Can you kill GPU by using wrong size pads ?

[@Ryan53799]

I've been micro soldering on game consoles for 3 years now, completely self taught. TDP158 chips in Xbox, hdmi ports on ps5 and all consoles, M92 on switch ect. But your ability to repair GPUs is a skill I would love to obtain lol if I could download your brain into mine I would in a heartbeat XD nobody trains new techs anymore and I can't find anyone to teach me GPUs

[@r.d.x7403]

Damn! You went the extra mile and saved another graphics card. People like you are the ones keeping the used PC market alive.

[@lurinolt]

The determination and dedication to your work is admirable. Seeing these kind of unfixable GPUs being repaired is both jaw dropping and satisfying

[@ianheyman2682]

Found your channel/Discord last week after deciding that I wanted to try my hand at fixing a broken 2070 from FB Marketplace ($30). Want to say that I really enjoy your videos, its nice to see how responsive you are on Discord, and your Discord mods also seem very knowledgable and helpful. It'll take another week or so before I work up the courage to crack open this gpu from FB, but you'll probably see a pathetically incompetent Discord post from me around that time! Cheers til then 😁

[@RANDOMNATION907]

I'm about to head down a similar road with an RX 5700xt. Sincerely, Good luck.

[@FacialVomitTurtleFights]

Pathetically incompetent lol xD Glad to see you dont overestimate your abilities haha

[@RichardMar]

Any chance to share the discord Link? the one in the description doesnt work

[@ianheyman2682]

​@@RichardMarhmmm, try again, I just tested it and it was correct

[@VioletGiraffe]

How did it go with the 2070?

[@thepurplesmurf]

03:00 the light reflection in the boiling bubbles look like sparks are shooting out from underneath the core.

[@GabrielMeneses]

i like videos when repairs doesn´t go well , because we learn more when the expert resolve the invisible problem

[@sublime2craig]

Really impressive to watch the work you do. Keep posting please!!!

[@0dB_]

Thank you for speeding up even more the memory swap segment

[@sixxiom1142]

Watching you reball a core is magic...what a legend!

[@mudgem3742]

This is some serious skill. Just amazing, not to mention making and saving money.

[@FunkyTechy]

I appreciate you making this video 🤙

[@ZaPirate]

Love the memes. Thank you!

[@hristiqndimitrov5249]

Production quality has been going up it's great you can put in the time to improve with everything you've got going

[@FarooQ2k23]

Love watching your video bro even i dont know any single thing what u do there except cleaning.... GG

[@jeanpablosky2530]

Compre una 5700xt minada la cual tenian en excelentes condiciones, de verdad estaba intacta, al momento de probarla empezo con artifacts, decidi cambiarla por otro modelo pero cuando la saque de mi pc el backplate de esa gpu estaba con algo parecido a vaselina o un aceite, buscando en internet encontre que es un tipo de silicona que se vierte cuando los pads son de mala calidad y entonces eso para mi habia arruinado las memorias, por suerte me la reconocieron y pude devolverla, pero comprendi lo importante que era saber que pads colocar, destruyeron una gpu por no saber, una pena, perdon por no comentar en ingles, te veo desde Arg. sos una bestia amigo.

[@edcellshop5855]

awesome!repair done with the golden hands.....tyvm for always sharing..watching here from Philippines...

[@Novadude]

you really are a wizard at this stuff lol its amazing. i would just assume the card is toast but you fix it like its brand new. you're awesome!

[@suryavanshib]

Awesome ✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻 You always try to keep your videos short and informative.👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@SmokinGoodd420]

Love your content! Been lurking on a few videos for tips and tricks. Found a bunch of AGP cards from 20 + years ago, But i have a few pascal cards that are haunted, passing mem tests , benchmarks. Then one day it will refuse to cooperate, I just thought graphics cards got old like humans. Some days i don't want to cooperate when my arthritis is flaring up, I said it must be a case of arthritic graphic card syndrome. Sorry i Know that was a bad joke .

[@m0dD3rLP]

The amount of patience, skill and materials it takes to re-ball a ~750mm2 core will absolutely get a like from me. That is quite a process to watch and I'm glad you were able to fix it...even if it is a Founder's Edition and doomed to live a very hot life.

[@angurishudesu]

Hey Im not savvy in this stuff so could you tell me what reballing does? Was that the reason the gpu really got fixed?

[@OjStudios]

Usually a crack in the solder joints under the core. The little balls of solder between the core and pcb get replaced.

