How to clean the graphics card of your pc step by step

When your graphics card is too old or has serious cooling problems, it is recommended to completely disassemble it and clean its interior. In this article we will teach you how to clean the graphics card of your PC step by step.

We will also help you to know when it is necessary to carry out this maintenance process, what alternative solutions there are to this task, in addition to teaching you how to disassemble and clean your graphics card. Go for it!

Index of contents

When should I clean my graphics card?

Obviously, there is no set period in which cleaning is 'required'. Rather, it depends on the user, the specific model and the conditions in which said graph has been. Anyway, we leave you with some signs that could indicate that it is time to do it, or rather to check if everything is going well with the temperatures of your GPU:

• The graphics temperature in games is higher than normal. For example, if your graph used to be at 70 or 75 degrees at full load, and now it is much hotter than normal. His thing is that from time to time you check that everything is going well in the temperatures. Nor is it a matter of obsessing over it. Taking a look at the graphics card or even the interior of your PC in general, you notice a large accumulation of dust that suggests that the graphics would have serious problems cooling properly. It could also be a cause of crashes, restarts or drops in gaming performance or other programs. Although there are a million causes of this type of problem, the temperature of the graph is a factor to consider. The next point teaches you to know the temperature of your graph.

Cleaning the graph can be a somewhat extreme solution, first of all we will teach you what you can do by software to try easy and safe solutions. If they don't work, you probably have to clean it.

The first point is the most conclusive of all, because even if there is some dirt or you have a somewhat old graphic, it is possible that it continues to cool perfectly and that you do a great job for nothing. In our case, we did this cleanup for the demo, but the graphics card was actually in pretty good shape, just with some surface dust and adequate temperatures.

Also, we do not recommend that you do this while the graphic is under warranty. Depending on the manufacturer, you may risk losing it. Also, periods are typically 2 years, so waiting for it to end may be a good idea. Otherwise, when you buy a second-hand graphic, especially if it is several years old, it may be a good idea to give it a complete maintenance, unless the seller has recently done so.

How do I know the temperature of my graphics card?

Checking the temperature of the graphics card is extremely easy, and just so you know, there are things you can do to fix temperature issues without opening the graphics card. Let's go see them.

Cleaning the graphics card is a relatively complex process that requires special care. Therefore, theirs is to do it only when it is really important, that is, when the temperatures of our graph playing or in stress tests are too high.

For this reason, it is crucial that you know how to check the temperatures of your graphics card so that you do not carry out the process in vain.

There is a great diversity of programs that allow you to check the temperatures of the equipment. We are going to present you two very suitable options:

HWinfo64

First of all we have HWinfo64, which is one of the many temperature monitoring programs that are available. We have presented you with this program and no other as it allows you to create a data record, which you can easily check later. In other words, the program records every second the different metrics of your equipment (including temperatures) and translates it into a file that you can then read with an additional program in the convenient format of a graph.

So, this is valid to, for example, start playing for a long time while the program is recording the data, and then you will have a file in which you will keep all the log for the time you have had it running, which you can consult or even share with other people.

To activate the log, you will have to click on the button that we show you in the image, inside the program's sensors window. Then, it will start taking the records in the route that you indicate (do not close the program) until you hit the same button again to stop recording them.

So, to read the generated.csv file in a comfortable way, you will have to download the Generic Log Viewer program where you will already have access to absolutely all the necessary data.

MSI Afterburner

The second option is MSI Afterburner and it stands out for allowing us to directly display this data in game. Again, there are more programs but this is one of the most used and we recommend you install it as it will be of help in later sections.

In order for the data to be displayed in batch, we must go to the program configuration section and in the Monitoring tab you have to select the measurement that you would like to show and put a tick in the " Show information on screen " option. Then, it will appear “ in OSD ” in the properties of said measurement.

If the information is not seen in the game, you must open the RivaTuner Statistics Server or RTSS program (included with Afterburner) and check that the options indicated above are checked. The rest can be configured to your liking ( remember that RTSS must be open, even in the background, to display the data )

Determining that something is wrong

Let's summarize what data you should check to see if something is wrong and what are the appropriate results. We recommend trying this both with games (better the ones that demand the most than the ones you have, or the ones you use the most) and with stress tests like FurMark.

