7970M M17X R2 - 85* Thermal Shutdown

Well the title says it all. Under heavy load the temp spikes on the 7970M hit 85* + and I get insta-off. It usually chills around 33 except under heavy load and spikes.

I have been heavily surfing this forum and tech inferno and have seen a few solutions.

Im just hoping to get a reply from someone who has recently tackled this problem and may have sage advice on the matter.

(1) Add washers to increase pressure between the GPU and heatsink. This sounds solid to me and ive been digging around for old motherboard washers or plastic washers. I also saw warning of going overboard on the pressure and cracking the GPU so Ill want to avoid that.
(2) Someone on Tech Inferno shaved down the height of the threads and increased the pressure that way. I could do that I have a grinder but as they say measure twice cut once so I thought it prudent to ask first.
(3) Undervolt and underclock the card - I am looking into this as well. If someone has the RJT VBIOS configured correctly or the link to it i would be very happy to have it!

my conductonaut has arrived and I will be repasting of course no matter which way I go. I used what I had on hand at the time which was zalman ST7 i think.

 

Hi,
I had recent experience regarding conductonaut and must say that the stuff is great providing that you have close as possible perfect contact die/heatsink.
No amount of pressure will close the gap if two contact areas dont match, youll just break the card.
I suggest applying conductonaut AFTER you are sure the contact is just right.
Then check again.

 

**** UPDATE ****

I just decided to jump in and try method #1 by adding washers to evenly apply pressure, and of course repasting with KRYONAUT while I was at it.

My idle temp dropped to 28 and the spikes have disappeared! I haven't even broke 50* yet, and am commencing tests.

Here is a Pic of the unit with the metal washers i used. I had to snap off the 3/4 washers that were holding the screws and it just barely all fit like it was supposed to. It's not perfect but it looks pretty good! I opted to just use a hershey kiss shaped blob of grease where i was supposed to use the .5mm thermal pads and it seems to all be working great!

I had to use 2X of these metal washers per screw. I got slightly worried about a potential short for being too tall but I think its OK and the black pads are still a smidge taller.