplies we'll be using for this "exchange". New Alpha wingfin GPU cooler, Arctic silver thermal adhesive, and 2000 grit 3M wet/dry "automotive" sandpaper.

Blorb off

Gpu close-up

Just squeeze the two black push pics from the back of the card and....Blorb removed. Also you can see the base hsf size difference here between the blorb and the new wingfin cooler. There's a reason I didn't clean up the card here. I wanted to show you a couple things. Mainly that, as many of you already knew, the Blue orb does NOT cover the entire GPU of the GF2. Anyone with basic cooling knowledge knows that this situation could be improved....that's my mission today. You can see the "dust splatter" also giving you an idea of how your blorb throws it's air around :o) The blorb isn't "bad"...but it's far from a "great" cooler. Just because it's "better than stock" doesn't mean it's the "best". Ok, enough of the "quotes"....I said "Enough!"....*dies*

Gpu cleaned

Started ramsink removal

Front of card cleared

Here is where I cleaned off the GPU by just wiping it thoroughly ( no havey cleaning yet). Also time to remove the current ramsinks for a nice fresh , and more permanent re-installation. Now I originally applied the ramsinks with some 3M thermal tape. The thermal tape ( frag tape) has given me no problems and has held up very well for more than a year now! Also, since it's been on there for over a year, it's on there pretty damn good. I couldn't pull it off without fear of damage. So I used the "hairdryer trick". I took an ordinary household hairdryer ( blowdryer ) and , using the high heat setting, placed the tip of it about 3-4" from the ramsinks for about 10 seconds. This allowed the ramsinks to heat right up and dramatically softened the adhesive material. Then, with them toasty warm, ( or should I say HOT! ) I used a flathead screwdriver, carefully placed it under the corner of the ramsink, and gave it alittle twist. The ramsinks came right off without a problem! The "hairdryer trick" is MUCH safer than the freezer trick. For those that don't know, the "freezer trick" is where you place your video card in a plastic ziplock, and put in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes. THat will make the adhesive brittle allowing you to "snap" off the heatsinks. Now, just the word "snap" isn't good when you're talking about delicate hardware. So , like I said, the "hairdryer trick" will soften the adhesive thru warmth and it will peel right off. No snapping!! :o)

Back ramsinks removed

Removed thermal tape

SInce this is a GeForce2 gts card, there is ramsinks on both sides of the card versus the newer cards with all the ram on the front. So I cleared the back ramsinks off and cleared off the frag tape with a sharp razorblade scraper. This worked perfectly to remove the entire thermal tape in one clean sweep. Just be very careful of your figures! I was within .000003" of shortening my fingers with a little slip of the blade :o)

Sunon Fan w/new heatsink

It's Alpha Wingfin Madness!!

After removing all the heatsinks ( and tossing the blorb ...hehe) I cleaned them up by running the ramsinks under some warm water to remove the old dust,etc. They looked brand new in seconds!...heh. I also dis-assembled the new alpha wingfin gpu cooler from 2cooltek that will be the replacement for the blorb. With the high quality sunon fan, and high quality Alpha wingfin base, I'm figuring this should be a very acceptable solution to the blorb. Now , going by the fan specs included with this unit, its louder and pushes less cfm. But, I'm hoping the alpha base compensates for this by covering the entire gpu, and therfore absorbing, and dispersing, more heat on its own. As you all should know by now, the blue orb has possibly the worst base known to man on it. It's pretty much tack-welded in usually nomore than 3-4 spots and has very little full body conductivity to it. Sure, its cool, but it's all fan guys....trust me on that one. :o) I'm hoping this unit will add alot more base cooling to the mix.

