graphics cards and service needed on old cards

hi all

i brought a second hand computer awhile back and thought i should service my graphics card as they just get left normally.

so heres what i did.

this is my AMD HD6990

now lets get inside the lil monster
1. take screws off back cover






2. now the cover is off take the main chip spring bracket off.
3. i undo in opposites to equal it out so it don't go ping n chuck your screws away, you can leave the screws in it then.


3. once the spring clamps are off you can prize it open, it will be stuck quite tight as there lots of sticky heat pads.



4.dont forget to look for fan or other connectors then just unplug it to complete the seperation of the card.
5. now the card is seperated you can see the paste is completely dry and crusty so can not be doing its job correct cooling you chips.


5. clean them with alchol or something thats gets it off, i used brake cleaner on a rag straight off and evaporates away.


6. make sure it spot less clean and shiney on both parts the chip and the heat sink.


7. now put some NEW paste on it and ( any paste cpu paste will do but best to use a artic silver or alike ) ive just used what i had which is cpu paste just for now to use it up then next time will get the artic silver or something better.
8. make sure you spread it evenly as best you can credit card better but i used cardboard ! lol


9. now before you put back together check the extra heat pads are ok and in line and all there, also dont forget the fan or other things you unplugged.



10.now we can put back together but be careful and try not to slide it more drop in right place then put spring clamps back on with the same opp screws doing it up but little turns at a time so it even the pressure on the chip and clamp.

11. now its built back you can re solder any iffy joints, (mainly by the power sockets you will be looking) i have got some suss dry joints coming so im just gunna top them up with solder this time.




12. use solder braid if you want to clean them up first and take all old solder off and put new on, mine are not gone yet so will be just topping them up as i know im doing it again in about 3 mths time with better paste.


14. now just put back plate back on and your done.


this i just a basic way to do this might not be correct but please feel free to add to this what you will its just a low down of the things that can be forgot about and im trying to help with this side of things to the many cards my friends have seen die from none service in there hobby.

now if you have built your comp from new i would say don't touch it as warrenty will cover a break down, but if your past warrenty on a card like i am you can keep ontop of it as it only take 20mins to do it all.

just be careful when doing it take your time and you will be fine.

i can say i have one very happy graphics card now from what it was before.

hope this helps

Excellent ... +1 step
Cleaning the golden plated edge terminals fin with a hard eraser " soft white erasers will not work ".

if you get a failing card and its artifacting you can also do the re-flow try first before you sell it spares or repair.
if you strip it down to board with no plastics and no rubber you can simply set your heat gun up to heat it upto the right temp to burn the solder.
easy way is to use the gun to burn a fresh peice of solder and work out height of gun if you don't have a temp gun.
also when heating the chip make sure you keep moving in circula motion all over the board until you think you have re-heated enough to repair the bad bits.

i have managed to repair quite a few cards now from this and its always first call before throwing or selling it on.
i think the cards get too hot and melt the solder to which it can crash and when you start back up the solder has dried which results in bad joints hence it either does not work or artifacts.
as long as you have it registerd as a card in the device manager your half way there trying this out.
you will need to do all above at the same time too.
if it does not work after and stays the same do it again its worth 20mins a time to fix it, some have took 3 trys before it fully worked, some will work then crash later so do it again.

it would also be recomended to use a flux too
i will add this to this thread as i have one to do thats artifacting.

another tip for you, when i do my arcade boards i also use duraglit to polish them up on the finger board and it shines then use brake cleaner or alchol to get any residue off it.

One piece of advice about the heat sink paste. For those size chips simply make a pea size ball right in the middle of the chip. Spreading out the paste like that can actually causes bubbles in the paste and will leave hot spots. How do I know this? I had a pair of GTX 480 graphics cards (standard heat sink models, run at about 70 degrees normal temps),with one of them I did the spread method and the other one was done with the ball in the middle method. After 6 months of use the spread method card sits at about 10 degrees hotter.
The spread method isn't always going to fail or be worse but it has more potential for failure.

By doing the ball method the air bubbles are pushed out of the side of the ball as the paste is compressed by the heat sink whereas an air bubble sitting in a fully pasted area will simply just spread out.

i used to do the blob way but i always put too much on or not enough but when i spread i got it about right so stuck with that but either way is good for me but please anyone doing this do it with the blob it is the right way, i should have put that tbh as an extra but that why i said add to this please.
thank you for pointing that one out Alexey was worth posting this up.

can also add why i did this as that is the reason i posted it.
i was having a major stutter problem in a game when racing after about 4laps and it was about the same everytime it happend, so was starting to go down hardware route and as i didn't know the state of my graphics card i thought a service is a good idea.
now i have been running the same thing with the service done and not one hint of stutter after 6laps and would repeat noproblems, so im guessing it was to do with that now as i have not done anything else, and it was evrytime the stutter before the service.
so im chuffed its done something noticable so far

Do you use msi afterburner to monitor your GPU? that would give you a good indication on the performance of the card whilst you play. One thing I've started to notice lately is that some companies supply heat sink paste already pre-measured in the syringe. So all you do is point the syringe at the center of the CPU/GPU and empty the syringe.

i have nothing monitoring the card at all tbh.
ha ha thats sounds like my kinda paste
can you post a link on here to the afterburner and the paste, as it will defo be usefull for anyone wanting to try servicing there cards and that sounds perfect for somebody never done it before to use
i going get a new card soon but waiting what impact the rift is going to do to the graphics companies i think the cards will be beefed up big time to be ready for the new games aimed at the rift and the new era of gaming.
seems kinda pointless spending loads now when it could be a big change coming.

MSI afterburner http://gaming.msi.com/features/afterburner
There is a tab near the top of the page with the downloads section.
A demonstration of how to use the software: Its an older version, the new version is visually different but still the same options.
The software can even overclock your GPU if you so desire. Personally I would not recommend this if you are new to over clocking as you can damage your GPU by having dangerous overclocking profiles.

With the heat sink paste, never use any petroleum based cleaners as the oils will stay in the surface of the metal and hinder heat transfer. The paste is only there to fill in the tiny gaps/scratches in the metal faces of the GPU and heat sink and any foreign material will cause issues.
Setting aside any pre-measured syringes the ideal amount of heat sink paste is where the paste ends up right at the edge of the chip after compression. I would advise to do a test amount, tighten the heat sink back onto the chip, then take the heat sink off and inspect the distribution of the paste.

The reason why the spread method is highly contested is because it is not repeatable in it's results from person to person. It is hard to maintain the same amount of paste across the chip without creating crevasses or mounds. Any method that requires you to use a foreign object to spread the paste is just inviting crap to mix in with the paste. Credit cards have oils from your skin, razor blades have oils from packaging etc etc.

On another note, you can apply the paste in a line down the center of the chip as well. This works well on larger chips as the pea method is better suited to smaller chips such as the 1155/1150 series intel chips.
I've even used the line method on 500W radar power amplifiers and it worked a treat.

With the pre-loaded paste syringes I have got all of them through purchasing an actual heat sink (after market) that comes with the paste supplied.

i think we need to have more of this info on the site as it is the computer that runs the whole thing and some general tips or servicing would greatly help anyone not confident and give them comfort.
great link.