Removing the heatsink from a 3870

[MagnusLL]

I've received the necessary parts to put my Powercolor 3870 PCS cards under water cooling. The problem is I can't seem to remove the stock heatsink put on the RAM chips (which I'd like to replace with individual heatsinks). It seems glued to the chips, although to tell the truth I didn't really apply any significant amount of force to avoid any potential damage.

If anyone has any experience on getting rid of those heatsinks, I'd appreciate any suggestion you might throw in my direction...

[sneekypeet]

warm them up first with say a hairdryer. you may need some force to remove then still, but the heat should help with the amount needed.

Just make sure the screws are out as well b4 you start pulling!

[oli_ramsay]

I think you should heat them up first with a hairdryer or whatever, but twist them off, not pull just incase you take the actual RAM off as well as the ramsink.

[philbrown23]

how are they mounted?? can you post a pic?? I lnow my HIS cards have one piece for all them mem that work with 3 screws and it's prety hard to get off, but I just work it back and fourt till it starts to give and then pull it off.

[MagnusLL]

There's one single piece over all the 8 memory blocks; no screws anywhere, it's just fixed with the damned thermal paste.

Managed to remove it from one of my cards anyway; warmed the piece, started moving it back and forth until it gave up. Took a good while, but I was very careful to avoid any damage to the card. Now it's time to get rid of the fan and mount the waterblock, then I'll do the same with the other card. Thanks for the suggestions.

[freaksavior]

^^ what they said, heat it up.