Got a laptop like this once, and it was such a mess that after hitting the board with extremely high pressure air, 90% alcohol, brushes and swabs, I finally figured out the right way to do it, I placed the motherboard in the trash and used the screen for a different laptop.
True but not at the same time. You practically have to repad and repaste 3090s just to get the memory temps within Micron's specced 100c limit, since Nvidia thinks it's all fine and dandy up to nearly 110. Liquid metal is absolutely not necessary whatsoever though, unless you're going for extreme benchmark numbers.
@@scythelord "Extreme benchmark numbers". Not really. Even professional benchmarkers still using high quality paste and not liquid metal especially on GPU. In other words, just don't mod your components that still under warranty. If you still want to, wait around 1 -2 years from newly purchased card and do what you want if you know what you're doing.
@@scythelord Exactly. Changing the thermal pads and repasting is fine, but liquid metal is a bit too extreme and frying a 3090 right now when supply is low? Big ooof there.
@@Ashraf690 I usually watercool my GPUs but I make sure to run them in my system for 1-2 months before disassembling the card that way you're more likely to find out if a card is faulty. Also when applying liquid metal I use electrical tape like Scotch Super 88 to cover the substrate around the gpu die, not using anything non conductive to cover it is idiotic.
I used suction from the lab's distribution to clean all kinds of stuff from my boards. 25 inch+ vacuum through a 2mm id. sipper tube. I also used a trap to catch the occasional part that would try to escape.
and that's why deeeear costumer there is somthing called non conductive thermal paste so it's not gonna hurt anything. This is one of the main reasons non conductive thermal pastes were invented in the first place.
@@boricua1123 From the looks of it didn't know what the fuck they were doing either. Looks like they just scratched the surface to leave marks. You need a fine grit sandpaper like 3000grit or so to completely remove any oxidation but leave a VERY faint texture so the LM has something to adhere to and make a good fusion between parts.
@@Bourinos02 Of course, you want to use a very fine one to remove the oxide layer that has formed that way it forms a better bond to the actual metal and not to the oxide layer which will inhibit the heat transfer.
@@SilvaDreams Sorry but that doesn't make much sense... If the chip manufacturer placed it there, it must be only around 100 nanometers thick, and if it is occuring naturally, it is quite literally only an atomic bilayer. So there would be negligible to unmeasurable gains from the heat transfer perspective. Could you elaborate a bit more?
Nice video. Always coat (insulate) surroundings before applying LM and apply carefully as LM tends to drip very easily. On my first use, it dripped on my floor and skin. And avoid using it on movable objects like laptops. And unless Your card hits 90+C often do not use it!
I've never tried it myself, but my thought is that for this sort of thing you might want to try getting some (medical) syringes to suck up the liquid metal. They can be bought pretty cheaply as diabetic supplies online, which I have found quite handy for various things myself (or if you want something a little safer, you can get blunt-tip ones too (which won't go straight through your finger accidentally) but they do cost a bit more, because they're generally considered "lab supplies") But boy, they really managed to get that stuff absolutely everywhere, didn't they?
Why didn't he just get a water block for the card. The PS5 has liquid metal but it also has foam boarders to keep it in one spot so it does not spread potentially causing a short like this card did.
I've only seen one liquid metal application video, and they taped off the processor with masking tape, and spread that liquid metal as thin as they could so it would have the least possibility of spreading after they put it back together. That was Gamers Nexus, I think. I guess customer did not see that video.
@@d3vastat0r89 , I think people don’t realize it’s not your typical thermal paste and don’t feel confident with just putting a little and in turn we see disasters like this on north ridge fix 😂
@@fattony6203 , we only use liquid metal at work for overclocked workstations that are processing at max capability for up to 3 days… liquid metal reduces average temp about 11degrees Celsius which is great however we are a team of electrical and mechanical engineers with lots of technicians and metal worked that took 2 years to get liquid metal use right for our intended purposes! Also liquid metal can eat away at other metals if you’re not careful including SMT component leads and in some cases solder joints… if you’re a regular gamer and PC builder you shouldn’t even try messing with liquid metal! The padding and additional spill shields we have set in place only work we’ll because we have our mother boards custom built with layout options that enable us to prevent this stuff from ruining most things lol.
Liquid metal behaves really wierd when it comes in contact with ordinary thermal paste and might make a cleanup job easier. I can't really explain since my last build was a long time ago and I cannot really remember. I have used Arctic Silver as a shield against liquid metal in my graphics card.
@@ariewijaya1679 hot air blower ... is for soldering and not for blowing stuff away ... and since liquid metal is toxic you do not want to blow it everywhere
In some instances, repasting older products can help tremendously. BUt in all instances, work with that which you know what you're dealing with. Liquid Metal is about on par with fucking with the registry.
