black_zion Heavy Wizardry
Posts: 9744
Joined: 04/17/2008
$100 repair fee for cleaning a card? I want to get into that business! Anyway it's a fairly simple procedure, remove a few screws, CAREFULLY remove the heatsink and shroud to keep from tearing the thermal tapes and pads, quick cleanoff of dust with cans of air, cleanup of the TIM on the GPU with alcohol (preferably >90%) and reapplication of AS5, then reassembly and you're good to go. Hardest part is the X plate but that's not that difficult.
Originally posted by: Gyroscope I used an air can on it when I opened it this morning, so if it's dust, then it'll probably require removing the card/fan to get at it.
Unfortunately that's something I have no experience with and would not be comfortable doing myself, so it looks like it's time to either wrangle a friend into helping or eating a $100 dollar repair fee...
Thanks to everyone who's responded so far, it's been a big help.
Everybody knows a computer geek! It's a real easy thing...and you should know how to do it. Google "How to clean my video card". You can do alot of cleaning just taking the card out...if your nervous about taking it apart don't. You can still clean alot of it up...fan, etc., without dismantling it. Is your computer in a cabinet? Take it out...or open the cabinet up. Leave the side of the computer off so it gets more/exhaust air. It can be as simple as that.
note: Last I saw Geek squad was charging $40 if you took it in.
Hi at least you are honest if you don’t know what a video card looks like there is no way you should take it apart to clean it. You should not even open the case you need a pc shop before you blow the motherboard or something else. Also those cans of air are useless anyone that cleans your pc regularly and other pc systems needs to invest 89 $ and buy a small 2 gallon air compressor just remember keep the pressure under 50 pounds. Hmm clean pc 3 or 4 times a year use 2 cans of air each time there’s your new air compressor.
black_zion Heavy Wizardry
Posts: 9744
Joined: 04/17/2008
It really depends on how dusty the environment is. Around here a can of compressed "air" is about $3, and I'll clean my filters every couple of weeks, I use the fan LEDs as a guide, if I can't see them fairly clearly I take them out and wash them, I clean the fan blades with a damn cloth (all 7 of them) maybe 2-3 times a year, depending on how much buildup there is. I don't clean my CPU heatsink much since when I put on this Delta fan I broke one of the rubber mountings , plus a 5000 RPM 120x120x38 fan kicked up to the max does a pretty good job at clearing things off a bit, plus that IC Diamond TIM is really freaking expensive. My 5970 I cleaned last year but there really wasn't any buildup, basically after the laughable 2 year warranty was up it was time for a TIM change to AS5.
Hi yes I just found problems blowing out the 10 inch long heatsink on some cards. plus I clean a lot of them so it made sence for me to get one. here there about 8 $ a can in some places hehe.
black_zion Heavy Wizardry
Posts: 9744
Joined: 04/17/2008
Aye, I see where MSI built into some of their card's firmware where the fan will spin in reverse for a little while before going back forwards in efforts to dislodge the dust, presumably the same way flipping a ceiling fan into reverse will knock off the dust. It doesn't really work though, as dust slowly bakes on there in the 70°C+ heat.
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07/28/2012 08:46 PM
