GPU hotter after applying new thermal paste.

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EthanJM

Member
So my gpu has started running hotter than before in the last couple of months, dusting only helped a negligible amount since it was never that dirty to begin with. It is an EVGA gtx 660, I went ahead and applied ceramique 2, right away the first time I tested it I noticed it was hotter than before under load, idle temps were just as good though (32-35c). Running GTA 5 it hit 99c and I turned it off, when stress testing with furmark the temps jump up to 60c almost immediately and continue to increase from there after. I tried applying the paste in four different ways, and always made sure the surfaces were very clean (used rubbing alcohol). First way I applied it I used a pea sized dot (seemed to be too much and spilled over a little), second time was a very small amount spread thin and evenly (this was by far the worst of the four), third time was a medium dot, and the current way is a small dot. The second way where I spread it thin and evenly I tested with furmark and the temps hit 90c in seconds, that was startling, the other three ways seemed to have yielded the same results, but it is running about 10c hotter on average under load compared to what it was before I applied the paste myself. I know the paste might have a set time, and that might help by a few degrees, but it isn't going to make up for the 10c, and definitely not going to go back to stock temps. So my question is, has anyone else experienced this? And what paste should I be using? I have never put new paste on a gpu, ceramique 2 was all I had, apparently it doesn't work well on a gpu.
I'd like to add I reformatted two days ago, clean install windows 10. My tower does have a side fan but it is outdated (from 2007), but this still isn't right, I've had the gpu for two years and these high temps seem to be a more recent thing. Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.
 
I use Gelid Extreme on mine. Minimal amount you can get to spread over the GPU die itself. I always put a thin line down the middle about 4-5mm from each end that was the best way for me anyway. Dropped couple degrees from previous method and paste.

With regards to the spread method it needs to be almost translucent if you spread it yourself.

All fans running etc? if they are remove the cooler and look at the spread of the paste it should be covering all the GPU die surface. Try the method I said and also put the thermal paste tube in some hot water if its quite thick stuff to help it spread.
 
tylerjrb said:
I use Gelid Extreme on mine. Minimal amount you can get to spread over the GPU die itself. I always put a thin line down the middle about 4-5mm from each end that was the best way for me anyway. Dropped couple degrees from previous method and paste.

With regards to the spread method it needs to be almost translucent if you spread it yourself.

All fans running etc? if they are remove the cooler and look at the spread of the paste it should be covering all the GPU die surface. Try the method I said and also put the thermal paste tube in some hot water if its quite thick stuff to help it spread.
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When I used the spread method it was very thin, like you said almost translucent, and I spread it even too. For some reason it worked very poorly. All fans are working fine. Do you think it could just be incompatible paste or what? It worked great for my cpu.

Oh, and is it strange that it idles so cool but heats up under load?
 
There is the possibility that cooler isn't seating properly and as suggested by tylerjrb, you should be able see if the paste had spread properly once the heatsink is removed. A heatsink should be installed in much the same way that wheels on a car are, by turning the screws just to the point of contact between the surfaces and then making one turn on a screw and then making one turn on the screw opposite to it, then doing the same to the other two screws and repeat until sufficiently tight. This ensures a good straight contact between the surfaces, but if you find that a screw seems much tighter or looser than the others, then the heatsink may not be going on straight. Most of the popular methods of applying paste work fine, personally I prefer to spread the paste myself to make sure all the contact area has been covered and to cut down on the amount of paste used. The amount of paste to use depends on, different die sizes, different pressure fittings, different compounds and different operating temperatures, so its hard to eye just how much to use and I've seen many pro's getting loads of overflow. My favorite is the cling film method, wrap one layer of cling film tightly over the index finger avoiding creases, put a little paste on the die and smooth it over with the finger applying more paste until the die is completely covered by a thin coat.
I have tried many different compounds from very expensive to very cheap and not seen much if any difference in temperatures. I did a little experiment a while back on my gtx 680, I wanted to see the performance difference of many different thermal compounds, I tried about 7 or 8 in total and there was about a 1 - 2 degree difference between them all. A couple of compounds I tried came in toothpaste sized tubes and were still cheaper than a tiny 3.5mg tube of arctic silver. Keep in mind I couldn't test the differences once set, it would have taken way too long and I also can't come to any sort of conclusion about the life span of these compounds.
 
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Hmm, what if I make a quick video of me redoing the whole process, then showing the results afterwards. I swear I have done it all right, I seated it like you said and everything. I'll go ahead and do that, video shouldn't be too long.
 
Okay, some interesting things happened. I'm going to edit the videos together and post a link here when they are uploaded to youtube. To make a long story short it crashed unexpectedly on camera, so you get to see exactly how it happened. In event viewer I am getting a critical error called "kernel-power". I will get this done as quickly as I am able.
 
