The Case of the Missing TIM

(Sorry for the long-winded post, to skip to the meat of it, go down to the fourth paragraph.)

I was just rebuilding my Bulldozer rig and since my XFX HD 7850 2GB now resides in my i5 rig, I put in an ASUS HD 6850 I had lying around from a giveaway I won about a year ago.

The ASUS card was actually a replacement for the dud PowerColor "GoGreen!" HD 6750 (passively cooled) that I originally won, but since it was DOA they sent me this from their pile-o-parts they had around. I didn't complain, I'd rather have a 6850 than a 6750, wouldn't you?

So the ASUS card was a refurb, not brand new. It still came with CFX bridge and molex adapters, etc, but it was in a box sealed with tape that said something about it being Genuine ASUS Refurbished... or something like that. Anyway, I tested out the card originally, I have already been through one HD 6850 previously so I didn't try overclocking it or anything, just made sure it worked and stress tested it. This was over a year ago, but I remember it working fine and staying as cool as my last HD 6850, so I packed it back up and put it up in the classifieds here. Well, I went missing due to a major project and RT removed my thread since I was MIA, and now I actually have a use for this card anyway, so it all worked out.

Anyway, this card worked fine before and never overheated, but when I pulled it back out of the box and placed it in my comp and started 'er up! The GPU fan was turning fast enough it sounded like a jet! I checked in the Catalyst Control Center's Overdrive and I found the fan was set to manual control, 60% speed. So, I removed manual control and it slowed back down and I didn't hear it anymore. I did notice it was reporting an idle temp of about 52 degrees C, and thought that was kind of high, but I ignored it for now as I had to do a restart.

After the reboot, I opened up Furmark to put it under stress for a bit to see how temps were really doing. Sooner than Furmark could tell me the GPU was under load the fan revved back up, and the temp shot up to 100C and the card starts throttling to bring temps down a little and starts artifacting, so I stop Furmark and shut down immediately so I can remove the heatsink and check the thermal paste, and here's what I find: There's barely any on there at all! No, I'm not mad but I'm pretty sure that's how my GPU is feeling right now.

There's also something on the PCB. I don't know what it is but it's a little bit sticky. I don't have a pic of the back of the card but it's there too, and it's been there since I originally pulled it out of the box. I am about to clean up the thermal paste with some alcohol and I'll try it on the sticky stuff too. Then I'll report back with temps after fresh TIM is applied.

I got the old stuff cleaned off and new stuff put on and remounted the heatsink, and temps are better but still not good. I'm getting about 40-45C at idle and I stopped it at 85C under load with the fans 100%

That's not gonna fly! Tomorrow I'll pull it back off, clean it up again, and start to lap the heatsink a little. I'm still getting artifacts BUT I think it might be the monitor. It's a very old monitor and I think I remember the last time I had it hooked up it was starting to artifact. (random black lines across screen.)

Make sure those tiny little capacitors by the core are clean.
My 6850 from S_I_N had some old TIM stuck on them, and was causing the artifacts I had.


My 6850, the MSI Cyclone II did run kinda warm. usually around 85-92*C while I was mining on it...

My HIS IceQ X never got that hot even when overclocked/overvolted. It would stay around 75 I think with the settings I had it at.

I cleaned the tiny capacitors up when I cleaned the TIM off, because it ended up spreading it around when I started cleaning. I may have accidentally gotten some more on them while trying to re-mount the heatsink though. Either way I'm going to try a different monitor tomorrow too, and I'll get to see if I made a mess of the compound while trying to line the heatsink up with the screw-holes.

I thought these temps are normal for 6850 on air. In benchmarks temps are usually lower than while mining/folding. As I remember, all my 5800/6800 cards were running at similar temps.

I don't know, maybe they are... just seems high to me. I guess that IceQ X cooler that HIS had was actually pretty decent. But I swear when I tested the card out before it wasn't nearly as hot as it is now.

