debaucher Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 (edited) As the title says...... I am trying to get some pictures of the 6970m and if possible the 6990m with heatsink and back bracket (hopefully both on and off).Reason is.... the dell tech came over yesterday to replace my 460m's with 6970's and he only had the cards.After him ruining all the thermal pads and me putting on some of my own, we attempted to boot the system and got awful graphical distortion and a total green color.He called dell and told them to send the entire assembly (vid cards with heatsinks and back bracket) but I wanted to try and compare the 2 as I removed the cards again (since he left the system in pieces) and looked at how the back bracket is from the 460m's (460m has ram on the backside as well as the top while the 6970m only has ram on the top.... so the back bracket from the 460m's had a metal piece with a thermal pad to cover the ram).Any help is appreciated.They guy should be back with the parts today or tomorrow but I was hoping to satisfy my curiosity in the meantime.TIAD. Edited July 21, 2011 by svl7 added [solved] tag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 This is a Sapphire/PCPartner 6970m, but the layout of the components is the same on the Dell cards. Here's a Dell 6970m with a M17x r3 heatsink attached (pics by logan801): 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debaucher Posted July 20, 2011 Author Share Posted July 20, 2011 THanks for the pics svl7!The r3 back bracket is exactly like the master cards back bracket that I had on the 460m, so I am sure it is the same for the m18x.One question regarding this, is there a thermal pad under the long metal piece?Also, the secondary vid card back bracket has 2 of those (to cover both set of ram chips) but I assume it will also work for the 6970's.My next question is regarding the thermal pads under the front heatsink..... do you have one apart so that I can compare where they are located?I am assuming that since the back bracket appears to be the same, that there must not have been good contact on the top due to the thermal pads not in the right place (due to differences in the 460m and 6990m resistor etc. placement).Thanks!!D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 (edited) There must be something like a thermal pad on the backplate, otherwise it could possibly short something on the PCB, but to be honest the big metal piece on the backplate is absolutely unnecessary, it doesn't make any sense at all... At least I can't see why it should be needed, there's nothing to cool there, the only two parts that can get warm on the back are the two voltage regulators (for the core and memory voltage), but they aren't at covered by the metal piece of the backplate. If there's nothing on the rectangular piece of metal on the backplate, put some duct tape there to make sure it's not conductive. The only place where you need thermal pads is on the VRAM modules, the eight rectangular black things that are surrounding the die, but don't worry, the VRAM doesn't get as hot as most people think, the most important thing is that the die runs cool enough, the thermal pads probably shouldn't be thicker than 1mm, otherwise the gap between heatsink and die gets too big. When I had the 470m in my system I didn't cool (heatsink/thermal pads) the VRAM modules on the back of the card at all, and it worked fine. Here's a pic showing where the pads belong, it's not a 6970m, and it's not the heatsink you have in your machine (it's a disassembled M15x heatsink) but it'll be enough to illustrate where the pads belong. The pads should be on the part of the heatsink which is highlighted in green, the pink things are coils, it's not that important that they're covered with thermal pads, I don't have them covered. Blue are the VRAM modules. (Which should get covered by the thermal pads on the heatsink). Let me know if something's unclear or if I missed a question. Edited July 20, 2011 by svl7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debaucher Posted July 20, 2011 Author Share Posted July 20, 2011 Thanks again.I only asked because the 460m top heatsink had all kinds of small thermal pads on it (some thick, some thin etc.. along with the one for the vram)I think the graphic problem was from one of the "thick small square" thermal pads was slightly on one of the coils which should have only been covered by one of the "thin small squares" which made the gpu core not get good contact.There may have been other issues, but that is the one I noticed most.If I do not get the replacement ones in today/tonight I may try taking the heatsinks off again and see what I can do for pad placement etc.. and just see if it works.Thanks again for your help and all the pictures!!D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svl7 Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 You're welcome. As I said, most important is that the die gets covered properly, the only place you need some pads are on the VRAM, never mind the coils etc. if you haven't any pads left or if they don't fit (e.g. if they're too thick). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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