PowerColor Radeon HD 4870 heatsink replacement

[nomohakon]

I have PowerColor Radeon HD 4870 (the one with IMO shittier heatsink, kinda wings-looking) with overheating problem (i think, it goes black after some time running [30-90 minutes]) and a slightly damaged heatsink from Radeon HD 6970. Can i get them to work together or is there unsolvable problem? I can solder parts on/off if need.
Can anyone help?

 

[xman2007]

it would be cheaper to buy a working 4870 from ebay than an aftermarket cooler

 

[nomohakon]

Im not planning to buy anything, i have all the parts i think i need already, salvaged from discarded computers, i only need to know if combining them is posible, with the fan header being different. The two vs four wires problem.

 

[xman2007]

it's a VGA heatsink so if you can mod it then there's no reason it wouldn't do a good job zip ties are your friend

I've seen more extreme and attached an old CPU heatsink onto their GPU with some zip ties and a 120mm fan blowing on to it.

Just be sure to heatsink the VRM's and get some thermal pads for the RAM chips etc

 

[Assimilator]

Why do you go straight to "replace the heatsink"? Have you even checked temperatures while the card is running to determine if heat really is the problem? An arbitrary black screen in no way is indicative of a heat problem, it could be down to AMD driver quality or the card dying.

Seriously, use some common sense first.

 

[xman2007]

Why do you go straight to "replace the heatsink"? Have you even checked temperatures while the card is running to determine if heat really is the problem? An arbitrary black screen in no way is indicative of a heat problem, it could be down to AMD driver quality or the card dying.

Seriously, use some common sense first.

I doubt driver issues would create overheating, though yea, I would also replace the TIM first, but it's an old card and modding would be more fun

 

[Assimilator]

I doubt driver issues would create overheating, though yea, I would also replace the TIM first, but it's an old card and modding would be more fun

OP doesn't even know if it's due to overheating.

If they just want to dick about and potentially destroy a perfectly working card that's fine, but they haven't made that at all clear in their post. Hence I'm erring on the side of caution and assuming it's their primary card they're talking about, and they 're trying to fix the black screen issue, but are going about doing so in the worst way possible.

If my assumptions are incorrect, it's hardly my fault that they didn't provide more information.

 

[xman2007]

He said its overheating

 

[Assimilator]

He said its overheating

with overheating problem (i think

 

[racer243l]

overheating problem i think

He said its overheating

He thinks it´s overheating

Edit: Dang same time as Assimilator

 

[nomohakon]

Ugh. It blacks out under linux too, so, not the drivers. The fan starts spinning at high temperatures, around 80-ish (didnt run it in a long time), so id say its overheating. I also found bad cooling on the power area, dunno what they called, will add photo.
The small heatsink is slightly bent, could that part of board be the cause of black screen?

A resurection attempt.

 

[HenrySomeone]

Honestly, ditch that old furnace of a card; while they were somewhat passable when they came out (and Nvidia's offerings at the time although considerably better also weren't exactly innocent in the power department), their ridiculous idle power draw makes them an incredibly poor choice for anything today (yes, including retro gaming).

However if you insist, you should first just completely disassemble it, repaste it (the old thermal paste is now likely thermal dust) and possibly replace the pads on the memory/VRMs as well.

 

[xman2007]

Vrm heatsinks and frankenstein the 6950 cooler onto it

Honestly, ditch that old furnace of a card; while they were somewhat passable when they came out (and Nvidia's offerings at the time although considerably better also weren't exactly innocent in the power department), their ridiculous idle power draw makes them an incredibly poor choice for anything today (yes, including retro gaming).

However if you insist, you should first just completely disassemble it, repaste it (the old thermal paste is now likely thermal dust) and possibly replace the pads on the memory/VRMs as well.

I love how everyone is so quick to suggest throwing money towards new parts, how do you know its not a retro rig, or maybe he doesn't have the spare cash to buy a new gpu, not everyone has spare income to just buy new parts at a whim even if its not much. Some people forget that..

 

[HenrySomeone]

Doesn't need to be new - the next gen was already much better as far as the above mentioned issues go; I actually still have a passive HD 5450 for occasional testing purposes and it even works fine under Win 10. For a comparable gaming power, that would be 5770/6770; you can get them for like 15 bucks, I bet you could still sell that 4870 for 10, even with issues.

 

[nomohakon]

Even if i had spare cash to get new better card, i dont trust the curent PSU enough to potentialy kill the new card. So, no money for new parts. As for the thermal paste, replaced twice and was the ffirst thing after the third time blacking, but didnt think the tiny heatsink would be not touching those chips properly.

 

[HenrySomeone]

You already replacing the paste and still experiencing problems probably means something else is at work here and just changing the heatsink won't solve the issue. Also, 4870 is quite the power hog - ANY newer non-high end gpu will need less juice including the ones that came just a year later.

 

[nomohakon]

OT: I might need to find my old nokia phone, this camera im using cant do close enough macro.

 

[Caring1]

I also found bad cooling on the power area, dunno what they called, will add photo.
The small heatsink is slightly bent, could that part of board be the cause of black screen?
View attachment 161552

Yes, the power circuits overheating can cause no display issues.
The heatsink appears to be sitting on extremely dry thermal pads or a glue was used.
Replace with 0.5mm pads and try again.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Ideally, you definitely want a heatsink on those VRMs because as a former owner of two 4870s, I know they run toasty hot.

You'll want to get a heatsink like this

I would recommend using thermal adhesive instead of thermal tape as thermal tape really doesnt like extreme heat it eventually fall off...

If you dont want to buy a heatsink and have tools handy. you could even D.I.Y a heatsink with a metal saw or a dremel tool if you have an old heatsink from another CPU or GPU that fits.

I have seen people mod their motherboards with heatinks that are cut from old AMD Athlon 64 Heatsinks.

 

[Athlonite]

i dont trust the curent PSU enough to potentialy kill the new card

That right there could actually be the root cause of your black screens

 

[nomohakon]

Curently fixed. There is thick piece of rubber under the black plastic, pressing the chip to the heatsink without bending the card. Heatsink is the priginal one. Oh, no leds are on.

 

[nomohakon]

It turns out that the heatsink has a crack in it, which makes it bend, and underperform. It bends where the paste sublimated away.