Oh yeah, that sticky stuff? Alcohol wouldn't do a thing to it. It's still on there.

Aldakoopa said:

I don't know, maybe they are... just seems high to me. I guess that IceQ X cooler that HIS had was actually pretty decent. But I swear when I tested the card out before it wasn't nearly as hot as it is now.

Oh yeah, that sticky stuff? Alcohol wouldn't do a thing to it. It's still on there.

Click to expand...

Try a toothbrush and some of that rubbing alcohol. That's what I used on those capacitors by the core too

Just gotta be gentle with it.


The temps I mentioned can easily be in the low 80's to low 70's. I simply didn't want to hear the fan wail away cooling the card

Although, if the temps climb up the the high 90's even with the fan around 80-100%, check the TIM again. Mine actually dried up and made the card run hot. (It was Arctic Silver 5 btw)

That's exactly what I tried last night. I sacrificed my toothbrush for the greater good.

Also just noticing your heat sink.

It could be that the Copper pipes are sitting just a hair lower than the aluminum parts, which might make for a poor thermal connection.

EDIT: Is that some sort of pad on the heatsink too?
Looks kinda worn out....

The copper and aluminum seemed pretty level but I want to lap it a little anyway to get it smoother.

Yes, there was some kind of pad. I'm guessing it was the original TIM. It was completely dried up and looked like the heatsink had been removed before, and they left that on there, but applied a very small amount of white compound (as shown in the pictures) that only covered a small portion of the GPU. As you can tell, the contact surfaces are mirrored so that's all the TIM that was on there making contact. The rest of the area you could see the copper pipe of the heatsink and read AMD on the GPU.

I had to cut the majority of that grey pad off with a razor blade, and the rest I scrubbed off with alcohol.

I'm not sure if those temps are normal for the HD6000 series, but the idle temp is better than the HD4870 I ran a while back.

I had an HD4870 that idled at 55-60°C consistently with new paste, and under load it was 80-85°C IIRC.

Seems like someone just dabbed a bit of paste on the core and didn't bother to remove the old thermal pad. Just laziness of previous owner i guess.

That sticky stuff might be solder flux, since it was refurbished by the manufacturer it might have been re-balled or re-flowed at that time. I'd try ArctiClean to remove that, works better than Isopropyl Alcohol/Rubbing Alcohol.

Silver_Pharaoh said:

Also just noticing your heat sink.

EDIT: Is that some sort of pad on the heatsink too?
Looks kinda worn out....

Click to expand...

I saw that first off. They are near impossible to get off unless...

Get this, use vegetable oil. It will slowly dissolve that pad. Rub is gently with your fingers. Don't bother getting tough with it, it won't go until it dissolves. The nice thing is that the vegetable oil comes off with the rubbing alcohol.

This pad is killing you. TIM on a pad can not work. Get that thing cleaned off.

Well it's a little late for the vegetable oil. I already got it off with a razor blade and scrubbed the remnants with alcohol.

Tech Tweaker said:

I'm not sure if those temps are normal for the HD6000 series, but the idle temp is better than the HD4870 I ran a while back.

I had an HD4870 that idled at 55-60°C consistently with new paste, and under load it was 80-85°C IIRC.

Seems like someone just dabbed a bit of paste on the core and didn't bother to remove the old thermal pad. Just laziness of previous owner i guess.

That sticky stuff might be solder flux, since it was refurbished by the manufacturer it might have been re-balled or re-flowed at that time. I'd try ArctiClean to remove that, works better than Isopropyl Alcohol/Rubbing Alcohol.

Click to expand...

Is it bad to leave it on? If it is fine I'm just going to leave it be for now if it's not hurting anything.

Aldakoopa said:

Is it bad to leave it on? If it is fine I'm just going to leave it be for now if it's not hurting anything.

Click to expand...

Probably not, if it's flux anyway.

I wouldn't leave it on forever though

Meh, it'll probably stay there forever.