Liquid metal is nasty stuff, it can degrade aluminium, solder, maybe other metals. I would not risk my expensive instruments if I can use the cheap stuff. Anyway He would have to go over with something else to get the remaining stuff off.
The easiest way I've found is by using a qtip that basically has a small amount of LM on it and then use its own surface tension to suck up whatever is around tiny resistors and caps by slowly trying to touch them. Done that on a couple of laptops so far and seems to be consistently reliable.
@@poland-nosteamserver6378 If you've ever applied too much thermal paste you would know how it can ooze out a bit. The same thing can happen with liquid metal, or by accidentally squirting some out from the applicator on anything outside of the IHS.
To add while watching the video till the end, had the same case a long time ago, and used an electric vacuum pump to remove all liquid metal very easily. and yea you just said if someone has an easy way to write in comment, well I just did.
for some 1 to miss with a brand new GPU thermal pad, theoretically he is looking for the best solution to lower the temp by maybe a few degrees, so theoretically he should already make some research to know the best in the market and what pros and cons each type has. it just doesn't make any sense
@@gastongl404 It isn't as if you even get so much of an improvement from a die-to-heatsink solution like GPUs anyways. CPUs are different, as there is an IHS.
Copper desoldering braided wick is probably worth a try to soak it up. I'm guessing, never tried it, but it would be high on my list. You'd have both the wicking action and the copper acting like a sponge for gallium at a molecular level. Possibly hit the wick with some flux and heat, to clean it, if it doesn't work without (so the gallium gets some fresh copper to eat, not for the heat). Or, if you have one handy, a syringe should do it. There are spring loaded desoldering syringes on the market with small nozzles (intended to suck up normal molten solder, but no reason they shouldn't work with cold liquid metals as well). Medical syringes with a small needle might help as well, for precision work in tight spaces.
You can chill the board which causes the liquid metal to solidify. You can them chip it off, though not much time to do so before it goes liquid again. Only issue is on rare occasion certain components can develop stress fractures if brought down too low. I use a bottle of electronics duster, turn it upside down and spray in a small container. Then soak cotton swabs in it. Can then chill select locations to solidify.
"... Caused by liquid metal". No, that's not true. The damage was caused by someone who carelessly splooged liquid metal on the board against all recommendations and instructions.
It comes off easier when you "prime" the swab with other liquid metal. So, you use one swap to clean off the IC plate, then wipe off as much of the liquid metal you can from that swab, and use it to wick up the small bits. that being said... the dude used way too much. I was able to do 3 GPUs and one laptop CPU with the liquid metal that came in 1 pack, and I still have a ton left over. smh.
A small vacuum (dedicated vacuum pump, not a shop vac), think of a air brush setup but with reversed flow, the paint pot will be the catch tank (small hard foam filter to prevent material getting into the pump) , regulate the flow, have a silicon flexible nozzle to get into the crevices, will probably require some fiddling to get it just right, or a lab suction pipet for a manual option, just a thought.
As far as i know, liquid metal thermal compound is actually a metal alloy which contains gallium, and gallium really loves aluminum. It forms sort of an amalgamate with aluminum, and the speed of intercalation increases with temperature. Many solid capacitors are aluminum based, and i don't know if the multi layered pcb's of the motherboards use aluminum instead of copper for the ground planes and so, but my guess is that any gallium alloy shouldn't be used as thermal conductive compound where aluminum parts are involved, and that includes electronics. Imho. Or what do you think?
You can use handheld suction solder remover to catch the liquid metal. I may be missing the actual name of the tool but I used it when I used to repair VCR and Video Cameras. also you can use a copper sleeve with soldering iron, once you have gathered all the liquid metal to a blank space on board.
Oh man what a mess, this guy was trying to liquid metal everything wasn't he? Hope he has deep pockets to buy another video card because if he's doing this type of thing on a regular, these components are gonna brick left and right. I just found your channel a couple months ago and I must say bravo, very professional and educated technician. I would send my stuff to this guy without a blink of an eye! Keep up the excellent work and hello *waves* from Alabama. We need more guys doing work like this. Electrical repair is a dieing art. Most people would just junk the electronics and buy another! Way to go dude keeping this type of stuff from filling up our landfills! I do a little work like this but I am in no way saying I have the skills this man has because this takes time, lots of time, a very steady hand, some good eyeballs, and a dump truck load of experience to do the things this guy can do! He makes it look easy but if you don't believe me take your best shot yourself on replacing an HDMI port or a usb port. Remove and reinstall whole connectors and transistors and resistors, capacitors.etc. It is much harder than one might think and without a microscope, mostly it is impossible! Good job A+ in my book!