Lapping the ramsinks

lapping the gpu

All cleaned up

Well since this was going to be a fresh installation of the ramsinks, i thought some minor lapping was in order. I used strictly 2000 grit 3M automotive wet/dry sandpaper on the pieces here. Looking back I should've probably started with 1000 grit, went to 1500 grit, then onto 2000 grit since the pieces were alittle rougher than I would've liked :o) I pretty much just put the sandpaper flat on the table and ran the heatsinks back and forth over it for a couple of minutes. That'll get any small stuff off and will noticably smooth the surface to the touch. But don't expect any mirror finish with that. I did it more to fully remove anything and everything off the bottom of the ramsinks. Same goes for the GF2 gpu. I wanted to fully remove any thermal paste residue and to give a fresh surface for the new bond. I used the actual alpha wingfin cooler in this step and wrapped it in the 2000 grit sandpaper and sanded the gpu slowly back and forth for about 10 minutes. That gave me a fresh surface and the gpu again was very,very smooth to the touch. I did not feel it was needed to fully lap the gpu in this case being its my backup video card now , and again I'm saving myself for the gf3 lappin...hehe. You, however, could take this all the way till you see yourself.....so work it till your ark falls off if ya like :o) After you're satisfied with your lap job, clean off all the dust created with a soft lint free towel. I then thoroughly cleansed all the bonding surfaces with rubbing alcohol.

Cleaned and ready

The mixture

Application

ok, all cleaned up and ready to go now. Time to mix the batter :o) If you've never worked with Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive before, you should really go check out their site and also thoroughly read their instructions. Some very informative reading there about the different mixtures you could use to get different strengths of bonding. I myself used a little modified mixture by adding some arctic silver thermal compound to the mix to decrease the "jaws of life" bonding alittle. The nice part about my mixture is it will not effect the cooling properties in a negative way since it's all basically the same arctic silver ingredients. Two mains things to remember here.....1) do NOT eat this stuff...and 2) mix ONLY what you can apply in a few minutes time. ok, well actually, theres a few more things to remember.....so go visit there site damnit! :o)

Now thinly apply the thermal adhesive on your bonding surfaces with the included "mixing wand". Be sure NOT to put it on too thick. You DO NOT want it spilling over the sides and onto important components. I suggest mixing, then applying thermal adhesive to no more than two ram chips at a time, then quickly as possible apply the ramsinks/hsf onto their spots. You will have a couple of minutes to adjust their position. It's recommended you clamp, or apply weight to ensure the best bond. After I fitted the gpu cooler and the 4 ramsinks, I allowed about 30 minutes curing time. Then I flipped the card and followed the same basic idea. Do that...and you're DONE!

Final pics

Final pics

 

Final pics

Final pics

Conclusion & Temps

Well, that wraps it all up but the testing right? Testing case was Lian Li PC60 4 -80mm fans, no side intakes over I/O cards.

Stock HSF/ No ramsinks (stock mhz)

• Stock HSF at Idle - 37.5C
• Stock HSF under load- 47.3C

Blue Orb w/alpha ramsinks (stock mhz)

• Idle = 32.8*C
• Load = 39.2*C

Blue Orb w/alpha ramsinks (overclocked 235/395)

• Idle = 33.5*C
• Load = 41.8*C

Alpha Wingfin hsf w/ alpha ramsinks (stock mhz)

• idle = 31.5*C
• load = 39.9*C

Alpha Wingfin hsf w/ alpha ramsinks (overclocked 235/395)

• idle = 33.0*C
• load = 41.2*C

You can see the temps are very respectable and this only took about an hour to do in total. It looks badass too ;p The best is that now I know that the entire core of my gf2 gts is now making contact with a heatsink device....heh. The fan on this new alpha gpu kit pushes alittle less cfm than the Blorb, but absorbs more/disperses more heat off the gpu because its base is bigger. So it's sorta a wash I guess. S'ok, I'm sure the bigger contact area of the new alpha gpu cooler will come in handy in the long run for extending the life of the card. Since the blorb never even covered the corners of the gpu, at least now they're covered 100% and I don't have to worry about flames shooting out from the edge of the gpu that the blorb left unprotected :o)

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