M17X R2 warped heatsink fixes and solutions

Hey guys it seems that the M17X R2 heatsink is warped which is preventing proper contact with the GPU die on one end. This is the reason why my GPU temperatures seem to be 34 degrees Celsius when idle but skyrocket to 90 degrees Celsius when gaming. Could I possibly put a 0.3 or 0.5mm copper shim between the pasted (Artic Silver 5) GPU die and heatsink core area to make better contact? Here is what I bought on ebay. The seller claims that this copper shim mod on the heatsink will improve the contact on the GPU die.

Dell Alienware M15X M17x Video Card Copper Shim Mod 3MF8R YT99J | eBay

All my thermal pads are even and correct so not sure why the heatsink is not making contact on one part of the end of the GPU die. I'm guessing it is because of the thermal pads on the VRAMS and voltage indicators. I think 1mm might be too much and going to 0.5mm might be better. When I take out all thermal pads, and mount heatsink to GPU die just for testing, it does evenly make proper contact to GPU die. I did use 1.0mm and 1.5mm thermal pad and thinking of getting some 0.5mm thermal pads for the VRAM slots and voltage indicators to see if the thinner padding will help the heatsink core mount to the GTX 680M better. I know there were several users who also stated that their M17X R2 had warped heatsinks.

Is it possible if I can use thermal paste instead of thermal pads on the VRAM and voltage indicators so that the heatsink core mount can mount more evenly on the GTX 680M die? I hope more R2 users can chime in as I know R3 and R4 users have better heatsinks and thus account for their better temps. If any of have any cool or simple heatsink mods I can do with copper shims on my M17X R2 to get better temps that would be great.

Any help is appreciated though. Thanks.

 

Don't use thermal paste on mem and voltage chip , the previous owner of my m17x r2 has done that , and there were a lot of space between mem and hetasink, you can play with it and see the paste going away ... After that his card died ... You can find really thin thermal pad at EK, it's an watercooling manufacturer in europe, there a lot of different thermal pad in his shop.

 

Thanks for the tip. Any others suggestions you got?

 

I had never tried copper shim mod so i can't argue on that , you should wait for other opinion

 

No real point in copper shimming (Won't see a lot of difference)
It is indeed an issue with thermal pads, i can confirm that, as multiple users reported normal temperetures after running the card wihout thermal pads (Just thermal paste on the GPu die)

Try it yourself and you'll know for sure if you need smaller thermal pads.

Get 0.5mm or smaller if you can (i'm using 0.5 cut in half, so about 0.25 i'd say)
my temps never go over 70°C (i'm not using external cooler, and i don't bother lifting the laptop rear up )

 

Thanks for your tips. Are you also running a GTX 680M on the M17X R2? Also isn't it dangerous to run memory without thermal pads? How did you cut the 0.5 mm pad in half since it is so thin? Mind showing me a pic of your thermal pad and card layout?


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Well i'm running a 5870M CF, and the cards idle at 40°C and at load go to max 70°C (When i'm not overclocking that is ).

It's not that dangerous really if you do it just for test (2-5min) to test if the thermal pads are indeed to big.

I've got a pretty solid thermal pads from an ASUS G73JH heatsink that i had laying around and cut all the thermal pads in half with cutting knife.
Then i put each half on one of the heatsinks (primary and secondary).
(Went from 90°C load temps @880/1250 to 78°C because the heatsink is now making proper contact)

But i don't know what should be the layout for 680M, sorry.

 

Pad layout on 680m and the pad layout as supplied for a 680m in an R4

http://downloads.eurocom.com/support/drivers/zip/Alienware/6xxm/680M thermal pad placement.jpg

Edit: Temps I see with the max +135 OC on the stock vbios does not exceed 65c when the fan really says 'hello' and pulls it back to around 62c . You might find you need HWInfo to set up a new fan table for an R2?

 

Hey bros! Fixed the warped heat-sink issue. It seems by putting 0.5mm instead of 1.0 mm pads on VRAMS helped create more even pressure when mounting heatsink to GPU die. It is sitting more evenly now. Now temps idle at 27C and load from 69-76C. Those temps are good enough for me since I was hitting 90C within two minutes of gaming before fix. To add, I sanded down GPU heatsink and die and did a copper shim mod. I also got some IC DIamond and will test that.


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