I had a Gainward Dragon 3000 delivered through the post (roughly) today to find that one of the heatsinks has fallen off on of the chipsets!  :o :'(

It's still a little sticky (Gainward can't have used glue then to stick the heatsinks on) but I don't know if it will always hold!

Therefore I was wondering if I should apply some glue to it? But what glue can I use? Standard glue? Super glue? or some special glue for heatsinks? Anyone have any suggestions? ???

You need a thermal adhesive:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/

Check Products > Thermal Epoxy.
Either Alumina or Silver will do.

Thanks for the tip. :)

But just out of curiosity, if I was to use standard domestic super glue (not that I will, of course), what side affects would I get?

probably nothing, but when the chip goes 50c, im'a bet my shnitzel that the glue will vaporize

You can pick up some Arctic Silver 5 for .. um .. 9$ on ebay, don't go for anything less than that

well dont take this as a thing for you to do but i use the super glue, my reason is you have to apply a bonder to the artic silver which makes it about half bonder and half artic silver and you also have to apply it much thicker for it to work, now i have not done any testing on this at all as far as which way will transfer better heat but i can tell you both ways have worked for me i just perfer the super glue, super glue makes a much closer contact with the chip to heatsink and the artic silver/bonder has better heat transfer for the same  thickness, thing is the super glue goes on at a fraction of the thickness of the artic/bonder, so thats my feelings on it, like i said ive done no real test either way, right now my v5500 goes 200 o/c with 2 gforce ti4600 copper heatsinks super glue on it.

Allo mate! ;D

Righty ho - a botched heatsink will NOT stand in your way! 8)

Follow this little tutorial... ;)

1. Clean off the excess stuff from both the heatsink and the top of the chip (CAREFULLY use a stanley knife and 'fine grit' sandpaper, until both surfaces are smooth and free of goop) ;)

2. Use some cleaning alcohol to remove any fine dirt from both surfaces. :D

3. Go and buy some ARCTIC ALUMINA from your local internet shop... 8)

Info available HERE: -

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_alumina_thermal_adhesive.htm

Buy from HERE: -

http://store.over-clock.com/copy_of_Thermal_Compounds.html

(at the bottom of the page) :P

4. Mix a 'measured' amount of the compound on top of the chip (not too much!) and spread out finely over the surface of the chip. :D

5. Place the heatsink onto the chip and make SURE the card lies flat (prop it up if need be...) :P

6. For the glue to dry, it only takes a few hours - but for a TOTAL setting, it's best to leave it for a 24hr period. ::)

(Remember to be sure the card is FLAT, otherwise your heatsink will be WONKY!) :o

7. Enjoy your repaired card! ;D

Nuff said! 8)

==EDIT==

Side effects of superglue are... ::)

1. Smells when it heats up too much. :P

2. Heatsink will FALL OFF if card gets too hot. ::)

3. In EXTREME cases, it can damage the chip by taking the surface off of the chip if the heatsink falls off again. (although this is VERY rare!) :o

Hi,

When I watercooled my Voodoo 2 graphics cards, I glued the copper heatsinks onto the chips with a very fine smear of ordinary 5 minute epoxy (Araldite).

Personally, I don't see the value of those expensive heat conductive epoxies, ordinary epoxy conducts heat very well, plus the heat has to get through the plastic case of the chip anyway.

Superglue is okay, I guess. However I never 100% trust it, as it has a tendency to go brittle. Epoxy remains flexible (within reason) so always remains tenaciously grippy!


Andy

Epoxy: A big flat pancake between your chip and heatsink.

Thermal Adhesive: fills up microscopical dents/scratches in your chip and heatsink which increases the surface of both elements (however tiny that increase is) allowing for better cooling. Okay, the adhesive will make a flat pancake between the chip and heatsink but it will not be as thick as epoxy. This conducts heat better :)

Oh, and superglue should never be used alone. Use it with either epoxy or a thermal compound (Arctic Silver 3 or 5)

haha, well its been close to a year at least 5 to 6 hours a day o/c and n/p with the super glue, i guess it doesnt know to fall off with all that heat lol, like i said works for me but heh

and on that note, if i had a copper heatsink id use the copper paste, silver to copper or any other metal slows down heat transfer, saw the lab test on that one, same metal to same metal for best results

Hm, I've seen other people using Super-/Instant Glue before.

