I have rescued so many gpus by heatsink switching sometimes adding pads sometimes adding huge fans.
lots of rescue methods.
I am older and my eyes are not as good as they were back around 2005 or so. so I do not try solder fixing.
but playing around with heatsinks I can still do.
I am putting a ton of gpus back online I am back to 100 plus cards.
power is cheap so I am making decent money again.
Well thanks again for sharing your knowledge.
I had a bin of old GPUs that no longer worked for whatever reason, some didn't run at all, others had high heat issues. I have swapped fans and replaced thermal paste and pads before, but the idea of the metal heat-block being bad was one that never occurred to me. Well now I managed to save a couple more from the landfill.