Termalpaste around core cause artifacting?

Can getting thermal paste on the green part of a 9800pros gpu cause artifacting. The part around the core thats green.

Alright my friend bought a sapphire 9800pro and we took the heatsink off to see if it was an r360 which it was and we put some AS5 on the core and all of the other paste smeared acoress the green part of the gpu. We put the card back in and it was artifacting not too badley though, so we took it out and cleaned it up some more. But that didnt work so i uninstalled the drivers and it came up when i restated at 800x600 resolution artifact free. So we reinstalled the drivers and it would boot up and there would be artifacting when showing windows loading screen and now the picture went off and we couldnt see anything. So we put his old 9600xt back in and everything worked fine, not a hitch. So what do you think can be wrong with the card, At 800x600 there was no artifact what so ever.

Did you put the heatspeader back on? Or are you putting the HSF directly on the core?

If the latter, the push-pins (if you have them on your card) that hold the HSF on the heatspreader, are designed so that they make perfect contact w/ the heatspreader. Once you've removed the heatspreader, there's more room between the core and the HSF, which is probably what's causing your artifacts.

You could use screws to try and tighten down the HSF, but not too tight, just so it fits snugly, you don't want to damage the core.

That's another thing I'd suggest, search around the core, make sure it's still intact and doesn't show any visible signs of damage. Also AS5 is conductive, so make sure there's nothing on the REST of the board. How you got tons of it on around the core is beyond me.

They have heatspreaders on 9800pros??

I would suggest q-tips and rubbing alcohol to clean up any thermal paste you spilled. It can't hurt the pcb itself, but it can short out any resistors on the surface.

We didnt get any AS5 on the the rest of the card or in the green part of the gpu, the stock stuff when we wiped it up spread out on it, Although we kind of damaged those black pins that hold the heatsink on, so not having a tight enough fit could hurt it? And no there was no physical damage done to the card or the core.

Yuriman said:

They have heatspreaders on 9800pros??

Click to expand...

no. they dont.
i think he means the shim.
i would say this is a contact issue, as5 would only be an issue there if it were around those little resistors on the green thing.

Well there is some still there, so would filling that part up with rubbing alcohol and then cleaning it do the trick?

I would dip a q-tip in rubbing alcohol rather than filling it up, but that probably couldnt hurt.

i put as5 on my MEMORY on my silencer 4, i was sweating bullets trying to keep it from getting anywhere

I'd check your temps too. If they're higher now than they were before, you could have put too much AS5 on. When I first installed my NV5 Silencer, not having a lot of experience putting on thermal paste, I did a poor job and my temps went up a little, and that caused my 6800GT to go ape.

I took the HSF off, cleaned everything with alcohol, and reapplied it with a lint free cloth... super thin... and the temps dropped a ton. No problems again.

^^Don't apply w/ any kind of cloth, even lint-free. Application is best and easily applied (IMO) w/ a straight-edge razor.

If you bent or broke the "black pins" that hold the HSF to the card, yes, it's probably a contact issue. You'll have to either buy screws and tighten down each side equally, a snug fit, not too tight, or a new set of push-pins.

I'm not familiar w/ 9800pro cards but definitely spend some time cleaning up the AS5, put the shim back on, get some new push-pins, and reapply the HSF. You should be good to go.