vga ram heat sinks

[ShambleS1980]

i really need some 13x12x3mm (or similar) vga ram sinks. the 3mm part is the important bit though..
all i can find on the interweb are 4 or 5mm..
i got the calipers out and its hard to measure but 4mm may Just (and i mean only just) fit. probably would end up preventing the gpu heatsink from sitting properly though. and thats without any of thet sticky thermal tape taken in to consideration..

I could in theory sand off a mm of copper from a 4mm one if thats my only choice. but have a feeling i will lose some skin from the tips of my finger and thumb and i can see the sand paper being destroyed prety fast with teeth being rubbed back and forth..

the only reall alternatave is buying £25 worth of passive cooling in the form of the artic accelero s1 plus. then strapping a fan to that. Atleast then i would have plenty of clearance for the gddr ram heat sinks. but i dont have that kind of money to spend now thanx to exploding my abit quad-gt board last week. and paying for the replacment this thursday.

so if any 1 knows of any 3mm tall heat sinks. let me know please.

 

[roy_bates]

3mm heatsinks,do you mean shims?

can't you use a 3mm thick aluminum sheet or copper and cut what you need from the sheet?

 

[ShambleS1980]

not shims but those little heat sinks for VGA ram..
the issue i have is that the gpu heat sink is close to 4 of the ram blocks giving me about 3mm of space for a heat sink to go on them. the rest arent an issue and can use the normal ones..

i have looked at flat copper lengths of 3mm thickness that i could potentially use. and just cut one langth to over all 4 blocks which would give a better surface area, but the heat sinks are all spikey which is better for the dissipation of the heat

this sort of thing..

im probably going to buy something like this though (well probably exactly this)

and just sand down 4 of them to the correct height.
il be adding an extra fan (pulled and modded from a 360) which will clamp on to the gfx card so they do get good air flow.
i guess having the fan and the heat sinks may well end up being over kill as the fan in theory should provide more than enough cooling. but when it comes to cooling i always prefer to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

-=edit=-
the other thought that went through my head "and has been put on the back burner" is to make a bracket for my old LGA 775 after market cooler. (i think its a artic freezer 7 "atleast it looks like one" and was good enough to let me get my q6600 to 3.6 stable)

the bracket that made it fit on the lga 775 unscrewed with 2 screws so that parts done but i dont like to just botch a heat sink on. so thats been put on the "only if i find a bracket" shelf.. with 120mm fan straped on + ram heatinks + the moded 360 fan that should make it ice cold even under load.
But im not going to just stick it on there with some cable ties and tape lol. and its definitely to heavy for thermal adhesive tape (that stuff sux btw)

so those seem to be my options.

buy some heatsinks and file them down to size.
buy a passive cooler mentioned in the 1st post which will come with the heat sinks and strap a fan to that.
or manufacture a bracket for my Lga 775 heat sink and buy the heat sinks then, (although if i used the 775 clearance would not be an issue and i could use all sorts of heat sinks from my box of parts.

if money wasnt an issue i would simply buy the passive one btw. and probably will in a month or so when money is less tight.

-=edit=-
decided as i mentioned the lga 775 cooling that i would post images of what it could look like lol ..
(i only grabbed 2 heat sinks that fit for the ram, would probably not end up like that)
but you can see it would end up like frankenstein's monster if i did that.

 

[Half-Saint]

I wouldn't feel one bit comfortable having that GIGANTIC heatsink just hanging off the card like that... plus it looks damn ugly

Have you looked at amplifier heatsinks? I have a look tomorrow and let you know...

 

[ShambleS1980]

your scared of the teenie tiny cpu heat sink lol?
that is now a mission for tomorrow. mount it safely on the card lol..
wont be able to test the card till the new mother board arrives though, and by then i will probably have the correct parts that i need. But its something to do whilst the munchkin is in school.

I can smell the epoxy already lol.

 

[keropi]

^ just make sure you anchor that heatsink to the pcb or something, so it doesn't stress the main chip

 

[ShambleS1980]

its going to get bolted down i already have a idea forming about how to do it.
like i said im not going to just tape it on and use cable ties lol.
It will be mounted to a repecta... adequa... appropriate? level. just dont expect to see thermal take knocking on my door for the IP rights lol.

 

[johnim]

i would watch the ram sincs as i have had the accelero on 8800gts and they came off after a while they just slid

 

[ShambleS1980]

ok so spent quite a while today getting to this point lol..

to start it the biggest problem i had is the fact that i dont know where my hacksaw is. so i had to just use a blade with my hand. "no cutting disks on my dremmel clone either"

not a huge problem but turned a 2-3 min heat sink cutdown in to a 20 min job lol.. (old rev 1 360 gpu heat sink)

made a couple of washers. because the screws/bolts i had that would work (taken from a dead xbox dvd drive) would have slid straight through the plastic ones that i needed to use to protect the pcb.
Then i have some springs taken from an old north bridge push pin type heat sink.
the bracket i made is made from a back plate from a old pc case. (i could have used a much more sturdy bracket from a old water cooling kit, but felt that having a bit of flex in the bracket would help prevent any potential damage to the gpu and pcb)

i used epoxy to bond it to the heat sink this is simply to keep the alignment when mounting so thermal paste dosent get smeared every where..
I went for the stock 80mm fan on the heat sink simply for mounting isssues *its easier than strapping a 120mm fan to it*
still want to cut down some more heat sink for the last 4 ram blocks.
And i will use the remaining 2 mounting holes to help mount the extra twin fan 360 fan..

All in all its been a pretty straight forward mod. the card isnt even that much heavier with the heat sink on it.
looks like it will work well. but like i said cant test it till the new board arrives (i dont even pay for that till tomorrow, so will be a while)
and there is a very high chance that by the time the board arrives i will have found enough money to buy a reall cooling solution.
but i will test my solution vs stock and the after market when i have all the bits..