Hi guys.

My 285gtx here was getting more and more unstable, the most at the first percent of nathan units. So i put a fermi card now in my main gpugrid cruncher and tried the card in a gamingpc. Wow it was very unstable...so before it put it in trash i tried to remove the cooler..and wow..the memorychips are swiming in oil! O.o wtf where does this come from? I will get a oilcleaner for sensible electronic parts now and try to revieve. But i still dont know where this came from..not from the cooler, thats clear so it can only the pads who oiled out or..i dont know o.O any ideas?

---

DSKAG Austria Research Team: http://www.research.dskag.at

... it can only the pads who oiled out or..i dont know o.O any ideas?

You are right, this oil comes from the pads. However I'm not sure that you can fix this card only by cleaning the oil.

I changing right now the pads too. I hope i have buyed some adequat. But how this came? Card too hot, normal aging, cheap china pads or something? Nobody here saw anytime somthing like that ^^

---

DSKAG Austria Research Team: http://www.research.dskag.at

I changing right now the pads too. I hope i have buyed some adequat. But how this came?

This leaking is used to happen. The oily thing is a part of the thermal conductive material, so it's bad if it comes out of the pads, but the pads are squeezed between the heatsink and the chip, so it's normal when some oil is squeezed out from the pads.

Card too hot, normal aging, cheap china pads or something?

All of the above :) These pads needed because the size of the gap between the chip and the heatsink is varied by many factors. But a cooling system which consist pads is not the best one.

Nobody here saw anytime somthing like that ^^

The factory made coolers of GTX 480 and 580 have the same pads, with an oily leak around them (I've seen it on mine when I changed the coolers on them). However these leaks are not too dangerous, because the main heat source is the GPU (and the MOSFETs), not the memory chips, and the GPU has no such pad.

Ok but they swam in oil, it was on the other side of the backplane too ^^ the issue was with fan auto it runs more instable as with 100% but it cant be used with some projects or games (higher texturelevel witch needs vram) so i think some memorychips overheat everytime. but thanks for the explaination, i will see tonight if it works again :) my first graphicscard i disassamble ^^

---

DSKAG Austria Research Team: http://www.research.dskag.at

a good clean, some new thermal pads and TIM and that card will feel
young again :)

Some thermal pads do seem to ooze a significant amount of oil.

Also note sometime new fans with fluid bearings will 'spin-out' a bit of oil when you first use them as well.
found that one out the hard way :/