[@lovegamesandtrains3194]

you are so good at fixing gpus and one of the most fixes ive ever seen you do is with the 2080 ti {which is just bad)

[@JohnWilliams-gy5yc]

If collective heat problems can lead to this issue, can you make a guide how to detect thermal issue early and how to replace wrong size pads with correct ones?

[@SupraSav]

How to detect thermal issues? Monitoring software. HWINFO64 is great.

[@caprairinucai]

Think a little bit...u don't need to go to Oxford to figure it out :)

[@rnegoro1]

1st sign The card will definitely underperform - maybe artefacting and such. 2nd sign if you can use hw monitor - for gddr6x they will show you the ram temps . 3 - it's going to be a bit tough but you have to test the pads or look at existing database or asking the manufacturers , if you are given a wrong size pad gpu - ask them for the pad schematics.

[@TheJesusNacho]

Would like to learn this too

[@keithnsearle7393]

You do a very job with graphic cards. I am hooked!

[@JohnM89]

Amazing work.

[@teddp]

Excellent job as always, I'm really surprised you haven't reached 100k subscribers yet

[@SovereignKnight74]

Great job! Love your videos! Love your work!

[@galacticinsomniac8069]

You do a great job presenting and the quality of work is great. Thank you for the informative view, and the entertainment value. Kudos !!

[@gabrieltirtau7095]

almost 70k, oh yeah baby

[@jvanderhorst2011]

Love your work, you should add what equipment you need, maybe we can chip hin and help you get it.

[@northwestrepair]

My video equipment is cheap. I use handicam for top view and I need something better. Side camera is sony a6000 I bought for 250 bucks and a zoom lens for 50. I honestly don't know I should aim for. I need easy zoom from the top and side camera with good zoom. 4k 60fps is too much to ask so 4k 30fps will do for sure.

[@jvanderhorst2011]

@@northwestrepair ahh ok Well i would say check out what you need to make your work better i know a lot of people will chip in to help you out.

[@Amber57499]

I'd love to see a video about your story, how you became such a genius with this line of work!

[@hanswurst9120]

The memes are stong in this one. Love it.

[@Born_Stellar]

I used 1mm pads because documentation said to use 1mm pads, but when I tightened the waterblock the pcb was very warped! undid it and replaced with .5mm pads and luckily it still works.

[@SianaGearz]

Yeah they might have used Feta cheese grade pads originally, those just flatten out if you squeeze them. But they only have like 1W/mK typical, maybe just south of 3W/mK maximum, higher performance pads are a whole lot stiffer.

[@OtherWorldExplorers]

Been subbed for a long time. I like saving unicorns sooo... I have rang the bell. This is rare for me to do, so you are in good company of three others. Clickspring, This old tony, and The Lion Whisperer. The remaining 543 channels I am subbed too are jealous.. :)

[@FranklinClinton1]

Great Video bro 😉 thank you for that !! 🇩🇪

[@nickv6568]

Thanks for another awesome video.

[@Aareesh1]

Great work!!!!! how much it may cost out of warranty?

[@benjaminwirth5192]

👍 nice one as always.

[@dunderzubbi5663]

wow you're amazing at this. Definitely giving you a subscribe!

[@Fergie6366]

Always that extra mile good job

[@PaulHigginbothamSr]

Thank goodness this card came to you. I am beginning to suspect every card with replaced thermal paste has had the wrong thermal pads put in it. What do you do fake bearded guy when the card itself is warped from wrong pad thicknesses. I watch a guy over in the Philippines put on Palit 1050ti cards and one over the driver pads looks about a 1/4" inch thick. Here in America I never see pads 1/4" thick. With pads that thick it seems to me to be an insulator rather than a heat removal device. Seems something else should be done. Maybe solid copper or aluminum pads. Thermal would certainly take a while to heat up. Physics is strange in that better conductors are also better thermal transfer devices. I think maybe diamond is a better thermal conductor. And who has thin sheets of that.

[@Benri05]

Thermal putty is your best bet if you don't have the info about the right pad thickness.

[@kevinbernal5068]

I noticed that NRF does not post many GPU videos any more... I wonder why?

[@tomkroebel]

Because Alex doesn't work hard but smart! ;-P

[@ibengotvasilforrd4258]

I remember watching 2 videos from Louis about reballing flip chips, and reflowing gpus, the point being that usually reballing is actually reflowing, and that reflowing is a temporary fix.

[@shawnpaulzuccarellorizzo]

yup..I need some of those little measuring calipers.

