Viewer-Mail Ep7: Nasty Liquid Metal Damage - Rescue Attempt

[@qpn6ph9q]

Awesome work. I hope your CNC mill didn't get hit with any gallium debris during the milling.

[@Akkbar21]

Ya. Creepy problem. 😑

[@DanielKennedyaeos]

Can almost guarantee there were particles of it deposited on the CNC bed. How much of a problem this becomes over time after cleaning etc remains to be seen. I would have thrown the cooler in the trash and put something else on.

[@GhazUK]

@@DanielKennedyaeos - I'm sure Derbauer knows what he's doing ;) He's a problem solver, not avoider.

[@BryanO82]

@@DanielKennedyaeos the Datron M8cube has a concrete polymer table with stainless steel conical inserts, so I'd expect the gallium to not have any great effect, maybe some cosmetic affect on lacquer but nothing structural. The T-slot table is anodised, so hopefully would escape

[@cemsengul16]

Now the CNC mill starts to chip away a month later from this video.

[@WereCatf]

The explanation of the chemical reaction was interesting, I appreciated that part especially.

[@broklond]

It's not a chemical reaction, but I concur.

[@alexyoung3387]

This is absolutely fascinating. Thank you for the explanation of grain boundary diffusion.

[@Rmx2011]

You went really above and beyond for this 2060. Owner is going to be really happy with this, unless he was hoping for a free waterblock or something lol.

[@JathraDH]

I think if the owner had a custom loop they wouldn't be bothering with a 2060 lol.

[@Rmx2011]

@@JathraDH True, jokes beside softline starting kits are actully quite cheap. Got my alphacool kit for a discounted price of* 150ish €. GPU waterblock for 6700XT was almost the same price lol.

[@regwatson2017]

@@JathraDH I would have learned my lesson not to mess with a perfectly good card and never trying to copy Der8auer again by splashing liquid metal around in future when I don't really know what I'm doing. And also throw this card in the bin and buy something decent.

[@JathraDH]

@@Rmx2011 Hm that's not a bad cost. What pump/rad size? If it actually came with one of their decent full copper rads and an OK pump id call that a pretty damn good price indeed.

[@Rmx2011]

@@JathraDH It was discounted back then, current price level seems to have actually gone up some :/ 280mm rad with a ddc310 pump. I think it was this kit: Alphacool Eissturm Hurricane

[@Mozart13331]

Very interesting the reaction between the metals, thanks for taking the time to explain it.

[@georgem.6136]

That was very nice of you! Nice Mill work!

[@aquel9367]

Good video as always, I love how technical you get with the hardware, helps us learn more :)

[@paulmartin2348]

As a machinist I appreciate the steps you take in troubleshooting. Well done and another nice video.

[@GregoryShtevensh]

Im a ventriloquist and I greatly appreciated this boost to my knowledge as it helps alot with ventriloquism

[@chveyk]

if gallium gets on aluminum, such aluminum can be thrown away. Now he kind of shines. But in fact - corrosion with depth still continues - when penetrating, gallium itself DOES NOT BE CONSUMED and continues to destroy intercrystalline (intercellular) bonds. And you just delayed the moment. when the aluminum plate finally "breaks through" and ceases to perform the cooling function!

[@Nobe_Oddy]

This was AWESOME!! I was expecting MUCH MORE Damage... so I think you're right about the nickle platig.. but there cvould have been the TINIEST of scratches through that nickle and that's why there was damage at all... GREAT JOB!!!

[@noxious89123]

Does the nickel actually form a barrier to protect the aluminium from the gallium? Gallium will alloy with nickel too, its just that this doesn't damage the nickel, just potentially causes a little discolouration. But at the point where it has alloyed with the nickel? Well, it can basically just pass through the nickel surely? Seeing as the nickel is plated onto the aluminium.

[@1kreature]

The mill is now contaminated. That stuff that was milled off contains gallium in a form that can transfer to fresh aluminium. Also, the structural and thermal changes to the aluminium does not stop at the surface. Milling of visually affected area is not enough.

[@Maekiii]

The gallium probably absorbed into the aluminium a lot deeper than you milled off, so it will likely be very brittle still, even if it performs fine as cooler.

[@RealEpikCartfrenYT]

yeah i would just grab another cooler from another graphics card and slap it on

[@zeprahzzz]

@@RealEpikCartfrenYT Raijintek sells VGA heatsinks too although for some you need to forego the gpu backplate.

