Edit: Failure, I say GeForce 6 and thought it meant 600 series. Someone please help me move this to the right forum, thank you.
 
Hello everyone,
 
I recently (about four months ago), bought a GTX 660SC and was pleased as punch with the performance but I even more recently (two months) moved to a country where the temperatures are much higher than in the US with ambient temperatures in my room at about 32-34c. I then decided to replace the reference heatsink for a closed loop liquid solution and was once again pleased as punch with temperatures (idle at 1c over ambient, 12-14c at load).
 
Now here comes the sticky part, a fellow I know has decided to sell his 670 4gb and I decided to sell off my 660 to raise some funds for it. I thought, how hard can putting the stock heatsink back together be? Well, it's been a nightmare. Four hours of applying and reseating the heatsink and I've about given up. I'm honestly not sure whether these temps were here from before since I haven't been playing a lot of very graphic intensive games till recently but I'm now witnessing temperatures that initially shot to 100c within seconds. After applying a whole lot more TIM because it seemed as if the contact between the copper coldplate and the GPU die was very, very weak (as in almost non-existant), it takes about a minute of slowly creeping to hit 96 before I killed the game. This also happens using EVGA OC Scanner to stress test. Thing is, idle temps are actually pretty good going at 4-5c over ambient but it's the load that really spoils the whole thing.
 
My hardware is as follows:
Motherboard: GA-H77N-WIFI
Chassis: Modified BitFenix Prodigy
PSU: Seasonic M12II 520W
Processor: i5 2500k
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws X 1333Mhz 8gb x2
CPU Cooler: Antec Kuhler 620 with air being exhausted out of the case
Fans: 1x 230mm front intake, 1x 140mm back exhaust, 4x 120mm+2x 120mm rad for CPU and GPU closed loop.
None of my hardware is OC'd
 
As you can well imagine, with an issue like this, it makes it impossible to sell my current card unless I have no scruples or morals and I'm trying to get it to work. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for helping me move the thread. I tried one last time to reapply the TIM using Arctic MX-4 using the pea sized method and I'm calling it quits unless someone can figure out why on earth the temperatures are so terrible
 
As is, because of this issue, I missed out on being able to buy the GTX 670s.

Just to know whether it was something with my other hardware, I stuck in my old other brand GTX 560Ti and it's running at under 70c on 100% load, granted with a non-reference cooler but still.

I'm honestly not sure. The first time I applied a thin coat of TIM, when I removed the heatsink to make sure it was seated properly, there was absolutely no contact between the die and the copper coldplate. To fix this, I applied much larger blobs and I know for sure now that there's contact because the paste will show up on both the coldplate and the die.
 
It doesn't hit 100c on idle, only on load. Before my last attempt, the idle temps were actually pretty nice but they still went so high that I had to kill the process to make sure it didn't fry my card.
 
Another interesting thing is that the card does not downclock at all once hitting 80+.
 
I too hope someone can shed some light on this. It's really, really annoying.

Lordred

Only because I've done this myself, is the fan plugged in?

LOLOLOLOL. I JUST remembered I did this as well when I retimmed my 8800GTX. I was like "**** 105C?!?!?!?!" I took the card out to look at it and I was like "......................" forgot to plug fan in, lolz.

It sounds like a poor seat job then, I know its annoying taking it apart over and over, but how does the spread look?

there should be no space, is there by chance anything stuck on it from the other cooler?

post photo's of both mating surfaces please
 
one of us should be able to see where the problem is stemming from

 Sorry for double post, images were having issues.

This actually is not the most TIM I have tried using. The best results in terms of temperatures came from the last application where I literally piled on the TIM on both sides.
 
Already started a support request and last message I got from EVGA support was 27 hours ago. I've since replied to the first message but nothing from them yet. I'm honestly really tired of this and am almost tempted to jump ship to the red team.
 
Went back down to my 560Ti and am really quite upset that I both can't use this card because of this issue and I couldn't sell it in time to nab the EVGA GTX670 4GB that I wanted to get on sale.

You'll need to elaborate on where this plastic frame is supposed to be.

It's underneath the shroud, I didn't remove the shroud when I took the pictures. That said, my 660 does not have the plastic frame. By the way, mine's the 660, not 660ti. I only have one 6 pin power slot.

I actually can't. The shroud is screwed onto the heatsink. Can't re-attach the shroud with the heatsink already seated.

Once again, GTX 660, that's GTX SIX SIX ZERO. Notice the differences between the GTX 660 and GTX 660Ti. Mine has a single SLI connector vs the tri-SLI on the one you linked. Mine is a single six pin power vs the double six pin in the one you posted.
 
Please refer to: http://www.overclockers.c...d-graphics-card-review

Yes, that's exactly what it looks like.

The bottom most pad in the last image? 99% sure that's the light but I'll look at it again to be sure.
 
Edit: Yeah, it's the light. Everything is perfectly flat.