[@dano5238]

Another great video. DId the owner say he dropped new pads in?

[@dillonmitchell1568]

i dont know how much time it takes to do what you do, but its cool to watch

[@FoVision]

Love the og music and new

[@rayray00204]

I love Rog card. the memory chip have their own individual heatsink (separate with GPU) . so you can use as thick as possible.

[@lordgilfor16]

Tang!!! You're the best

[@LilMissMurder3409]

I upgraded my shitty motherboard yesterday by adding a heatsink over the one bank of un-cooled VRMs - I raided the thin pad sheets from an old PSU's mosfets. So far so good! Tony I wanted to ask you; what's the state of BIOS editing these days? I'm thinking of ferinstance (if it was possible) to offer a service to your clients where you can increase voltage limits and the like.

[@FearTec]

Great work

[@05chrisan]

Mejor que de fábrica sin ninguna duda jaja. Saludos

[@spacecy]

Nice fix bro :)

[@HoshPak]

This video makes me kinda nervous as I'm going to try re-padding and pasting my GPU to fix an ongoing hotspot issue, soon. I've measured all the pads with an electronic caliper and chose to go for very soft pads about 0.5 mm thicker than the original ones (only one size available, so I need to stack them). For the backplate I'm going even softer with 3 mm pads to make sure the backside of the memory is being cooled. They are performing worse however, the backplate is fairly limited as a heatsink, anyway. Wish me luck!

[@sepehr57]

Damn dude, we got cinematic cameras an sh!t? Pop off, king!👑

[@RubyRoid07]

Thanks for another great video! What do you do with thermal pads that didn't properly fit? Do you throw them away or is it possible to reuse them?

[@muazzambhatti1672]

reuse them ofcourse. these pads are a tad bit expensive

[@danilov114]

If pads are in decent shape and not compressed way too much can be stored and reused.

[@RickJuniorO]

Yes, but it takes ignorance...basically. guys just get the right equipment, measure, and get the right size. It's not hard, and it can save your 8 year plus old gpu. I've got a 2070 super that's still running just like day one, because of proper pad and paste replacement. That said the alpha move is to fuck it up anyways and fix it yourself with superior technical knowledge/skill like this king right here.

[@WellyngtonDev]

Bro you are the best

[@Arokhantos]

If seen some one use thermal paste instead of pads on vram on he's 7900 XTX to get a lower hotspot temp, no idea if that's a good idea, i would assu,e the thermal paste would dry up overtime and pump out cos chips are small, but then again same seems happen on GPU core without a pad like kryosheet or PTM7950 from honeywell.

[@SpudCommando]

so satisfying to see a reball core pass timespy

[@Rmm1722]

wow good work

[@formbi]

comments are good for the youtube algorithm

[@PAB-Elektronik]

I love the Alex outfitt you have 🤣🤣

[@chrisamon5762]

Great video 😂

[@northwestrepair]

Thanks 😅

[@vincetaylor6126]

😅love the unicorn statement

[@OasisFinder]

i dont know why but this video was satisfying to watch. i am not rich, but i can give you my like subscribe :D

[@michaelfalabella6296]

i'm having the same issue with a 2070 tri frozr, i used 1.5mm pads and it wasn't proper contact with the heatsink, and now i'm using 2mm and it's proper pressure, but temps stay at 72...which is where it was before the repaste...i'm still confused if i need 1.75mm pads but all i can find is 1.65mm

[@os12tr]

I am curious to know if the other two memory chips were good.

[@danytoob]

Alex is back! Flashed by quicker than a BIOS! The universe is coming back into alignment ... ahh, sigh, ohmmmm

[@gimmyfun529]

Hey @northwestrepair I have a question: when you give new balls to the core why do you remove the stencil before melting them? Just curious.

[@nix7705]

i think sonic cleaning not only gpus but also boards will make customers happy, anyway i would be happy if my expensive and dirty board will look like new, but i'm perfectionist

[@ignatiusjreilly1287]

Subscribed just because of the poor unicorns

[@myc3773]

Nice video bro I have a q : one of pro repair man i saw said amd boards usually have better quality and when you desolder chip, the chance is very low for board pads to break. can you confirm this. Thanks

[@northwestrepair]

maybe their pads are glued to the board better but the mask is dissolved by alcohol making it even worse.

[@jaromirandel543]

0:20 - there is not removed plastic label out of thermal pads. Hot it could work?