[@anasevi9456]

@@RealEpikCartfrenYT problem is it worth it for what looks to be a bottom rung tier AIB 2070. Aftermarket gpu coolers are expensive and often a PITA to put on right too.

[@arthurmoore9488]

Important to know. Also important discussion about material quality and purpose. Since it is just a cooler there's very little physical stress, and it should be fine.

[@JJFX-]

It would actually be interesting to see it opened up 6 months from now to see if there's any visible change to the area under pressure.

[@deeps.29]

Excellent work saving that coldplate.

[@jonassoderqvist1496]

Great video! Allways wanted to see the damage from the liquid metal on aluminium. Also nice that you managed to fix the viewers card 👍

[@danytoob]

Always a joy to watch real pros doing real pro work.

[@NinjaForHire]

Awesome job the owner sure will be happy, and also not to complicated of a repair straight forward and practical.

[@SianaGearz]

One option i guess is getting some copper sheet stock and milling down the whole thickness of that. It will make it more likely that you remove sufficient amount of gallium residue embedded in aluminium so it won't continue eating it. You can use paste both sides or die side LM, cooler side paste. Though i wouldn't say this card warrants LM, the themal impedance of the cooler is too large, and copper is already an improvement. How does one even nickel plate alu? It is a mystery to me.

[@freezEware]

What a perfect timing for this video. I was just in middle of delidding my 13900kf and applied liquid paste on the die and Rockitcool's full copper IHS. Temps between cores were so bad after the process that I had to remove the retainer system and pile up the cpu, ihs and water block layer by layer. If you ever attempt this, tape the IHS to motherboard before slapping the water block on. This way you can be sure it doesn't move when you screw the block on, as there will be nothing nothing holding the stuff together. As long as there is no tape between the ihs and water block, you can pull the tape off after you are done tightening down the cooler. No more throttling under Aida64 extreme.

[@Zensaitv]

It's so cool you have your own engineering playground to just make stuff every nerds dream ugh lol what a video glad you did this for the guy

[@Nevakonaza.]

Superb video, Found it fascinating with the CNC drilling away the bad bits, I was wondering if any thin spacer plates would have to have been added but obviously not, Super nice to see this card put back to good working use.

[@perspicacity89]

Wow what a great video! Thanks! I learned a lot!

[@kevin_2468]

Another great video, always informative. Thanks.

[@JackDisturber]

My experience with liquid metal and GPU: Applied LM on 1080ti, tested, found only a minor difference (if any, because fan curve got adjusted and still kept about the same temperature, just running bit slower), scratched my head, reapplied paste back. There's a lot more downsides than benefits and I see no reason to use that for mid or entry level cards. Even 5 degrees C is nothing if its a difference between 65 and 60. People should stop be obsessed with temps. Undervolt if you can and stop

[@NinjAsylum]

Actually the difference between 60c and 65c is astronomically MASSIVE in terms of GPU temperatures. 5 degrees is literally the difference between a top 5 and being out of the top 100 leaderboard.

[@TheBlueBunnyKen]

I went from like high 80c to high 73/74c on my 3060ti swapping out the factory thermal paste and ramping up the fan curve

[@JackDisturber]

@@NinjAsylum That's assuming you're an OC'er? I still can't see how it applies for most casual users. Applying LM will 100% stain your radiator (copper 100%, nickel plating the safest but prob not entirely secure either) and GPU die, and adds extra variable in terms of something that can brick your card. Heck there are reports of LM leaking PS5's even though they had padding to prevent spillage. I've seen a lot of vids with really expensive GPUs getting damage from LM. Just buy a good ventilated case and undervolt if possible. I'm not saying its straight bad, I used it myself but eventually grown up out of this

[@The_Man_In_Red]

Step 1: Determine your maximum boost frequency & voltage Step 2: Use MSI Afterburner Curve Adjuster (Ctrl + F) and Click -100mv below your max voltage, hold shift, and raise the entire curve to your maximum boost frequency Step 3: Shift click the graph and drag your mouse to highlight all frequencies to the right of your desired target and hit Shift + Enter on keyboard to flatten the entire curve to the right, sometimes need to do it twice to completely flatten it. Step 4: Apply and enjoy Easy -10°C undervolt (There are videos on YT explaining the whole process if my directions don't help anyone)

[@greebj]

LM sucks at gap filling, I've had applications where it was terrible and other where it's awesome (like one of my first applications led to a +50% core OC on a GTX 680M)

[@92trdman]

You can add thin sheet of cooper to that area and melting it together with some soldering paste (then sanding it a little bit)

[@Eneas724]

Copper and aluminium also corrode when put together

[@ZippletTech]

I always appreciate a cat jumpscare in a tech video!

