RTX 3090 FE - Gelid Ultimate Pads made performance a LOT worse

[smarkhive]

I have several 3080 and 3090 cards. The 3090’s usually work at >120MH

One particular card was a bit rubbish and, IIRC, was coming it at around 90MH/100MH. I got a mate to add some gelid ultimate 1.5mm and 2.0mm and pads. he used one of each for the card i think with a bit left over.

I think he also used some generic paste on whatever it was that needed paste on.

However now the card is significantly worse and I’m lucky to get 45MH and the best performance seems to come from zero memory overclocking and UNDERclocking the core (-900 !!! I’ve tested everything)

The card is fairly cold on the top but the side panel feel fairly warm

Reported temp on hive os (Linux, not windows) is 74celcius and I’ve set the rig to reboot if it hits 75 as i don’t want to push higher than that. (75 degrees i think is recommended by HIve themselves for this Linux setting)

Gelid say that the answer is probably that the pads used were not thick enough as the pads need to be compressed slightly to make contact and to transfer the heat. which makes sense.

something clearly was wrong with the card originally and my mate has clearly made it worse.

Question: Is the Gelid explanation the only one? Could my mate have done something else like blocking an airflow route by using too many strips or similar??

ty all in advance.

[Sethtrosity]

Incorrect pad thickness leads to incorrect mounting pressure, which leads to higher temperatures. My guess is he replaced them with the wrong sizes. Each time I have replaced the pads on my cards the temperature has decreased and I used Gelid pads. It would help to know the exact make and model for the GPU in order to see what the correct sizes are.

[smarkhive]

rtx 3090 from the latest batch 24gb ram

[Sethtrosity]

There are many different 3090 models… EVGA, MSI, ASUS…etc. They all use different size thermal pads. From the latest batch? What does that even mean lol.

[smarkhive]

sorry nvidia rtx3090 Founders Edition from scan when the last stock dropped there a few weeks back. so i assume latest model

[Sethtrosity]

According to reddit users, all the pads on the reference 3090 are 1.5 mm. Ask your buddy what size pads he used. If he did in fact use that size pads there are many possibilities.

1. Did not reapply thermal paste, or did so incorrectly.
2. Forgot to remove plastic covers from the thermal pads.
3. Didn’t re-cover all the places that need thermal pads.
4. The thermal pads moved out of place during reassembly.

[smarkhive]

interesting, ty
he used 1.5mm and 2.0mm pads.

he reckons it could be some old paste he used, tho I’m not entirely sure what he would have pasted and why it would make so much difference

[Valhalla818]

I used 1.5mm pads for all my 3090s no 2.0mm pads. These are the stable results and will update my report on the 10th day.