[@danielsatko-]

have u some advice in reballing? my balls is often shifting position and fusing with neighboard balls, even with literrally no air speed, even with good solder wiping

[@northwestrepair]

Too much flux. Air flow too high. Flux not suitable

[@danielsatko-]

@@northwestrepair maybe i try another flux

[@hangemhi001]

outstanding

[@visionscaper]

I think it’s great what you do here, but I’m wondering, isn’t this repair more expensive than a new card?

[@idhamproaqw98]

I don't know I was this early. Anyway, please don't hurt the unicorn they did nothing wrong... I did subscribe to you.

[@northwestrepair]

Ok I won't 🤣

[@mikelascelle2921]

Do u think u could get better temps on my 4090 suprim liquid x. I get over 20 degrees on delta after playing warzone for about an hour.

[@duperpokgab]

May I ask what brand of thermal pads you use and where I can find them?

[@duncanny5848]

Definitely clicked the like, your dry humour had my laughing! haemorrhoids!! 🤣🤣🤣

[@Ogk10]

Someone give this man an 8k camera

[@J_..._]

Hemorrhoids still here

[@victorrachok2830]

Great video as always. On the topic of thermal pads, does anyone know any website or database to look up appropriate thermal pad thickness? I got RX 590 fatboy and I just cannot find this info. Most search results just point to reviews and XFX website and none of them have this info -_-

[@muazzambhatti1672]

one simple trick is to use some playdough or clay, place a small ball on the concerned spots (memory, vrms etc) , completely tighten up the heatsink , reopen and then check the playdough thickness with a vernier caliper. then you apply whatever size pads the measurement is closest to

[@northwestrepair]

Thermal pads thickness. t.me/s/termalpad_cards

[@victorrachok2830]

Thank you! @@muazzambhatti1672

[@victorrachok2830]

Thank you!@@northwestrepair

[@TechBytes2day]

What are your thoughts about using putty instead of pads.

[@northwestrepair]

Expencive

[@danielsatko-]

expencive but nessessery in laptops where is not so good pressure from cooling

[@WI5EBLOOD]

In my experience, the puddy doesn't last nearly as long as say... Gelid Ultimate pads - puddy turns into a clay that isn't much efficient after a couple of years of long thermal cycles.

[@Benri05]

​@@northwestrepairthermal putty is cheap nowadays, there's this one brand called Upsiren U6 Pro that's like $30 for 30g and it outperforms gelid extreme pads

[@danielsatko-]

@@WI5EBLOOD nothing last forever but couple of years? do u really want to have couple of years not repasted card? I recommend repaste after max. two years and offcourse everytime cooler is removed u MUST replace pads

[@ryanspedale3186]

This is one of the only vids I can find with repair on a 2080ti fe. I changed pads on mine and now have somebartificating. I tried 2 different sizes in different sections as there is no where to find a pad refrence size for the fe. Does anyone have the fe pad sizes

[@misiu9049]

Jacuzzi for you core !

[@WI5EBLOOD]

I'm curious about what temps you find alright on the core and hotspot. I have a 3070 Battle Ax from Colorful with samsung memory, they are pretty well built, chunky cooler. Got it new with 2 years warranty, used it quite a lot for rendering, this thing went to hell and then back again, until it started thermal-throttling during hot weather. I waited for the warranty to expire to open it, though. Paste was totally cooked. Changed the paste (MX-6) and all the pads (Gelid Ultimate), checked it several times if it was a good job, everything looks perfect. Now it's maxing out at 75c on the core at around 26c ambient, hotspot is around 85c and 89c... Fanspeed at around 50% to 62%. Is it still a bit too hot for the sheer size of the cooler? Not sure if I should repaste it yet again, or be content that it's not thermal-throttling anymore.

[@WellyngtonDev]

Bro you just have to do a temp stress test to check if the temp goes too high in a couple seconds (cooling problems) or takes long to increase (normal)

[@WI5EBLOOD]

@@WellyngtonDev those are the temps after half an hour on heaven, in a warm day under 30c. So it seems alright, but I still wonder if it should be much cooler.

[@WellyngtonDev]

@@WI5EBLOOD i think its everything ok but you need to keep on eyes

[@WI5EBLOOD]

@@WellyngtonDev Hotspot seems a bit too high. I did cover the core with a spatula as opposed to just doing the pea size method and squishing it down - maybe I'm missing a corner or something. In any way, ambient temp is too hot, should be using an AC to run a 3070 on full blast.