[@ChrisGR93_TxS]

2:38 the black stuff is conducive dust. And it can go literally everywhere!

[@agentcrm]

Looking at the thickness of those thermal pads, it's a pretty low end 2060. Putting liquid metal was a really weird decision.

[@Mr.Elektric]

Just amazing...keep up the good work

[@ChrisAzure]

This is interesting and also a lesson. Read before doing anything, do your research, and ask questions if you feel like you need to.

[@hazardzme]

amazing work....just amazing!!

[@terrycook2733]

Very good troubleshooting. I hope this makes it into some gamer news channel about liquid metal and what you found and gives you the proper credit for the findings.

[@NinjAsylum]

That cooler is trashed. It should have been completely replaced. Its literally like mold in bread. The damage is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy deeper than what you can see.

[@anthonyc417]

Excellent work Roman

[@pino_de_vogel]

start CNCing it out and see if you can drop in/solder in a copper plate. That aly should be connecting to a copper plate or the heatpipes after all. Then solder and a torch should melt it and fuse it with good cover.

[@arthurmoore9488]

That was my thought as well, but it is a low tier GPU. Since it had the clearances and the liquid metal didn't go that deep this works and is much easier.

[@reyo4129]

I need that machine lol!!! Very precise job!! Well done!!!

[@jaymacpherson8167]

During the materials science portion, grain boundaries were not mentioned for nickel. Zhou et al. 2021 “Effect of grain boundary engineering on corrosion behavior of nickel-based alloy 825 in sulfur environment” document reduction of grain boundaries’ extent with specific treatment. I think it is worth mentioning that the gallium diffused through the nickel grain boundaries to reach the aluminum grain boundaries where the damage took place, and molecular diffusion of gallium will eventually reach the aluminum even for a nickel barrier free of grain boundaries (tho molecular diffusion of sufficient mass for macro Ga/Al rxn may take many years).

[@SainLanParty]

Great job. I didn't expect that this could be fixed

[@tobbe5189]

Really excited for your wattage display gor the gpu to release

[@aessniper]

Very interesting indeed, cheers from Argentina 🇦🇷 🍻

[@personaldronerepair6141]

Now that is good content. Great Video

[@noxious89123]

Does the nickel actually form a barrier to protect the aluminium from the gallium? Gallium will alloy with nickel too, its just that this doesn't damage the nickel, just potentially causes a little discolouration. But at the point where it has alloyed with the nickel? Well, it can basically just pass through the nickel surely? Seeing as the nickel is plated onto the aluminium.

[@ELITECMDR666]

well learned something new about liquid metal, pretty nice video...

[@RolandOuellette]

Did you consider making a 0.5mm shim to replace the milled aluminum? Would the additional thermal interface (even if filled with solder) been worse than the missing mass of metal from the milling?

[@pazinzao1621]

Great video! My only thought was that after removing the corroded part with the CNC machine, you could have made the part of the cooler smoother. with high-grade sandpaper or the machine equivalent of it.

[@ToTheGAMES]

If you would go back to liquid metal, you could add a copper insert right? In the milled out area. If I remember correctly, it does not react with copper that agressively.

[@groenevinger3893]

think that would be an option too.. place a 0.5mm copper shim on the die. Good thinking!

[@noxious89123]

@@groenevinger3893 It would just alloy with the copper and "seep through" it, like it did to the nickel plating.

[@michaelthompson9798]

I’m not a metallurgist…. But a silly question… when you bake aluminium foil on a metal tray the oven bakes the foil to the tray and solidifies to some degree …… would this work on the GPU cooler that was damaged?🙀🤔

[@barn0wl]

So many liquid metal horror stories for me to even consider bringing that stuff close to my hardware

[@boxlid214]

It's awesome if you know what you're doing. I don't think it's worth it using it on a air cooled GPU like this dude did, the die is large and should have no thermal issues with a decent compound and heatsink mounted properly. Only worth it on a overclocked liquid-cooled processor.

[@soggycracker5934]

The cooler is definitely ruined. Easy fix would be a cooler from a dead card. Gallium will eat most iron and aluminum alloys. In some cases, it can leave the metal in a condition where you can crumble it with your bare hands.

[@michaelthompson9798]

6:08 Makita is a beautiful cat 🐈🙀🥰

[@offjasonwaynenicholsjr.182]

awesome stuff man!

