About to repaste my gtx 485m, question about which application method i should use

My gtx 485m was messed up and out of warranty, so I did the oven baking method (cooling down now). About to repaste it with Noctua NT-H1, just wondering if I should do a line application or a rice sized dot. Also, should I just place the heat sink down on it or spread it?

Thanks.

 

If the die is a square use the dot method, if its rectangular use the line method. Do not spread it out yourself let the heatsink do that as you put it back on.

 

I actually did the dot method (or rather a rice grain shape method) before you responded, put the heat sink right down on the rice shaped paste, and temps seem to be fine (35 degrees Celsius idle, 65 C playing Metro 2033 almost maxed out)

However I don't think it was the repasting or the oven baking method that fixed it, there was a yellow droplet shaped rust mark or oxidation on both the gpu and motherboard, as if moisture built up on the underside of the gpu and dripped down onto the motherboard where it rusted over some trace lines on the board.

I used the 90% alcohol solution for the thermal paste cleaning and a flathead screwdriver to scrape off that rust, and clean it up, and now my Sager is working perfectly.

Really glad I didnt mail it in to Sager as I only spent $15 to do this.

I just hope the oven baking didnt lower the gpu's lifespan cause it wasn't really needed.

 

Good to see you found the cause of the issue.
The oven method would have not harmed the card assuming you followed the procedure correctly.
These cards have no thermoplastics on them and are designed to work with high temps in mind.

Keep an eye on temps as you game and max it out and see if she holds. If so then you have a winner!

 

Yes I used this method



Which is lower oven temp than others (320 f), but 20 minutes instead of 10. I kept checking it every 5 mins to make sure i didnt smell anything melting. However I am positive the problem was that rust stuff bowing one of the traces on the gpu and motherboard. No clue how that got in there, maybe when I cleaned it with compressed air.

And yea, I've been playing a few games with afterburner on all the time and they never seem to go higher than 65 degrees C on the gpu. Before, I would get highs of 83 C. So I think my paste job did the trick.

Thanks for all the help everyone, but it seems all I had to do was be brave enough to open the damn thing up and examine the boards closely to find that rust.

 

Wow you're getting great temps now. Since the card is currently working it sounds like the bake method didnt harm it, if it did you'd know right away.

 

It could have been some kind of manufacturing residue that had been left over and missed during construction perhaps.

 

Weird, so today my temps are much higher than the first day of repasting. Cause for concern?

Idle I get 40-45 c
Idle with dual screens 60 c
Playing Far Cry 3 tonight gave me a high of 87 c

I'm guessing the paste flattened out finally and is too thin?

 

Sorry, forum freaked out and double posted

 

Hmmm and now I just tried playing Red Faction Armageddon, a much less demanding game and I was getting 74-77 c. So I assume the 87 c temp before was due to Far Cry 3 being more demanding overall.

 

As you suspect different games can do that. You can run a stress test program like Furmark, you'll see temps in the mid-high 90s but if you stay stable and under 94-97C or so you can feel confident it will be fine for any game.

 

I will try that, is furmark free?

 

Yes its free, just google it and you'll find many download sites.

 

I just did a session at 720p, 2x msaa, without fu fan speed on and it stayed at 90-93 c the first 5 minutes, by the time i got to 7 minutes it was holding at 94-95 c, but right before 8 minutes the laptop crashed.

Should I try it again with msaa off and full fans?

 

Tried 10 minute benchmark at 720p and 8x msaa, with full fans this time, stayed like 87-89 c in the first 5 minutes, then crept up to 90-92 for the last 5 minutes and stabilized at 91-92 c. Final score was 18921 points.

 

Isn't that temp a bit high even when playing games?

 

That's what i'm trying to figure out.

 

In my experience, the temps you see with graphics stress programs like Furmark are often much higher than what you see in games. Higher than expected temps during a game would have me more concerned than higher temps in Furmark. Furmark is a good program to test paste jobs because it's standardized and you can tell right away if it's a good or bad job or a bad paste. As long as you have a proper paste job, games will give you a more accurate indication if you are running too hot or not. This is just my experience, though.

 

THat sounds more reasonable, and it probably is.

I use my laptop with a cooler on the bottom, and have core temp running.

I just dont like it when my temps gets above 70c, and when it's above that I just crank up the fan to cool it.

 

Just as misterhobbs said, stress test programs like Furmark are made to really press your system to make sure things are done properly like paste jobs or overclocking. If you can stay stable while running it you can feel confident any games you play will be stable as well as none will stress the GPU as hard as Furmark will.

 

Those temps are aok for a 485 in furmark.

 

Thanks for the feedback, can anyone else confirm?

 

confirmed, even 97C is ok for Furmark so the temps you're seeing are gtg.

 

That's reassuring to know, mine doesnt reach that high but now I know that it wont be hurt if it did reach those temp at some point.

 

The computer also has a safety feature where if the GPU does hit 104C it will turn the computer off to prevent damage from overheating.

 

The other thing to think about when your new to re-pasting is to get some practice! Clean (lap if you want to go that far), apply your TIM, let it set a few minutes, and then carefully remove the heatsink again to check your coverage. You can quickly narrow down which method and more importantly, figure out exactly how much TIM will do the job. To much can be just as bad as to little!

Good luck to you sir!

 

The problem with lapping is you can increase the gap between the heatsink and the core.