Tried swapping thermal pads on an old GPU and fried the memory controller

I thought I'd be smart and reuse some Arctic pads I had lying around on a GTX 1080 Ti. Turns out they were 2mm thick instead of 1.5mm and the core didn't seat right. Anyone else kill a card by guessing pad thickness?

2 comments

2 Comments

eric7231mo ago

Used to think thermal pads were pretty forgiving on thickness until I did the exact same thing with a 1080 Ti. Whole core lifted off the die and the memory never worked again. Now I measure everything twice and still stick to the stock thickness for the memory side.

emery_young131mo ago

Is it just me or is that how it goes with so many things in life? You think you've got it figured out, one small miscalculation and everything falls apart. Like measuring twice and cutting once doesn't just apply to lumber, it applies to about everything.