[@nathannielsen8061]

I had a 6900XT and used Alphacool Eisfrost Xtreme liquid metal on a nickel waterblock Alphacool Eisblock and the LM heavily pitted the block after 12 months. Ended up trashing the block, as great as the LM was for cooling I won't be using it again if it pits nickel. Temps were fantastic, but LM may not not ready for long-term use.

[@ATVProven]

Thanks for more great content keep it up.

[@ncohafmuta]

Makita: You care enough about temps to use LM but can't blow through your card with compressed air once every 6 months? Meow

[@shaneeslick]

G'day Roman, Shiek, Makita & Michael, I think at 6:12 Makita was just saying "😾Why did they do that?" knowing how terrible it is to put Liquid Metal on an aluminium cooler, While I have heard many times NOT to use Liquid Metal on Aluminium it was very educational to see the actual result, 😲the cooler looked like it had just been turned to carbon, So happy to see you were able to do some mods to get it working well for Michael rather than it ending up as E-Waste 😁

[@alexhartigan4485]

Would gallium also have grain boundary diffusion into copper? What about a plated copper?

[@eithrail4430]

Why not just copper shim between the milled cooler and GPU? would've been less work

[@JRose-zn7iw]

And maybe nickel-plate the shim.

[@ZylonFPV]

It was very interesting. Hope you cleaned up the chips out of your milling machine after, it would have been bad to go to grizzly the next day and just find a pile of aluminium dust on the floor where your machine was 😂

[@groenevinger3893]

im not sure but i think a pro like derbaurer, would be smart enough to clean the card before putting it back together..

[@FR4M3Sharma]

@@groenevinger3893 He's talking about the CNC machine.

[@ZylonFPV]

@@FR4M3Sharma indeed!

[@BryanO82]

steel chassis, concrete polymer table, stainless inserts, only the t-slot table would disappear :D

[@Th3Fly1ngCow]

i love this kind of content

[@ViniciusConsorte]

a 0.5mm copper sheat on the space milled would not be better?

[@xferme]

Borderline impossible to bond in regards to thermodynamics and flatness.

[@marek.lochki]

This was my thought too

[@CowCatwithafancyHat]

There are more then 4 people interested in the digital power reader. Great Video.

[@Motishay]

The reason it was damaged was just user error, right? Using LM on an aluminium heatsink

[@Altimittkun]

11:22 where can one get this? I meant the 8pin power reader thingy.

[@Pointern]

the wireview might solve alot of problems with space between case glass and gpu power connector aswell :) so looking forward for it to be released.

[@ADF_Cable]

Great fix! Thanks!

[@Nepturion88]

rofl... Fix for something that NEVER should be on a low end GPU.

[@ASEKen]

Another great video

[@mitacccosminmc5297]

hi!i watched some of your videos.... i have a question! i put some conductonaut on an i5 6500 and i don't see an improvement! why? on stock tim in stress tests temps went like 67 degrees...with liquid metal......like 65degrees.....i use mx4 as thermal interface between ihs and cooler! thx

[@anasevi9456]

What did he think such a cheap card would have a nickel plated headsink? He clearly put some thought beforehand as he used nail polish on the SMDs.

[@Im_MarkS]

Milling out the deterred aluminium thins the heat plate i get it. But will this not have effect on the heat distribution throughout the plate with long time usage ? Interesting topic Roman

[@N1c0T1n3__]

I mean the volume removed was extremely low. I'm more surprised about the fact that liquid metal TIM actually contains Gallium and that people are "ok" with using any amount of Gallium in their PC's. There's a reason why that shit is flat out banned and is a criminal offense to carry on aircrafts.

[@GoldenEagle0007]

de8auer you should take a look into the Gigabyte B650E Aorus Master that you had on your channel, it has a QC issue where it cant handle AVX intensive workloads or even very intensive CPU workloads sometimes. For the most part seems to be fine with 7600x CPU, feels very bad for people that have 7600x CPU with that motherboard and wont know if their motherboard is fault or not. It Even seems to work fine with higher core CPU if you lower the clock speed by allot.....

[@Harjawalda]

Thanks for mentioning this I had planned to upgrade using that board specifically for heavy workloads on a x7950 3d. Not anymore...

