I got contacted by evga representative, and he said by doing all of this (fixing their incompetent errors) you may void your warranty, so be conscious and use your common sense also when you remove the stock pads that does not match, keep them in some bag, and if you ever wanna RMA your card put them back before shipping, that way, they cant mess with you. here is the whole message from evga:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hi there, I mainly write to you asking that you place at the top of your OP that doing this mod may void your warranty. Although we don't believe your method is necessary, we have a strong history of encouraging our enthusiast community, even some that wish to do extreme mods that may cause physical damage and void their warranties. However, those enthusiasts generally are aware that what they are doing will void their warranties, and I'm not sure that readers of your thread may understand that. I do not believe that your thread should be removed, by any means, but I do request that you place a note at the top of your thread that completing your mod may void your warranty. Cheers, Lee------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------So prepare yourselves for a long reading and wall of text, since I gonna go over few things and solutions, for a premium product, which in my country costs
495 euros, thought I'm not writing this number with a proud, rather than sad feeling.
After a reading few topics in evga forums, I came across one person who already reported, an issue where thermal pads under a black plate which cools vram, vrms etc, doesnt even make a contact with them or makes very poor contact. First of all, when I first posted a total disassembly of my card, to check a damage done to pcb components (after evga's fiasco), I dint bothered to check that issue, how ever I noticed that thermal pads where wet, it felt like they where melting down... and dint had any engraving from vram, knowing my self I dint want to accept such
VULGAR LANGUAGE is not allowed to be posted on the forums., I removed the pads and measured them (
stock evga vram pads are 1mm thick and dimensions are 12mm X 14mm), total 8 of them, strange thing was only two of them stock vram thermal pads made a loose contact with dark plate, so I replaced them with 8x
1.5mm thermal pads (since I dint had exact thickness pads, I ghetto rig'd thickness from 0.5mm pads and stacked them up to make 1.5mm), after careful check, it was perfect pressure to transfer heat from vrams, also it made a perfect engraving like it should have done before,,, flaw from evga's design also a quality control, I dont know who is responsible for this but its unacceptable, I never had to deal with such problems before, and yes I have used asus, gigabyte cards in past and also replaced pads and etc, and never have I had such issues like with evga card, which is mind you a 2016 release...
There are some pics, which shows how I fixed that issue, and saved my Vrams from poping... even though, they would replace my card but I dont want to be that guy who sends RMA every time a screw fells out, if you can apply a simple fix and avoid a problem in general.
http://imgur.com/Aw0ydBkHere you can see what I replaced, with matherials that I had, I dint had an extra thermal pad to replace vrms, pad as you can already tell that one also makes very limited contact with vrms, and causes an extra heat to be trapped between dark plate and pcb, I already ordered few 1,5mm pads as well as 2mm pads, and will replace some of my ghetto riged solutions, once they arrive but for now, my solution is way better and safer than the one which comes with your cards at stock... which is shame, because we paid for premium product and we have to deal with such silly things as replacing a thermal pads with correct thickness to make proper cooling, its a F shame.
Dimensions for vrm pad is 10,5cm X 6mm, and perfect thickness would be 1.5mm not 1mm as default pad is, it also makes some wet spots which clearly doesnt make a proper contact with components, which supposedly it cools
So when I finished fitting all pads, this is how it should look like, without any air gaps, which will later make hit air bubble between vram or vrms and damage them, as you can see with
1,5mm its a perfect firm fit, and you dont need to worry about poping anything.
http://imgur.com/SNj1GkGBefore you even begin to do anything to your card, will it be disassemble or a thermal fix what ever it may be, learn form my mistake, and cover the evga logo plate with light painters tape to avoid micro scratches. When I first disassembled my card, I dint used tape and after all was done, I ended up with micro scratches on main plate which I can see in my case, so to avoid that use a simple fix.