D
johnb35 said:
What make and model of power supply do you have? How old is it?
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I can't remember, and I am uploading the video right now, it will take 50 minutes. But I cleaned and reapplied the paste, this time into an x. It is doing better than it was with the super thin layer spread evenly, it topped at 89c in furmark (still hot though), took longer to get there, and the crash did not happen. As you will see when the video uploads, it crashed both times in furmark when it hit exactly 75c, I'm sure it would have done it a third time too.
I will let you know what power supply I have when the video is uploaded, but I think it could be as old as four years old (just cannot remember), and I think it is 650w. The crashing seems to have stopped though. When the crash happened my gpu fan kicked in and ran extremely loud, louder than I thought it was capable of. Manually you cannot make the fan run higher than 74%, my guess is perhaps it has a reserve for when the gpu heats up too fast and hits 100% in an emergency. I'm just taking a guess though. You will get to see it happen in the video.
I'm starting to think it may just be very difficult to seat just right, like it doesn't want to press together very tightly or something. When I took the cooler back off, the copper heat sink did not have a square of thermal paste, it was more a triangular shape, and dotted everywhere else within that square area.
 
I reapplied it again, even cleaned off all the thermal pads and what they connect with, still running hotter than it did before I applied my own paste. I feel stumped. The only thing I can think of is this particular thermal paste isn't working well with my gpu, that or the board is warped or something and not allowing it to seat tight enough.

The crashing you saw in the video is not happening though.
 
Well, you don't want to be using Qtips. Use rubbing alcohol and lint free cloth to remove old paste.
 
johnb35 said:
Well, you don't want to be using Qtips. Use rubbing alcohol and lint free cloth to remove old paste.
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I'll stop using qtips, but you don't think that could explain all of this do you? I went ahead and tried something, since it seemed the methods that used less paste gave me the worst temperatures, I went ahead and deliberately applied too much in an x, I am now getting the best results I have had so far, it seemed to top out at 84c on furmark, and it topped at 91c in GTA 5, one time it bumped 92c for a second and went back down, but it normally stayed around 88c. All other methods I tried it would hit 99c to 100c. The crashing seems to have stopped. Before I did any of this, the hottest I ever saw it get was 86c, so there is still a difference but not as drastic as before. Hopefully when the paste sets completely the temps might be equal to what they were before I messed with it, but they still aren't going to be back to stock speeds. I'm still confused as to what is going on. I'm about to just throw my arms up and use it, just cook the hell out of it. How long do you suspect it can go on like this? Say I keep going over 90c in the future, worst case scenario a couple hours a day. Is there a chance it could damage my motherboard?
 
johnb35 said:
Well, you don't want to be using Qtips. Use rubbing alcohol and lint free cloth to remove old paste.
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I'm sure I heard him say he was using acetone alcohol after removing the paste and he used a microfiber cloth are lint free. You are applying the paste correctly so this is not the problem.
John inquired into what psu you have, a bad psu can cause a gpu to heat up more than normal and can cause instability.
 
I'll
Shlouski said:
I'm sure I heard him say he was using acetone alcohol after removing the paste and he used a microfiber cloth are lint free. You are applying the paste correctly so this is not the problem.
John inquired into what psu you have, a bad psu can cause a gpu to heat up more than normal and can cause instability.
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Ah, forgot about that, I'll check now, brb.
 
EthanJM said:
I'll

Ah, forgot about that, I'll check now, brb.
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You really need to check that its working properly. Do you have another psu you can try or can you put the card in another system to see if there are any differences in temperatures. Do you have a multimeter?
 
Shlouski said:
You really need to check that its working properly. Do you have another psu you can try or can you put the card in another system to see if there are any differences in temperatures. Do you have a multimeter?
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No I don't. But I might just replace it anyway. I could have sworn I heard its fan making noise on one cold morning. Could a faulty gpu also do this? And I still don't understand why the temps are higher than they were with the stock paste, and that I only managed to get the best results (which were still poor) by applying way too much paste. I have a friend that may just have a psu he isn't using.
 
EthanJM said:
No I don't. But I might just replace it anyway. I could have sworn I heard its fan making noise on one cold morning. Could a faulty gpu also do this? And I still don't understand why the temps are higher than they were with the stock paste, and that I only managed to get the best results (which were still poor) by applying way too much paste. I have a friend that may just have a psu he isn't using.
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Applying too much paste only works better because its filling a gap between the die and the heatsink. Remove the heatsink and take a photo of it, so we can see for sure that it is making a proper contact with the die. If it is making good contact with the die, then the paste is not the cause of the problem.
 
The power supply could be dying in which would make the video card run hotter. Max safe temp for the 660 is 97 degrees C. Normal temp should be about mid 60's.
 
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