What they did is normally :

- carefully clean the entire Chip and Cooler surfaces
- create 4 or 5 small Points on Chip with Glue
- fill remaining area with a bit of thermal compound
(just don't have the glue and the compound mix if possible, in order not to compromise the glue's effectiveness)

I think there are thermal specifications for the several existing types of Super-/Instant glue normally found written on their packaging.
If it's rated for high enough temperature, it should work :)

wrote on 24.07.04 at 20:53:35:

and on that note, if i had a copper heatsink id use the copper paste, silver to copper or any other metal slows down heat transfer, saw the lab test on that one, same metal to same metal for best results

I'd like to see those lab tests, because if that is true, then all those posh heatsinks with copper bases are a waste of money- might as well stick with aluminium!  :-/

Andy

wrote on 24.07.04 at 20:28:00:

Epoxy: A big flat pancake between your chip and heatsink. Thermal Adhesive: fills up microscopical dents/scratches in your chip and heatsink which increases the surface of both elements (however tiny that increase is) allowing for better cooling. Okay, the adhesive will make a flat pancake between the chip and heatsink but it will not be as thick as epoxy. This conducts heat better :) Oh, and superglue should never be used alone. Use it with either epoxy or a thermal compound (Arctic Silver 3 or 5)

Epoxy is actually a pretty good thermal conductor, and I only use a tiny smear.

IMHO the money spent on expensive thermal pastes is better directed at bigger and better heatsinks, which will do a far better job of disposing of unwanted heat.

Andy

Cheers for the recommendations guys!  ;)

So many to choose from!

Why don't I just get the good old Pritt Stick out and give it a dollop of that! HEHE!  ;D :D

BOOM! :o

I'll probably try the combination of the epoxy and arctic silver! Decisions! Decisions!

this is not the article i read, it was some scintific page somewhere i happened into, but this is what i use on my copper heatsink for my cpu and what they have down here translates to what i read pretty good-------------->





Price for online order only.

GeIL High Performance COPPER Thermal Compound, in 1 gram tube (enough for up to 6 P4's or 15 Athlon's).

Technical Detail
As heat generated from the CPU is transferd across thermal compound than to a metal heat sink, this creats a "thermal current" flowing from the CPU to the heat sink and gets dissipated by the cooling fan. This thermal current indicates how fast the heat sink is receiving the thermal energy and is limited to the slowest thermal conductive material. When this thermal current is ultimately limited by the copper heat sink, using a copper thermal compound will optimize the heat flow.

Theoritically, the best result should be produced by the best conductive compound. But when heat has to transfer between different materials, this change of material creates "thermal resistence" during heat transfer that hinders the heat flow (or slows down thermal current). This is the reason why a copper "coated" or "insert" on a alluminum heat sink's base doesn't work as well as an all-copper heat sink. (Alluminum dissipates heat better than copper. In theory, a copper coated alluminum heat sink should be able to aborb heat just as fast as an all-copper heat sink and at the same time, dissipates faster. Thus creating a faster thermal current. But in real life, after many tries by different well-known manufactures, the all-copper material proves to be the best cooling solution.) By using this patented copper thermal compund, thermal conductivity is optimized between the CPU and copper heat sink.

For those who are looking to replace their heat sinks with a copper coated or inserted heat sink, this compound will simply produce the same effect, making a difference of up to 5 degrees when used on traditional heat sinks.

Specification
7.5W/m-k Thermal conductivity
0.06 C-in2/W Thermal Resistance

Okay. that article makes perfect sense.

However if you had a silver base mounted onto a copper heatsink, you'd also find that this didn't conduct as well as an all silver heatsink (assuming you're rich enough to afford one!!).

However I bet it would conduct better than an all copper one. Just as a copper/ aluminium heatsink will work better than an all aluminium one.