http://imgur.com/w984DSeSo now to the fun part, by that I mean the ''thermal mod'' like evga calls it, we all know the story and we all have or had questions, I was one of you. I contacted a evga support made a ticket asking for a thermal pad dimensions and thickness, also I asked why my pads still wait for approval since I ordered them a way back when this whole fiasco started, I dint got a response so I took actions my self, and I'm happy I did, and you should be too, because dont wait for others to spoon feed you act and think for yourselves dont be dependent on others, you always come up with solution and learn thing or two, advice from life! So I downloaded so called evga thermal pad installation guide (pdf file), eye balled the pads how they look and where they go, and came up with solid measurements and perfect firm fit, only problem was, I dint had exact thickness pads nor size, so I once again went to ghetto rig option, for this time until I receive a solid size pads, which I ordered again :D I will leave some ebay links bellow, for pads I ordered or used in this topic, so maybe you can buy or if you have them already use, and dont worry about thermal conductivity you will be just fien with 2-3kW you dont need to waste money on expensive 6kW or even 11kW or more, since you dont use these on cpu nor gpu dye, you will be just fine with 2-6kW, I know this because I have always used these pads, on my previous cards and never had I had any problems, all my old cards have been sold to others and they dint had a single problem with pcb components. All you need to have is a common sense and ability to read and gather information, you dont need to have zombie nation title in front of your name, such as engineer or professor etc, bullcrap.
So the dimensions are,
wide pad: 11,4cm X 5,8cm or 5,9cm which ever you feel comfortable to work with, I went with 5,8cm and thickness is 2mm, narrow pad is 11.4cm X 2,6cm and thickness is 1mm, although you could use even a 1.5mm one, it should fit and make even better fit than 1mm, since I dint had an extra 1.5mm pad I used a 1mm and it did work out just fine at the end, and in picture you will also see it makes a firm fit, and does its job which is heat transfer from uper dark plate to ACX 3.0 cooler fins, although perfect design here would be a cooler plate not fins, but that means they have to redesign whole ACX cooler from ground up, to make proper cooling plate for vrm section, something to think about in thye future, to even more reduce temps on vrms, mosfets etc, look at other competitor designs, they all got a decent plate connected to cooler to cool these vital components.
http://imgur.com/3FhC34Ehttp://imgur.com/eCSlzGJhttp://imgur.com/gCJKmfxMind you, I had to stack two layers of pads to make up 2mm, so I ghetto riged, first layer from small bits, that I had left, in top since it doesnt matter much what surface they got up top, where the backplate is, it does how ever helps you if you have a solid 1 piece pad on pcb, without any cuts.So thats about what I did today, since I dint wanted to wait who knows how long to get thermal pads from evga, nor do they bothered with dimensions in their instruction guide, so I fixed and measured everything by my self, and it works just fine. This guide maybe is useful for some1, who is also very pist at evga, that for the card that costs 495 euros, you have to change all thermal pads, to make it work properly like it should be in first place, for such a premium product, im very disapointed in evga, and its my first evga card, and to be honest I'm very disappointed, imagine a buyer who doesnt want to fix these issues nor is aware of them, he will be pist and make silly topics flaming evga in their forums, although they do deserve it this time...food for thought.
Final dimensions for all pads that I replaced:Narrow pad from ''mod pdf'':
1mm (thickness) X 114mm X 26mm also a soft puffy 1.5mm pad will work without interfering with GP104 chip pressure from cooler plate
Wide pad from ''mod pdf''
2mm (thickness) X 114mm X 58mm or 59mm either is good.
Vram pads:
1.5mm (thickness) X 12mm X 14mm you need
8 of these
VRMs pad:
1.5mm (thickness) x 105mm x ~6 or 7mm Ebay links for pads that I use in general and also for this fix:
0.5mm 100x100:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1...266:g:3UUAAOSwFnFV88m21mm 100x100:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/D...635:g:358AAOSwl9BWHGo71.5mm 100x100:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/G...443:g:QxsAAOSwgmJXyoMd2mm 100x100:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1...608:g:Ug0AAOSwMgdXyoFa