[@boxlid214]

My Z790 Classified has a setting to automatically lower the multiplier on AVX workloads. I suspect it's how fine tuned the processors are these days, they're already overclocked the way we're getting them, and AVX is very intense. I know, that's Intel processors, but both Intel and AMD are doing the same as far as how their processors are tuned at the factory. It's recommended to run that setting I mentioned 2-3x lower than your set multiplier, so if you have the performance cores running 5.8, they'd only run at 5.5 or so under those AVX instruction sets, there's just too much heat generated and the stock clock already pushes it to the very cusp on water. I'm not saying there isn't issues with that board, just thought that might be a contributing factor.

[@brucepreston3927]

Thats it...I need to buy a CNC Mill! LOL...

[@SM-rn3xy]

Great video. If you want another good video of what gallium does check out Lock Picking Lawyer video 593 where he uses some to totally destroy an aluminium padlock.

[@mitsos1461]

Nice repair but nobody has a whole CNC 3d printer milling machine to perform that kind of work 😊

[@fat4ll]

Nice. When conductonaut extreme is coming?

[@XantheFIN]

"Good handling" thermalpaste? How fast i can take corners before slipping?

[@Nh_audios]

Will there be a Wire View for vertical mount cards?

[@vitor900000]

You could instead made a copper square or circular inserto so no additional modifications would me needed. Add thermal paste or thermal glue to bond the insert to the cooler and it may perform better than stock since copper is a better heat conductor. Also polishing the hole you made 9:33 would improve the thermal conductivity.

[@IceLom]

Having another transfer layer would most definitely perform worse. You can also see in later shots that he did indeed polish the milled-out area.

[@vitor900000]

@@IceLom The last shot seems to be obscured by camera glare but I can still see milling lines.

[@omicron0mega]

Well done, thou I would not even put that card in the same room as the CNC lol.

[@XavierBetoN]

Nicely done! Though I'd dump the cooler inside electrolysis water with a phone charger, using a piece of copper/nickel/zirc to electroplate it back to normal.

[@ITuffe]

More of this!

[@filiplaskovski9993]

Doesn’t the aluminium once affected by the Liquid Metal alter its thermal conductivity negatively?

[@kaptainkoffee5504]

Well done!

[@joaomiguelxs]

So informative! Great to learn a bit about materials used for cooling solutions and the potential risks. With the new generation parts putting out loads of heat, that kind of knowledge is quite important.

[@rsimenok]

Good job man!

[@AaronShenghao]

Usually the whole part is thrown out because gallium is hard to get rid of...

[@freibier]

I read some time ago that one of the worst things to happen to a modern passenger plane is a gallium spill. You would have to replace huge parts of the airframe because you cannot really tell where it already went, and having your plane become brittle is not good.

[@jakejones9502]

You do nice work.

[@Ekksanpher]

Interesting video thanks! Although it’s got me wondering - any updates on your Asus 4090GPU?

[@JezyYT]

Dude, I have a Palit RTX 2070 Blower X with a waterblock, How can I get a nice air cooler to fit it?

[@familienlund9503]

Its very hard to see that gainward is a part of palit, my palit 2060 dual is identical

[@taikosskleidejas6380]

What a cat! Wow! That some high-end genetic fluffy meatball.

[@lst141]

its called triple junction points between grains and represents least and most stable energy state. this condition is highly wanted.

[@DimitrisConstantinou]

Sorry to mention that here but when the delid kit for Ryzen 7xxx will be available? Thank u!

[@oz5150]

Great Job!!

[@greenbow7888]

1:28 how do people let their cards get in such a mess? No wonder the user had temperature issues. Therer was no way that cooler was working anywhere near normal efficiency. Interesting video. However 77'C on an open air test-bench is poor temperatures. I have filters on my PC air-intakes, and reguarlly clean inside. ... That includes taking the fans off the CPU cooling tower, to clean the aluminium fins, and fans. Plus checking my GPU now and again for dust on the fins. If needed it gets stripped back and fins and fans cleaned. It all works better and quieter if you do.

[@kinaceman]

awesome fix!

[@HendriuGaming]

Will Hydronaut escape from die like from other GPUs with higher power consumption under load? :D Had this situation and many other people had same effect, where Hydronaut and Aeronaut just went sideways leaving die "clean" and really high hot-spots.

[@Rentta]

How does someone know to use nailpolish to protect smd's but doesn't know that you can't use liquid metal on aluminum is beyond me :D

[@DeepThinker202]

Does heating it help?

[@zx14jeff]

Great job

[@cinlung]

What is the continuation of your 4090 with Kris Fix?

[@mutuasd]

When will the new grizzly liquid metal be available?