stock heatsink pasted to the gpu

[Alepousozo]

The fan on my visiontek Geforce 4 Ti 4200 graphics card has started to grind a bit and I'm thinking I'll replace it. Right now it has what I think is a Thermaltake blue orb HSF unit on it and it's pasted on there. What is the safest way to take it off? In fact, is there even a way to get it off? It's on there aweful tight (there's no screws holding it on, just paste).

What HSF unit would you recomend as a replacement? I'm thinking of the Vantec ICEBERQ 4 Pro or maybe the ZALMAN ZM80A-HP passive heatsink with an expansion slot fan beside it as maybe a quieter solution.

What would you recomend?

 

[Coyote]

Let your computer run some graphically intense games or something for 30 minutes to see if the heat will loosen up the thermal paste.

Hope it's not thermal adhesive.

Sorry, can't help with the recommendations for HS+F

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[Alepousozo]

I got the heatsink off with quite a bit of effort. I tried twisting, pulling, prying... I even tried a pipewrench on it. I finally got it off by laying my finger across the board as a cusion and used a butterknife to pry it off.

But now there is dried thermal paste/adhesive on it and I didn't know whether or not I should scrape it off. I decided to try to scrape it off with a knife and now it has scratches on the surface where a copper color is exposed. Do you think it may be ruined now?

Should I throw it out the card? Or should I buy the heatsink and fan unit and install it hoping it will run?

 

[jammydodger]

Try using some alcohol to get it all off, you may have destroyed the chip tho.

[Insert witty comment here]

 

[Alepousozo]

The alcohol worked pretty good on the thin spots, but I had to scrape the thick spots off with a knife until it was thin. I didn't get away without any scratches though.

What I'm thinking is that there's an aluminum plating over a copper heat spreader and I scratched through the plating. If that's the case it may still work with some thermal grease. But if the copper color that I'm seeing is the inside of the chip then I'm screwed.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

next time, use sand paper, works a treat, then alcohol on the stubborn parts

I am a small fat ginger kid and I lob cow pats at old people, please be my friend

 

[jihiggs]

putting the card in the freezer works good

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[error_911]

can i ask you why you would use a knife to scrape off the paste - i mean i understand it was stuck on there, but i would rather sit there for days rubbing with a cotton pad and alcohol before literally scraping at my card... my thoughts anyways.. you should used sandpaper at worst, though soaking it (upside-down, over a glass or bowl) in alcohol would have done a better job

as for a heatsink, the vantec one is cheap and perfectly fine for your purposes, unless you rather a noiseless solution such as the zalman (the fan isn't really necessary for a gfti4200

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[Ned_Flanders]

I always use sandpaper! it allows you to get rid of the thermal crap and flatten your chip at the same time. Only if your EXTREMELY heavy handed are you going to cause damage.

I am a small fat ginger kid and I lob cow pats at old people, please be my friend

 

[error_911]

yeah but still you want to be carefull not to create any potholes or get that lip effect on the edges

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[Crashman]

Gah! Fumblers, I scrape chips with a knife blade all the time! Here's the dealio:
1.) you have to have a flat blade, without nicks. Such a smooth flat blade will NOT scratch a card if laid flat and used as a scraper.
2.) the second half of what I said in 1.

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[error_911]

you ghey lol

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[Crashman]

Nope, works fine if you know what you're doing. You have to be fairly ham fisted to screw up. I've used a razor blade too.

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[tombance]

Dont worry about the copper, its not the core. The metal bit in the middle is a piece of copper covered with nickel (I'm guessing the second part). I've lapped my core down to this and mine still works with an all copper cap.

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[error_911]

razor blades are ohk :tongue:

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[Crashman]

Do I need to write a manual on proper scraping technique?

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[error_911]

dude, f*ck you @ssmonkey.. lol you're an @ss..

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[Johanthegnarler]

Adhesive remover usually does the trick without even scraping.

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