Copper Sheet/heatsink mod for W860CU.

So i had this idea..

There's been a lot of debate regarding the 5870 heatsink not sitting completely flushed against the thermal pads.
Some have modded or acquired other thermal pads in order to get better temperatures and reduce the risk of overheating.
Some even did that shim mod where you applied additional pressure to the heatsink.

What i was thinking, couldn't one use sheets of copper to replace the thermal pads all together?
Or something similar to a heatsink but lower that usually comes with aftermarket cooler solutions for desktops?
Would these potentially work or is it a sure way of frying the card?

I actually have some thermal adhesive at home and a million of those aftermarket heatsinks.
http://arctic-cooling.com/catalog/images/gallery/5870_06h.png
Those aluminium bars to the right is what i'm talking about.

I know when dealing with water cooling aluminium and copper isn't recommended to use with each other, but would this cause a problem in a air cooling like in this laptop?

Would it provide with better cooling than just using thermal pads?
Thermal pads seems hard to get a hold of, and are quite expensive in large quantities. None of the standard computer retailers here in Sweden seems to carry any thermal pads.
Maybe hardware shops carry them though..

 

The reason to use themal pads rather than copper is flexibility. You cannot really predict the pressure that will be put on the memory, so if the copper parts are to thick you will damage the memory. It will be very hard to calculate the exact thickness so that both memory and GPU die make perfect contact. So what you do is let the more important GPU die make perferfect contact and use the flexible thermal pad to reach near perfect contact on the memory. I think you will never be able to make copper plates that have the perfect thickness plus you would have to add a layer of thermal paste on both sides, which will take away much of the advantage of using copper in the first place. I would not recommend using aluminum since it offers much worse heat conductivity than copper or high quality heatpads.

Best option remains RMA. Second best option is probably the shim mod.

 

Seconded. The solder joints of the chips to the circuit board are usually what fail nowadays on the videocards. Extra pressure will stress them more.

 

Yeah i know, it was my second reaction.
I just wanted to get some response so i wouldn't go ahead and try it out, essentially killing my videocard.

Is there not any options besides using the thermal pads?
I find them horrible to work with and as i said, impossible to find. They are notorious for collecting any kind of dirt as well and the ones provided with my w860cu (ati 5870) are so flimsy and prone to break.
They also seem to stretch real easy.

I'm going to check out some hardware shops to see if they can provide me with thermal padding. I'd love to get a hold of several sheets in different heights (like atleast 20cm*20cm. 1mm, 1.5mm, 2mm, 3mm height).
And for a reasonable price.

You guys don't happen to know where i can get thermal padding that sells international (or in Sweden) ?

 

For the last 6 months I have been using copper instead of thermal pads.

I put MX-2 on the vram, then copper, then more MX-2 and then the heatsink goes on top.

I haven't had any problems.

But I should make my copper thinner, next time I take the heatsink off.

 

What worries me (besides not making proper contact) is screwing the heatsink too tight.
How did you address this?

Did you see any improvement in cooling and what laptop did you do this on?

I was also thinking of something like this thread
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/414147-grab-copper-drill-now.html
for some improvement in cooling. As i said, i've got a lot of heatsinks lying around so it wouldn't be a waste for me.

 

I didn't really pay attention to how tight it was screwed on.

You can see some pics here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi...works-fx-3700m-full-clocks-2.html#post6596471

I used different screws, non stock ones which probably put's too much pressure onto the GPU die, but I don't know what to do about it.

The laptop is an MSI GT627. I did that same mod when I used a 9500m GS, 9600m GT and now with an FX 3700M.

There was no change in temps. But I can't see the vRam temp so I don't know how that has changed.

 

Thanks.

If there is no performance gain (lower temps) then i won't bother because that's the whole point.
That and to get rid of those pesky thermal pads. God how i hate them.