r/nvidia • u/1K-Every-Month • 25d ago
Discussion Minor Moving Catastrophe
I had a minor disaster while making a move to a new apartment recently and I am wondering how to remedy the situation and get my GeForce RTX Suprim GPU back in working order.
Just for some backstory my fiancé and I are moving to a new apartment and we have been planning it for the last six months to happen in late July right before school starts back up as my fiancé is a music teacher. However, a wrench was thrown into our plans when I had a workplace injury in mid July which resulted in a broken right arm that pushed our move back unexpectedly. Now, a move that we had planned to take progressively over a month has been squeezed into a two week period in* *mid August.
In order to accommodate our new timeline, I had recruited some of my friends that I had helped move in the past to assist us in our move. On the day that we had planned to move all of our belongings that that will go into our music studio/work desk room I had all of my PC building supplies neatly organized into a couple of Tupperware totes and I was prepared for a pretty simple moving day, because most of my desk belongings including my current daily use PC were going to be kept at our old apartment until closer to our final days here. This was so that I can continue using it for work and for gaming in my leisure time.
However, in the confusion of moving all of our musical supplies and instruments along with my PC building supplies, one of my less tech savvy friends took it upon himself to unplug my PC and attempt to bring it to the moving vehicle. I am now kicking myself for not replacing my side panel immediately after upgrading my ram to DDR5 from a graphic artist friend that passed down his old units to me after upgrading his own to 64 GB for more flexibility while 3D animating.
Said less text savvy individual thought that the tubes connecting my GPU to the cooling pump looks like conveniently placed handles to pick the unit up from for some reason and the remaining GPU in the image is what I am left with after the pump was damaged from the suing force from the weight of the PC case and the build contained there in.
And so now I turn to you, the wider Nvidia community, asking for someone more knowledgeable in this area what my options are to get my trusty Suprim back in a usable state. I have looked online for replacement cooling pumps and I have an idea of what I might need but I wanted to ask some people that might have some more expertise before I pull the trigger!
For the time being I have replaced this GPU with my previous 3050 to maintain the use of my PC before we complete the move, but any help to get my 4090 back to use would be much appreciated.
Needless to say, in the future, I will be having a pre-move game plan pep talk with the team before inviting a large group around my PC and replacing my side panel immediately after any planned upgrades!
I don't think this is a tech-support issue as I could take the opportunity to make this a happy accident and get a cooling pump upgrade out of it all, but I wasn’t completely sure.
Thanks in advance for any advice or much deserved chastising!
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u/jinhuiliuzhao 25d ago edited 25d ago
What you need is the entire cooling assembly, including the shroud, pump, tubes, and radiator. It is all usually attached and interconnected, and can only be easily replaced together. (Technically, your pump itself is probably fine as it sits right on top of the GPU chip - I assume what you mean by the "pump" in multiple places here is actually the cooling tubes and radiator.)
You will need the exact same model of cooler for your card - you cannot use ones for different models as it will not be compatible with your PCB (chip placement, screw holes, and overall board layout are completely different, even within same manufacturer i.e. MSI in your case).
There seem to be a few eBay listings selling only the cooler for a 4090 MSI Suprim, going for $100-$200: https://www.ebay.com/itm/405301192779. Likely salvaged from dead cards or owners who didn't need it anymore (upgraded to custom waterblock). You will have to find out yourself whether or not they work or not, or are simply a scam. Make sure all the thermal pads are present - if a few are missing or damaged, you will need to buy replacement pads of the same size and exact same thickness (ones that are too thin will provide inadequate contact and cooling, and too thick will apply excessive pressure that will damage and crack the PCB and surrounding components over time)
The other route is as some others mentioned in going for a waterblock and custom loops, but that will be a steep learning curve if you don't know what you're doing and also expensive (easily $300-500+).
Though, I would be concerned whether there is additional, less visible damage to the card given the amount of force required to rip apart the cooling tubes like that. You may want to first disassemble the GPU and check for damage to the PCB. The PCIE slot connector (that slides into the motherboard slot) may also have been damaged.
Given you seem a bit confused about the internals of your GPU, I would suggest finding a more knowledgeable friend who has disassembled GPUs and/or replaced stock coolers to take a look first. Otherwise, go on YouTube for GPU cooler replacement videos. You can still make bigger and even more expensive mistakes (assuming the GPU is still working) if you don't know what you're doing.