• Core Rate and Frame Rate Per Second (FPS): Here it is especially interesting in tests like FurMark, by applying a consistent load to the graphics card. If you see noticeable drops in core frequency over the course of the test, you may be suffering from thermal throttling ( intentionally lowering the frequency to keep temperatures at bay ). In games, another thing you could try would be to see if there are FPS drops associated with drops in the core frequency (Core clock), another possible indicator of throttling. Temperature (ºC): probably the most determining factor. If you have temperatures under load between 70 and 80 degrees, these are usually normal, especially in times such as summer. If they exceed 80 degrees, we recommend starting with the solutions that we propose in the next section (which do not involve opening the graph, to see if it improves). If it's over 90, it's a problem and you should start applying the solutions.

What to do without having to open the graphics card: modifying the fan curve

If you think you are having the problems that we already mentioned, then before opening the graphics card we recommend you try a solution: modify the fan curve making it more aggressive, thus giving greater cooling power to the GPU at the expense of higher loudness In some cases it will be greatly increased, but it is worth doing the test before getting into the process of opening it.

The program we will use for this will be MSI Afterburner, which gives you three options regarding the fan speed. The first option is to control the speed with the default profile of the graph, which is normal. The second way is to set a fixed speed and the third way is to use your own custom fan profile that varies depending on the temperature.

We are going to teach you the last two methods, starting with the second. It's as simple as disabling the Auto button on the fan speed tab, and adjusting the slider to the desired speed. Ideally it could be left at a fairly high level for gaming, but our recommendation is the next method of being automatic.

The last method is the most comfortable, since you configure once and you should not worry anymore ( unless the graph continues to have cooling problems, of course ). To do this you just have to go to the program settings and, in the fan tab , adjust your own profile. Then, you must accept it and leave the program with the automatic mode activated and with the option 'User define' activated.

The custom fan curve will only work while Afterburner is open! Also check that it is indeed working.

If you are wondering how you should configure the fan curve to be optimal, the one we have used is an example of a relatively aggressive curve. You must look at the temperatures of the axis below and the speed that corresponds to the axis on the left. For example, in our case when it reaches about 85 degrees temperature, the fan will be at 100% speed.

Ideally, when high temperatures are reached, exceeding 75 or 80 degrees, have a high fan speed, between 60 and 100%. We can't say for sure which is the best profile, since you have to play around looking for the most optimal configuration to offer a balance between good cooling and silence, since 100% graphics card fans are usually extremely noisy. Again, we recommend trying different fan configurations and their behavior in games and stress tests, looking at the metrics that we indicated in the previous section.

You can also try to make the cooling of your box more aggressive (it depends on the plate and the fans you have), and do temperature tests with the side cover of the box open and closed.

If this has not worked for you and you still have high temperatures, or if you still believe that your graphics card needs a good cleaning, stay with us, we are going to teach you how to open it.

How to unmount and clean the graphics card

Remember that you carry out this entire process at your own risk. The chance of it wreaking havoc is extremely low, but it exists. We are not responsible if you make a mistake.

Well, if you have decided to clean your graphics card, let's go with it.

There are a wide variety of assemblers and models on the market, each one is different and has its own way of opening the graphics card. We have done it with a Sapphire R9 380X Nitro , and we are going to teach you a process that is usually similar in most graphics cards, but there are differences between many models. For example, the most recent ones usually provide facilities to remove the fans and clean them. We recommend that you support yourself with a disassembly video for your exact model (you can search YouTube for 'teardown' of your graphic model).

We will start by removing the rear screws of the graphics card, in our case we have a backplate. The question is should we withdraw it or not, the truth is that it is not necessary in our case. Although there may be dust there, no hassle is necessary. We have withdrawn it but, we insist, it is not necessary.

The first thing we are going to do is to exclusively remove the screws that are supporting the housing of the graphics card that has the fans. They differ from those that support the heatsink because they are the ones that would have to be removed to remove the backplate, while in the case of the screws corresponding to the heatsink they have nothing to do with the backplate. On other graphics cards everything would come together.