[@WellyngtonDev]

@@WI5EBLOOD is everything ok with the drivers? Bro my RX 580 was too hot on the past few days, I did only a thermal paste replace (with the syringe method to cover all the plate) and a upgrade to Windows 11 and I was shocked with the results. From 85º to 75º degrees

[@jporter504]

Nice!

[@LOT9T]

So my 4080 super (Pro-Art) gets to 74 degrees yet the hotspot gets to around 100 degrees. Is this a concern and if so what could be the culprit. Any insight would be appreciated. your work is excellent. didn't even know reballing a core was a thing!

[@northwestrepair]

It's overheating.

[@johntet]

I don't get it. If mem pads are too thin then what? The Core was getting too much pressure and balls cracked? Is that possible? I think it's more likely that some other pads around the card were too thick and core didn't contact 100%. That would lead to higher temps. Throttling down can only do so much if this was hitting consistently 100+ celsius.

[@golfsierra577]

@northwestrepair there is one card, Gigabyte RTX 2060 Super Windforce Edition, the card has a sub-standard cooling design, and the cooling is so inadequate that every card of that model Gigabyte made throttles to 89c even after the thermal limit being 83c. Was wondering if you could roast Gigabyte for that card, no reviewers or GPU Technicians made a video on this.

[@danilov114]

Well I have 1660ti on that cooler and I did change pads as factory ones did not even meet their own size info... Cooler and tolerances on it are meh...

[@umdiaaposooutro2393]

i have the same gpu, but my case has 140mm side fan that blows directly in to the videocard. Max temps 79c at 100% videocard fan speed (i made an extreme fan curve). Im removing the backplate and also replacing the pads and paste. wish me luck

[@golfsierra577]

just got a 3060ti vision oc as a replacement after fighting with RMA Center for a month :)@@umdiaaposooutro2393 .

[@SianaGearz]

Oh hey i just bought one of these cards, two-fan card right? Two heatpipes, one of them should be pulling double duty but in the first revision doesn't. Yeah it's a thermal engineering calamity. Fresh paste helps a lot. Pads are horrible. The backplate is baffling, like, they could have cut a couple vents into it, wouldn't have hurt them. Mine wasn't actually throttling after a repaste but just about, and i decided to cut its power limit a little and give it a modest undervolt. Also the fans are badly balanced and the fan seats make horrible noises beating against the heatsink, especially if the card has warped from droop a little. The fans seem firmware tuned correctly for a card without a backplate, which would stay passive on desktop, but the way it is, it makes unpleasant spinup noises every 2 minutes. I have given the fan programming a 10°C hysteresis making it run for 3 minutes every 20 minutes on desktop idle. At least the PCB seems perfectly adequate, which isn't a given with Gigabyte.

[@golfsierra577]

@@SianaGearz Fresh Paste helps just for a month or two. And if you redo the paste yourself you risk losing warranty. The thermal solution for that card is completely ineffective.

[@Arilleria]

6:25 what delta u mean ? pls explain

[@thenarrator1921]

Sorry if I'm late but it means difference/distance. In this case 89c hotspot and 72c overall GPU temps = 17c delta

[@mamonreyes]

I've revently change GPU thermal pads in 2 Alienware laptops with 1mm pads and BOTH present video problems. I'm almost sure now thermal grease is better for these delicate components :(

[@LetsPlayKeldeo]

Random question but how did you learn to lift and reball the cores ? I would love to go into learning that but the price of entry is so high

[@northwestrepair]

I watched videos

[@NerexisPL]

Hi, could you please share what do you use for memory test? I have exactly the same problem and the same gpu. The artifacts still happening after changing paste and pads. I will try more thick thermal pads. Also what is minimum and optimal thermal conductivity to use? Is 3W/mk ok?

[@RasalGhul-e3u]

What is that little wire you always put when soldering chips?

[@northwestrepair]

Sensor

[@torshec8634]

Thermal Pads, just like real pads the size is important! Pick the wrong one and it will get messy!

[@brentw8365]

What software do you use to verify VRAM? I'd normally check Discord, but the invite link expired

[@northwestrepair]

i update link often. its not expired. its invalid for unknown to me reasons.

[@brentw8365]

@@northwestrepair yeah, I managed to join recently. Seems like it was expired for a few hours to a day or something.

[@Del_UK]

With the graphics cards you fix, do you record any data of temperatures, FPS in heaven etc? 🤔

[@Djinn112]

I hope someone donates the 4K camera.