How to improve your GPU temperature

This is a guide on how to improve the temperature of your GTX 260 graphic card. It is also applicable to other nvidia graphic cards since the cooler is pretty much the same. If you don't know the temp of the card chances are you don't need this guide. However if you feel that the card is a too hot or needed to get it cooler so you can overclock higher, read on. This guide will teach you how to change the old thermal paste on the gpu so you WILL need a replacement, hopefully better thermal paste.

First off, the tools needed:

1. Air canister. Just required if the card is dusty.
   
2. Cotton swabs
   
3. New thermal paste. I used Arctic cooling MX-2 bought from newegg. Also called TIM (Thermal interface material)
   
4. Thermal paste remover. You can just use water, but this thing will make your life a lot easier. Also bought from newegg.
   
5. Small phillip screwdriver
   
6. Time. I manage to finish and took pictures at the same time in around an hour.
   

Find a clean non-static surface. Wooden tables works. Don't do it on a table with plastic table cover or rug for example. Also to avoid damaging the processor, never touch it directly with your hand/fingers. Thats why we have the cotton swab. Remove the graphic card from your pc. In my case, it's the GTX 260 core 216 from evga.

Remove the screws at the back/bottom of the card. Only remove the big ones that you can see clearly. Also remove the 2 small ones on the side of the card near the output connections. Once you removed all the screws, gently pull apart the plastic cooler from the circuit board(pcb). You may have to twist it a little since the thermal paste may glue the two sides together.

You'll get a similar configuration as in the picture. The thin board is the one that cost 90% of what you paid. The big second half is just the cooler with the heatsink and fan.

As you can see, the gunk is what they use as their thermal paste. No wonder its ineffective.

Take caution not to accidentally remove/tear the small thermal pads. These are use to cool the small ic's on the circuit board that does not generate much heat.

Remove the old thermal paste from both the processor and the cooler using dry cotton swabs. The second pic shows how the processor looks like without the gunk.

Next use the thermal paste remover and cotton swab to remove the excess gunk. You may use water, but it might not do as good a job. This is how the processor looks like cleaned and dried. Notice the difference?

It's time to reapply the new thermal paste. Since the chip is a big one, I prefer to use the 3 line method to apply the tim. Then I just press together the two sides to get a well covered area. You may also use a card to manually cover the whole area of the chip. But from my experience it doesn't really make a difference.

Once you place everything back together, you're ready to test the new temperature. Sometimes, the new thermal paste need a couple of hours to completely cure and reach its' max potential. I manage to decrease the temperature by 10C the first time through. If you see an increase instead, the thermal paste might not be enough or the chip surface doesn't meet the cooler. Here, I place the core 216 card at the bottom since it's cooler and also I prefer the old GTX 260 backcovered version of the card.

Ps: I use Office 2007 to write this blog and office just published it straight to the web. I don't need to copy /paste. cool