Once those screws have been removed, we carefully extract the housing with the fans, remembering to disconnect its connector before anything else.

Once this is done, we are faced with a dilemma that you will have to solve. It is about whether or not it is worth continuing to disassemble the graph. We explain: To remove the dust from the heatsinks it is not necessary to remove them, it can be done without removing them outside. The fact of removing them will make cleaning more comfortable, but if we remove it, it would be mainly to be able to replace the thermal paste of our graphics card. So it's time for you to consider whether or not to replace it, something you probably shouldn't do if the graph isn't too old.

Well, if you are going to clean only the heatsink, everything is correct. There are several methods to clean the dust: the use of compressed air ( remember to use it in the correct orientation without spilling liquid, and immobilize the fans while we remove the dust ), a brush or a vacuum cleaner… For heatsinks like this one, it would probably come with a brush, although compressed air cans are cheap and can be used to clean the entire PC, or maybe you already have a compressor at home.

If you are going to continue, we continue.

Obviously, don't continue if you don't have thermal paste at home.

Now to remove the heatsink the first thing we do is remove the missing screws from the back. We had already removed them all.

The different thermal pads in our review of the AORUS GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme

Now, the more likely it is that when we try to remove the heatsink this will not be possible without using a lot of force. Don't do too much! If the heatsink doesn't come off easily, it's likely that its thermal pads are too close to the components it is cooling, so you need to apply heat to the graphics card to make them peel off a bit. We give you two options: Either you use a hair dryer, or before disassembling the graphics card you pass a stress test like Furmark, which could also be used. We have given you the hair dryer.

To see where the thermal pads are, you can take a look at the sides of the graphics card, they are easy to distinguish. Some graphics cards do not have thermal pads.

Also remember that your heatsink may not be coming out due to a missing screw to remove..

So, if you use the hair dryer like we do, you have to apply heat little by little and continually check if the thermal pads are giving way minimally, if you see that they expand or begin to separate from the graphic, it may already be ready and that you can already extract it without using too much force.

Once you remove everything, we can now replace the thermal paste. But first of all, you have to remove the old one. You should use a roll of kitchen paper (some people use cotton, although it usually leaves a lot of remains) and alcohol. If possible, isopropyl alcohol and not the traditional one used for wounds. In any case, an alcohol as pure as possible.

Soak the paper or cotton with the alcohol and, carefully, proceed to remove the thermal paste from both the heatsink and the graphic. We do not have photos of this because when we did we had already cleaned it.

Arctic MX-4 Carbon Microparticle Thermal Compound, Thermal Paste for any CPU Fan - 4 grams € 7.29 Noctua NT-H1 3.5g, Thermal Paste (3.5g) € 7.90

Once it is clean in the best possible way, it is time to add the new thermal paste. As we said, you should have thermal paste at home, and to be of decent quality. We recommend the Arctic MX2 and MX4 as an affordable option, although the market is full of good options. Remember that it is non-conductive of electricity in case you mess it up a bit?

As you should know, there are different ways to apply thermal paste, and there is generally no consensus on the best method to use. It is not a big problem, since it will hardly generate differences in temperature, so you can use the method that you want. We have used to spread it evenly.

The best example we can give you is the one found in our article on the application of thermal paste that you should read. There is also talk of graphics cards.

Well, once you have applied the thermal paste, you will have to perform the reverse procedure and reassemble the graphic carefully. In the photo above we show you how we put it, although we have exceeded the quantity a bit, server failure, which is not of great importance either.

Final words and conclusion on graphics card cleaning

In summary, in certain cases the process of cleaning a graphics card is almost mandatory. However, in many other cases (most, in fact) it is not necessary to disassemble it, but through software there are several things we can do.

We hope that this article on how to clean the graphics card of your PC has taught you to give a new life to your graphics card. In the event that your problems are not fixed, you will surely be interested in reading our guide to the best graphics cards on the market.

If you have any questions, either during the process or if you simply do not know if you should disassemble it or not, we help you in the comments and in our hardware forum.