Zalman Ram Heatsink removal

[Jimmy_James]

I am currently running a Zalman VF900 on a 7900GT and am about to trade it up for a new card. I placed the RAM HS on each chip.

Question: What is the best/safest way to get those buggers off?

 

[chuckshissle]

With the use of a hairdryer or a heatgun heat up the ram heatsink. This would make the adhesive/glue compound to become tacky and soft again and then remove it using a flat scraping tool or something you can stick in between the ram and ram heatsink. Do this really slowly and don't apply to much heat for it can damaged the rams. Do not apply much force and try to pry it up for you can pry off the ram itself. I've seen one done before here in Tom's not too while ago. What a dumb@$$. Anyways don't force it just let the medium heat work it's thing and use push the scraper in between gently. This don't come off really easy so be patient.

You can even reuse them ram heatsink buy cleaning off the used adhesive compound and just buy some new double-sided thermal adhesive.

Link:
http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g8/c127/s255/list/p1/Thermal-Thermal_Interface_Materials-Thermal_Tape-Page1.html

 

[jough626]

Heat gun and gasoline works great.

No. Use a razor blade. Then alcohol to clean it (rubbing, not drinking).

 

[Jimmy_James]

Here are the official Zalman instructions:

"Dear Valued Customer,

We would like to first thank you for your use of our VF900.

To answer your other question, please read the following:

To remove the ram heatsinks, please run your graphics card on an intensive game for a good time so that your RAM will heat up. Once this is done, grab the heatsinks with your hand and twist them once to the left, and once to the right. Repeat this process of twisting, and they should come off.

Best Regards,

Support/ZALMAN"

I like the hairdryer and razer blade approach more. I don't think eVga would let me step-up a card missing a ram chip.