D901C 8800mGTX Thermal pads question

Hi Folks,

I bought a second hand D901C a few months back and I have noticed one of the 8800m GTX cards is contantly failing.. I get allways get the driver recovered error..

The card does appear to run hot compared the other.. I was about to repaste the GPU but noticed the Blue Thermal pads have finger prints and dirt all over them.. I presume the these have been removed and handled several times before ... I always thought it was the GPU ram that was oveheating

My question is, does anyone know where I can buy correct thermal pads ? I have searched everywhere but only find the very thin type used to bond heat sinks to chips.. These are too thin i think ?

Also, seeing the current thermal pads appear to be soft and keep shaped when removed ? Do you think its possible to clean the dirt from these in water and reapply or would they loose there affect o to speak ?

I have so far flashed a modded bios to take the ram from 799 down to 749 for now.. it appears to have cured the dreaded error.

Thanks
Bracken

 

I would have thought there's more chance of either the core overheating or that the card is damaged. If the heatsink has been taken off several times and there's fingerprints on the RAM pads they should still have enough contact to cool the chips. Also if that has been done it suggests either someone had the same problem before they sold it to you or that they were trying to clock the cards and reseated the HS to keep temps down after an OC.

If you're getting the temps from something like GPU-Z then it will show the core temp, not the RAM temp so if you're worried about it running too hot you should look at sorting out the core temp issue first. If you can bring the core temp down by reseating the HS but it still crashes then you can start looking at the RAM as the problem.

 

i will suggest to get some Arctic Cooling MX-2 paste and remove the Core original paste if its still there and put MX-2 paste this will take down your temps
and you have to clean fans and heatsinks atleast 1 time in 2 months if you want they to be clean i have removed my heatsinks more than 15 times no problems ever with this my fans and heatsinks are clean like new ones

 

make sure that both 8800M cards are matching in VBIOS version as well.

 

You could always try what I suggested here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4384416&postcount=35

 

Thanks for suggestions everyone ... going to go with notyou's route as I am 99% that the vram is overheating. Once I have done this, I will flash both of the vbios's back to there stock level and let you know how I get on.

Keeping the vram @ 749 appears to keep the cards stable, this is the reason I believe its the ram.. I have repasted both GPU's and flashed each vbios with same custom underclocked (vram) bios.

One more question, does anyone know how hot the ram gets ?

Regards
Bracken

 

There's no real way to check since vRAM doesn't have heat sensors. Just assume that it's way too hot (thus the need to transfer heat to the HS).
PS. When you get your metal, try to get something that is the most thermally conductive (copper would likely be best for price/performance, just try to order it (may not be in stock) ahead of time from your local craft store), I just happened to get brass since that's all they had. It was about $2 for a ruler sized piece, of which I didn't even use half.