Gigabyte Gtx 1080 Ti Thermal Paste Replacement Problem

[Redar]

Hello. sorry for my english. I replaced the paste and thermal pads on my Gigabyte Gtx 1080Ti Gaming Oc with Gelid Gp Extreme, gelid paste. When tightening the screw around the GPU core, something popped. It turned out that one screw was somehow different, and it pressed/lifted one side of the PCB to the core more strongly. I have already replaced it with the correct screw.

If the core/laminate cracked, crumbled during strong tightening, would the card be 99% dead, and there would be artifacts ??

After tests, the GPU in games reaches a maximum of 76 degrees, hotspot +15 degrees. Zero artifacts, the driver accepts.

 

[StViolenceDay]

I seen several visually cracked Nvidia chips, all they had artifacts/no picture with amount of artifacts depending on card milli-bending in a PCIe slot. But for AMD - the cracked rx470 worked for a year (reacting to bending with a BSOD). If the tightening was not extreme, it may be just a sound of a "last section of a screw spring extracting itself from under previous spring section". It's really hard to damage metal-cornered GPU due like 1080ti with a cooling system.

What was your max core temp before replace?

Note: hotspot on 10-series is a fake - it's core temp+constant. And from those 1080ti that had enough quality&care to survive up to 2023+ - the main killing factor become "corner overheating scenario". The temp at measuring point is ok, but top-right or top-left corners are very hot. They are even visually much darker after disassembly of such damaged card.

This happens when GPU and a heatsink touching it lack coplanarity. May be caused by different factors, but too thick and hard thermal pads on a higher memories is the most common reason, since they are not "compensated" due to lack of thermal pads at the bottom-of-a chip side

 

[Redar]

What was your max core temp before replace?

Before the replacement it was over 90 degrees.

I replaced this one screw, from the same card/model that I had on the part. It was slightly different in color, the first one was more black. I thought it was the same screw. But in the second one in the picture, the pressure was stronger

I also noticed that when pressing the screwdriver, the sound came from the plastic casing of the card's radiator. Which was bending under pressure...

 

[eidairaman1]

Since you reported no artifacts and no POST failure, suffice to write the card is ok. Just don't continue messing with it though...

 

[Dr. Dro]

I think you got off lightly here, but please pay attention in the future, separate the screws correctly whenever you're working on your hardware and tighten screws slowly, always in an X shape, upper left, lower right, lower left, upper right, never overtightening - stop when there's sufficient resistance.