TNT2 RIVA 64 - Heatsink

[diggingforgold]

Do you think my riva tnt2 GPU will fry without the stock heatsink on it? Can I leave it off for maybe a few days?

Hehe. I took it off and wiped off all the crappy thermal paste that was on it- it was gunked on way too much, oozing out the sides- I thought it might look and perform a bit better with a thin layer of some half way decent antec thermal compound. Except... I lost my thermal paste in my messy room :(

Do you think i could just leave it off, or maybe leave the heatsink on (dry) for a little while until I can thermal paste it in a day or so? I'm currently running a 6 year old PCI video card with 4MB video.

[Gary Collins]

Yes, it will fry in addition without good air circulation the heat from it will cook the capacitors on your motherboard. I work for an electronics company and you can bet unless the calculations for heat dissipation required the heatsink to keep it below self destruct temps Nvida would not have applied one.

My card got so hot with just the standard heatsink and a fan added that it caused the caps on the motherboard to vent. That means that abbient temp in that area of the board was >105 deg C. I had to put on a larger heatsink and fan and add a fan to the back of the case to bring the temp down to a cool limit. It may work for a little while but dont bet on it. when it reaches about 150-200 deg C. it is dust so it's better to be safe.

[Anaxagoras1986]

Originally posted by Gary Collins
in addition without good air circulation the heat from it will cook the capacitors on your motherboard.

How would it fry your board too?

[Gary Collins]

Actually there are two possibilitys here: first if the video card is sitting there with no heatsink when the chip self destructs, if it does so in the shorted mode it can burn the power etches on the motherboard. I have seen chips fail in this mode and produce an area of bubbling on the board that looks like you plowed a rut in the board. You will then find the etch open and/or shorted to other etches. Were talking about 8-10 layer boards here. On the other hand as was in my case too much heat buildup in one place without enough air circulation causes the capacitors to exceed their absolude max rating which is 105 deg C.

You don't have to have an ambient temp that high, just one high enough for the heat produced by the capacitors to build up enough, then they pop. Most of the time it is imperceptable you won't hear it but will show up as a slowly increasing instability in your computer. The Abit KT7 has two caps just under the video slot and apparently they produce quite a bit of heat themselves. The trouble is compounded if the case doesn't have enough air moving. It also is compounded if you overclock the FSB, and/or the video card. After all what is this site about. If NVida says it needs one in normal operation you can bet it needs one under more strained circumstances.

[Anaxagoras1986]

I am just saying tha, if anything, not having a heatsink on the little TNT2 chip will cause ambient temps to lower - causing the capacitors to lower temps as weel. Right?

[Gary Collins]

It's possible but, if the card self-destructs what's the point?

[Anaxagoras1986]

There is no real practical point. I am just saying that having no heat sink on the TNT2 is not going to make the rest of the comp hotter.

[Genocide]

i would say that it would run fine without any thermalpaste, heck i have a riva128 that runs rather cool with no heatsink at all, mmm.

[Anaxagoras1986]

My TNT2 heats up alot. Like somone else said before, if it were not required, Nvidia would not put it on there.

[RuKK]

Yeah my tnt2 m64 gets really hot.. even with good airflow and a bit heatsink.

[Wommalong]

I reply to the original question:

Firstly let me start by saying that i would not recommend doing it;)
My story- Once apon a time i to had a TNT2 M64 32MB (This card rocked) my fan on the heat sink stopped working. I was going to upgrade so i though what the hell why not. Now to cut a long story short i played LAN games for the next couple of weeks with out it working(the fan :rolleyes:) and the card did fine, yes it was hot but, it worked just fine and still does to this day in a friends PC (not sure if he got the fan working again though)

[Tracert]

If you do run it... underclock it so you have less of a chance at doing any damage.

[Toysrme]

I got a deal with a friend for a $10 M64 and stuck it in dads comp(b4 mobo died)

It would heat lock underclocked slightly even with good cooling. Stuck a stock block sink from a dead Diamond 550 TNT on the back of the card over the GPU and now it's fine. cool on both sides of the card.

Try that. If nothing else you can just stick a block of metal on the back of the card over the GPU, just be sure you're not shorting anything LoL!