Help with video card heatsink problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeff Connelly
  • Start date Start date
J

Jeff Connelly

I've been having a lot of problems with crashes in various applications
lately, and I think after trying many things I might have narrowed it down
to the video card - it's a Diamond Viper Ultra and I noticed the fan has
stopped working, and the chip is quite hot. I popped off the little
fan/heatsink combo. It was glued or epoxied on. Now there is left a layer
of epoxy. I've been carefully scraping but have only removed it from about
10% of the chip. Any faster and I think I'll damage something, any slower
and I think I'll damage myself from insanity.

Suggestions for continuing? Do I need to look for a fan that will attach to
the video card (2 pin connector)? How should I attach it? Thanks!
 
Jeff Connelly said:
I've been having a lot of problems with crashes
I might have narrowed it down to the video card - it's a
Diamond Viper Ultra and I noticed the fan has stopped
working, and the chip is quite hot. I popped off the little
fan/heatsink combo. It was glued or epoxied on. Now there
is left a layer of epoxy. I've been carefully scraping but
have only removed it from about 10% of the chip.
Click to expand...
Suggestions for continuing? Do I need to look for a fan that
will attach to the video card (2 pin connector)? How should I
attach it
Click to expand...

Don't use a chemical to remove the epoxy because the package for the
chip is itself made of epoxy. Just keep slicing or scraping, and use
a good, sharp blade since it can make all the difference in the world.
And to save yourself from ever having to go through this again, next
time use ordinary silicone rubber sealer (RTV) instead of epoxy since
it's very easy to cut through it to remove the heatsink. Do not use
super glue, especially by putting a drop in each corner and thermal
grease in the middle.

You can use a fan with a 3-pin connector if it'll fit or if you can
transplant its wires to a 2-pin connector (each pin usually has a tab
that can be pressed or pried to allow removal) or splice into it. You
need the black ground wire and the red +12V wire (PCs normally use
yellow to denote +12V, but for fans their red wires are always for the
voltage, whether it's +5V or +12V); the white wire goes unused since
it's for RPM.

For all but the highest performance video cards, try to use a heatsink
large enough to provide adequate cooling even without a fan, and a
small Socket 7 one for a Pentium I or AMD K6 or a large one for a 486
is fine for this.
 
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