Two days again I ran into the most frustrating issue ever with my 2 year old video card (a BFG 9800 gtx). After only 15 mins of my computer being turned on the card got extremely hot (like burn the skin hot). So like any person with basic tech knowledge would do I yanked the card from my pc and took it apart to clean and replace the thermal pads and thermal paste. Now when I went to buy thermal pads the store only carried a kind that was alot thicker than the kind I had in the card previous. I didn't think this was gonna be an issue until I put the card together and put it back in my pc. Now all my video card does it load up and then right before my pc logs into windows my card sounds like a jet engine (like the fan is going crazy) and then my monitor just goes blank and remains black until my pc is shut down. My question is now is that before the thermal pads I'm using now are too thick (card doesn't compress as flatly as it was before) or in the process of cleaning the card have I somehow destroyed it. Thanks in advance if anyone can answer my increasingly frustrating question.
Note: I used rubbing alcohol (guides said use Isopropyl alcohol which is the same thing) to wipe off the old thermal paste on the chip.
Proteins do disassemble at a temperature of 70°C.
That means this temperature causes burns. However your card won't be damaged; Hence "feeling" the temp isn't a good indicator.
Also you shouldn't use any kind of liquid to "clean" a chip, ever. You might have damaged it.
Finally thermal grease is always better than a thermal pad.
@Grease: Do not coat it in a thick layer of grease, rather just the thickness of a hair (depending on the surface of the heatsink; If there are deep scratches from manufacturing, more paste, if the surface is very smooth, only as much past, so that you can already see through)
Video Card Issues