Manufacturers mix the metals for reasons of economy.

My heatsinks are just made out of bits of scrap brass and copper, and they work much better than the majority of overpriced and over engineered commercial offerings.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/subculture84/DSCN0730.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/subculture84/DSCN0731.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/subculture84/DSCN0732.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/subculture84/DSCN0734.jpg

Andy

Nice work there!  ;D Those brass pots look really cool! I've seen something very similar being used on a Voodoo2 before, with the 3-way outlets on each pot!

Let paulpsomiadis have a look at these! He's seriously into his modding as well!  ;D He might take up your idea for his Gainward Dragon 3000 SLI pair! If he can part with his beloved green heatsinks!  ;)

WHAAAT, remove the heatsinks from a Gainward Dragon 3000! :o :o

SACRELIGE I tell you! :'(

We'll have none of that here thankyou...heheheh! ::) ;D

@whodovoodoo2man - D@MN! some L33T water cooling mod's you got kickin about there! 8)

VERY nice work! ;)

Maybe we should have a thread in the  "this 'n' that" area to showcase MOD's (3dfx or otherwise...) ???

Just an idea! :P

wrote on 28.07.04 at 00:08:06:

WHAAAT, remove the heatsinks from a Gainward Dragon 3000! :o :o SACRELIGE I tell you! :'(

Hehehe!  ;D I knew you'd say that! I know I could never get you to part with the 2 sets of green triplets you have there! ;) And I wouldn't expect you to either! They make the card what it is! And to stand out from the rest!  :)

They'll never run as cool as my voodoo's though!  :P

BTW, the heatsinks are actually copper- just the pipes which are made from brass.

Here is an early pic of the then unpainted heatsinks-

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/subculture84/voodoo2.jpg

They were made from scrap pieces of 22mm copper pipe.

The bases were bits of tube cut down the middle with tin snips and flattened out and linished smooth. The whole lot was soft soldered together with a small blowlamp.

Took about an evening to make all six heatsinks, and only cost a few pence in materials.

Andy

We have the tools! 8)

We have the skills! 8)

We have the technology...we can rebuilt him... ;D

...err sorry I drifted off there! :P

Nice workmanship! ;)

What do you mean with rebuilt him?????
You want to make a NEW voodoo2???

The reason I watercooled my Voodoo 2 cards was because of crashing. This was happening in a very modest Pentium II system, so heaven knows how it would have got on in a Athlon based system.

When really pushed, I found the SLI arrangement didn't lend itself well to free flow of air- cards are much too close together.

Plus I hate the racket lots of fans make!!

At the same time, I decided to upgrade my computer, this involved the purchase of a Athlon 2600XP, 1GB RAM, MSI Nforce 2 mobo and a Geforce 4 4600 TI (freebie).

I figured this system would be noisy using conventional air cooling, so investigated watercooling.

The systems featured on the market are over engineered and cost a small fortune, so I built my own.

Took a bit of thinking out and a bit of plunder in the scrapyard for a S/H Ford Transit heater matrix.

My System runs at between 10-15 degrees C above ambient, so most of the time that translates to about 35-40 degrees C (read using mobo/socket temperature sensors), equivalent air cooling seems to be about 10 degrees hotter.

My Voodoo cards no longer crash or lock up, and the Geforce 4 Ti card that was given to me due to it crashing my friends system (probably overheating looking at the woefully inadequate heatsink), runs as sweet as an angels kiss.

Next project- watercooled Athlon based glide box with Voodoo 5500.

Andy

@3Dfx_Tweaker - just in case you didn't know, the quote:

"We can rebuild him, we have the technology!" 8)

Is a quote from the 1970's T.V. series "The 6-Million Dollar man". ::)

T.V. trivia folks! ;)

==EDIT==

DOH! :o :-[

Janskjaer is correct! ;)

Post has now been edited..(I've been making too many typo's lately...MUST...TYPE...SLLLOWWWERRR...) ::) :P

Wasn't that the Six Million Dollar Man?  ;)