Removing the stock GF4 ti Heatsink

Author: tantric Intro: A lot of people have had problems removing the stock HSF of their GF4ti cards. Hope this guide will be helpful to those having problems removing the stock GF4 HSF's. Disclaimer: any modifications done to you're hardware will void you're warranty. follow this guide at you're own risk!!! Preparation: a thermal compound/paste is applied between the HSF and GPU you need to soften or loosen this material before attempting to remove the HSF. I used a blowdryer to heat up the HSF. heating up the HSF will eventually soften the thermal compound, which makes the task of removing the HSF easier. Materials Needed: -long nose pliers -alcohol -cotton buds -replacement HSF -philips screwdriver Inno3d GF4 Ti 4200 8x open up you're PC and remove the video card. note the two spring clips which holds the HSF to the videocard. Turn the card upside down and notice the anchors on the spring clips. you'll need to pinch the two anchors to loosen the spring clips. use the long nose pliers to pinch the anchors, i tried using my fingers to pinch the anchors and got surprised when the spring clips loosened up easily. this is the part where some people had a hard time with, removing the spring clips. **TIP:you do not need to push on the spring clips while pinching the anchors. heres a picture of the spring clips released. i noticed that even when the clips were removed the HSF is still stuck to the GPU. with a little twist the HSF came off without any problems, you can check if the thermal paste has loosened by slightly twisting the HSF if it moves, then its a sign that the paste has loosened and its safe to remove the HSF. the HSF removed... the replacement, a Thermaltake GF4 Copper Cooler. before installing the new cooler clean the GPU using alcohol and cotton buds to remove the old thermal goop. there's an included pack of thermal paste with the TT VGA cooler. put an ample amount of it on the top of the GPU before installing the new cooler. nice...