Remember that one notebook, which "stopped working after thermal interface change" liquid metal spill on cpu power source, and some got under vram chips. Its so frustrating...
I know nothing about electronics but it’s fun to watch this channel. Now that I got that out of the way, would heating the liquid metal up with the air gun, and then using a magnet work?
I would also use compressed air after cleaning all the visible liquid metal, to push it out from under the bga-chips. he should also try to look under the bga-chips from the side, but that might be hard with a board this crammed.
@@markus98sb probably good as a last step I would start with an electric solder sucker with no heat as close as possible to the board then use compressed air
I used conductonaut with my 3060. An nzxt x62 plus nzxt G12 mounting plate as the stock cooler was rubbish. It doesn't go beyond 50c overclocked to 200mhz. Zero issues. Follow the instructions. Clear nail polish to ensure it is protected from conducting just in case.
I did liquid metal on my GPU and the results were outstanding. BUT... When I did it I sealed everything around the GPU (all the caps and resistors) with clear nail polish before laying kapton tape on top of that as close to the GPU chip edge as possible. Also painted it on in an ultra-thin layer, spreading it out as much as possible with just a pinhead dab in the middle to ensure some contact if by chance I did it too thin. After 1 year I put normal paste because liquid metal wasn't that worth it since it tended to amalgamate with the bare copper heat plate of the cooler. It may have been good if the cooler was nickel or silver plated but I'll never know. I now use some GD900 from aliexpress with an aftermarket cooler (arctic accelero) and I get 27 idle and high 50s in load.
The best way to remove "Liquid Metal" is not to use the absolutely horrible stuff in the first place, it's probably under the GPU or other BGA chips thoroughly flush the board with IPA under pressure from a very small nozzle while standing it on it's edge vertically, I've seen so many amateurs try to use this & destroy CPU's & GPU's.
Looks like the customer washed the motherboard with liquid metal as it is seen all over the board. You have a hell lot of work to do on this board. Hope it is a fix, awaiting to see it fixed soon.
he painted the entire board with liquid metal because he wanted the whole board to be 'cooler'... now it has a 'cool board' ready to be put in a museum.
That was one hell of a mess. The amount of substance required is actually just a single droplet, not a whole tube. Those smd capacitors usually has to be covered with nail polish.
Rub some isopropyl alcohol around the area, apply heat with a hot air gun and use a solder sucker to suck it up. When ive applied liquid metal i always inspect the component boards, if i find spilt liquid metal the method above take my no time.
Use a solder sucker to remove the liquid metal. The fast suction action should pull it away easily. Also compressed air through a small nozzle to blow away some liquid metal.
The point is that unless this card is fixed the customer lost 2k. That makes an opportunity for a cleanup methods testing experience. After phisical inspection and manual cleanup i'd try an compressed air. Sinking it in alcohol may also be an option yet maybe a bit aggressive and may require replacement of capacitors. You can also grab some of this metal and check how it behaves on different board after heated up and treated with alcohol. Maybe you will find a method to reduce it's stickiness so it can be efficiently blown off or brushed off. As soon as it get's under bga ofc.
Well, liquid metal helped me a lot, when i was OCing my old i7 4770K. But i did my research, applied it correctly and insulated the components next to chip.
Thats why i never use liquid metal , i stick to "Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut" paste , even though it doesnt perform the same level as liquid metal , at least its better than stock factory thermal paste ❤❤❤
@@TheJirkal I know , but the risk of losing your thousand dollar hardware is too high of a risk 💔, unless that person is experienced in applying LM and taking precautions❤️
It's not just shorting out stuff. The gallium can merge with other metals (e.g. copper traces, solder, the heat spreaders, heat sinks, etc) at a molecular level to form exciting new alloys that are softer than before and have the strength of cheddar cheese. That's a one way process, can't be undone for metal that has been turned into a gallium alloy. It's specialist stuff to be avoided unless you actually know what you're doing and need that last 1% out of your hardware (with a stong likelihood of a shortened life). The thermal properties are excellent, can't deny that, but it's extreme OC territory and a bad idea for consumer level retrofit on the systems you use every day. In many cases, the performance in gain is essentially just theoretical, the marginally improved cooling doesn't even gain you something useful.
I would advise against using liquid metal with air coolers because the limiting factor is the cooler itself, not the interface between the cooler and the die. Re-pasting with top-quality compound, though, is definitely worth doing - manufacturer pastes are often garbage, and not just for cost-cutting reasons.
The only way I found to get some of this stuff out was to use the syringe LM came in and use it to suck it back from the needle point. When iv applied LM in past iv used thermal grizzly nail polish around the area and coated the smds around the GPUs or the CPUs. Since conformal coating isn't available in Canada I go over seas to get a viable replacement.
