Conversion from Nvidia FE cooler to Alphacool ice block
As a guide for the disassembly of the Founders Edition cooler I used Igor’s review of the 3090 FE and the colleagues from GamersNexus teardown guide. Compared to Founders Editions of previous generations, the construction has become much simpler, without screws in screws and hundreds of individual parts. You just have to know a few tricks to get the magnetic screw covers off the backplate. The procedure is a bit like depilating with wax strips – stick it on, smooth it out, and peel it off with a jerk – but it works quite well.
Once the screws on the back are exposed, they can be loosened and the backplate removed. You can see that Nvidia really didn’t skimp with the thermal pads, even the back of the PCB where the power supply is located is cooled. Also, the impression image on the memory chips looks even and neat. These are all indications that the fancy thin backplate is simply overtaxed with the dissipation of the waste heat.
Now we have to disconnect the various connectors for fan, LED, loosen the screws around the GPU and on the slot bracket and the board can be removed from the cooler relatively effortlessly. Again, the contact pattern seems to match all components, only the 4 memory chips near the display outputs look a bit pale. Potentially this was the culprit for the high memory junction temperatures.
Regardless of that, if you have the small board alone in front of you and then consider how much computing power is in it, the Founders Edition design from Nvidia is already very impressive. In addition, the extra width of the PCB towards the SLi fingers is not really needed and only serves to simplify the installation of the cooler. The R9 Nano as the spiritual father of high-end graphics cards in ITX format sends its regards.
Now it’s time for cleaning. 99% isopropyl alcohol is my measure of choice, first with kitchen paper for the rough residue and then with a microfiber cloth for the fine work. As always, caution is the mother of SMD components!
That’s it for disassembly. I now reassemble the Founders Edition cooler with a layer of plastic wrap between the components to preserve the thermal pads and keep them from drying out. This way the stock cooler is tidy with all the pads, screws, covers, etc. and can be stored safely in case you would need it again in the future. Otherwise, it’s just a glorified paperweight/coaster.
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