I bought a GTX680 2GB locally and when I received it, I noticed this damage on the bottom of the card. Someone in another forum said that it had been reflowed badly and the damage was a result of it. It boot into macOS H.S. fine and then I ran some stress tests in Win7 for around 20 mins and it seemed fine. The temp got up to 80C. I also flashed it successfully.
So, I wanted to take it apart to clean and redo the thermal paste. There are some things that make me think it hasn't been reflowed. Firstly, the screws that attach the the black frame housing with the fan were extremely tight, like how they'd be from the factory. They were absurdly tight imo. Secondly, inside had a pretty good amount of dust build-up and the thermal paste was old and crusty. To me it doesn't look like this card was ever taken apart.
From what I've researched and also trying to reflow a couple boards before myself, you take off the heatsink, clean off the paste and reflow from the top of the die? In this case, with the crusty thermal paste it doesn't appear that it was done and wouldn't explain the damage from the bottom.
Any thoughts on this damage and what it means? Regardless of whether or not it has been reflowed, is this damage likely to cause problems in the near future? The card has been working fine so far, with no glitches or black screens that I have noticed. I'm gonna hold off on upgrading to Mojave, in the event that it does die, so I can stay up and running in H.S. with my HD5770.
So, I wanted to take it apart to clean and redo the thermal paste. There are some things that make me think it hasn't been reflowed. Firstly, the screws that attach the the black frame housing with the fan were extremely tight, like how they'd be from the factory. They were absurdly tight imo. Secondly, inside had a pretty good amount of dust build-up and the thermal paste was old and crusty. To me it doesn't look like this card was ever taken apart.
From what I've researched and also trying to reflow a couple boards before myself, you take off the heatsink, clean off the paste and reflow from the top of the die? In this case, with the crusty thermal paste it doesn't appear that it was done and wouldn't explain the damage from the bottom.
Any thoughts on this damage and what it means? Regardless of whether or not it has been reflowed, is this damage likely to cause problems in the near future? The card has been working fine so far, with no glitches or black screens that I have noticed. I'm gonna hold off on upgrading to Mojave, in the event that it does die, so I can stay up and running in H.S. with my HD5770.
