Now began the process of removing
the stock HSF. Two words, Total Pain! Normally, by squeezing
the pins and pushing the heatsink will pop off. However, it
appears that this card's heatsink had been attached permanently
with some type of adhesive. We were not about to give up though.
Next we tried using pliers to pry it off, but all that did was
bend the metal pins. Then came brute strength to try and twist
it off, but that just gave us some nice imprints on our palms.
Next we tried using a wall putty knife to try to split it off,
all that did was bend the knife. Now was the time to get drastic,
so we wrapped the whole card in plastic wrap and put it in the
freezer for an hour, hoping this would loosen whatever was holding
it to the heatsink. We had no such luck. One last chance, we
grabbed a flat head screwdriver and used a dremel to grind the
end of the screwdriver down until it was razor sharp. Placing
it between the HSF and GPU we took the hammer and gave it three
sharp whacks... SUCCESS!
The problems continued on, this
time the GPU was full of some hardened adhesive. So, using a
razor blade, we had to scrape as much as possible off the GPU.
Then used the screwdriver and scrap it off down to the metal.
Next we just used alcohol to clean the tiny bit remaining off.
After applying a nice thick coating of AS2 to fill in the scratches
we made, we put on the HSF.
Then it was time to apply the
aluminum memory heatsinks. Unfortunately, they are designed
for BGA memory, which is found on Ti4400 and Ti4600 cards. So,
it was back to the dremel to cut each memory heatsink to size.
Being small and light the heatsinks kept shooting off when we
were halfway through the metal. Desperate to get this thing
done, we ran to the neighboors and borrowed a hand metal saw.
We cut it the hard way and then ground down the edges with a
dremel. Attaching them was a snap using the supplied tape. Another
problem I had with the ramsinks was that they aren't quite the
same color as the copper GPU heatsink. They're more of a yellow
or gold.
Picture time....
Here's before the mod. It's pretty bland and boring.. doesn't
even look like a GF4.
A view of the back of the card before modding. Very plain, very
boring.
There we go, doesn't even look like the same card now!
Hopefully we'll be able to squeeze a few more mhz out of that
ram!
If you noticed, the heatsinks
for the memory is facing the correct direction so that air can
flow smoothly through it instead of just sideways like Thermaltake
had originally designed.