Wow. Why would you use liquid metal without any type of gasket? The owner couldnt see this coming? Blows my mind how some people think or iin this case lack there of.
I know everyone is saying stay away from liquid metal but to be honest the main point is be patient and take your time. It is very easy to rush it and lose your hardware. Do your due diligence. Spend the entire week researching up on it and looking at the tons of videos that tell you what to do. I my self have used it on countless occasions. I dont even put tape or nail polish, i just spend the whole day applying it carefully while listening to some lofi music. To be honest is it worth the 8 degrees difference? Nah, but for me the feeling of accomplishment when doing it right and seeing the computer post is priceless.
Based on the fluid behavior of liquid metal perhaps a flat tip fine needle syringe or solder sucker (for areas with more space) should work. I've never had problems like this with liquid metal thermal paste to test these methods, but I think they might work
Many people can't figure out that the main issue isn't the GPU itself, but the VRAM (especially for the 3090). They get real hot and the thermal pads aren't ideal for them unfortunately. The most we can do is use a high quality thermal paste (non-conductive one, as usual) for the GPU, and thin thermal pads with a watercooled block for the whole video board. THAT'S the most out technology permits.
Syringe with a tiny needle might be best way to remove the bigger LM drops. Same thing if you apply a bit too much on CPU or GPU, just drain the excessive amount back to syringe. Use a "dirty" syringe for the repairs. Smaller drops can be cleaned with cottom swabs.
Soap + IPA and washing it under the sink would have cleaned it much better and faster. Make sure to clean off all the soap residue and rinse with IPA in the end. As you know IPA dissolves and soap suspends. Together they make a great combo.
I wonder if using those tools to suck up solder work well for removing liquid metal. I think its called a solder sucker. I've seen quite a few videos of keyboard switch removals/replacements that use that tool.
LM is great and plenty of people use it successfully across a range of systems and components. It has a consistent and measurable drop on temps, and when proper precautions are taken (conformal, kapton etc) it CAN be just as safe as non-conductive pastes. It is great for OC, gaining a few boost bins on your gpu, and/or lowering fan speeds/noise. This was simply a case of more money than sense and perhaps a bit of youtube facilitated Dunning-Kruger.
Also this one: LM under ANY big chip = instant journey to the dumpster, because probably chip is already fried and even if it isn't good luck removing all that increadibly sticky stuff.
Having done several liquid metal jobs on chips before, it's actually very safe as long as you take the proper safeguards. This guy, clearly didn't. If anyone asked me if I would recommend doing it? Yes, hands down every time, but you HAVE to protect yourself. This job looks rushed and sloppy. Biggest tip to protect against the majority of issues you'll run into (as long as you don't drip you chicken metal soup as you move over the PCB) is to just coat all the SMDs close to the IC with fingernail polish. A coat or two makes for a great electrical insulator. As long as your safe, liquid metal offers a pretty big difference in thermal transfer and lowers chips temps by as much as 25 degrees in some cases.
Wow! How can liquid metal get that far on the card??? Also... Can you actually use liquid metal on the die of the GPU?? I don't think I've ever heard of a non conductive liquid metal paste. Awesome video! Love your work, I wish I could do what you do. Thank you
Meaby try to put your tweezers in to a freezer or something to drop it below ambient temperature. It seems that in ambient temperature it is atleast a bit solid
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t liquid metal contain gallium? If so couldn’t you just make sure it’s not under anything important and then toss the card in the fridge or freezer for like ten minutes to let it harden up and then just pick it off with your tweezers? Not sure if it would work but it made sense in my head…
Give it a good wack and maybe you can cause most of it to break away. Maybe you can put in in a water or oil bath and the surface tension can help remove the junk.
looks like he applied it like a traditional thermal paste. there's too much in there or was sloppy at applying it a drop a decent amount somewhere. the stock cooler would just work fine even with being OC'd. if he really wants to overclock and push it more, should've has just slap a water block there
Outsider question : Can you use low electro-magnetic field to helps catch and release liquid metal??? Or maybe an electrolytes liquid tha could helps moves liquid metal to a cathode or anode. Maybe adding micro-vibration to the board to helps detaching it and getting loose. Any tought??
I did LM on 1080Ti/2080Ti custom hybrids and while you get a few degrees C drop, it's really risky if you're not careful, it's a PITA to clean off and stains everything! LOL I even did this on a 3700X/Wraith Prism for fun LOL but I just used good thermal paste on my 3090 this time!
The application just looks plain sloppy. A shame, really. I did apply a coating of nail polish to insulate the SMDs surrounding the die just to make sure nothing'd short out.
