While on the subject of thermals if you really wanted to get down to the root of the cooling issue you'll have to either use thin copper shims or mill out part of the heatsink so the taller components don't prevent full contact with the gc3355 chips. If you chose to mill out part of the heatsink you will also notice many of the capacitors around the gc3355 chips are the same height if not just a tad higher so those will need to be insulated to prevent electrical contact with the heatsink.
Shims are easier
NSt this is what I am going to do and also put a thin layer of paste on the on the bottom...
Zig made a good point I TOTALLY forgot about the short out part, If I lay a shrim directly on the tope gridseed wouldnt this short it out? Wouldnt it be soo soooooo close to the pins that a single touch and fry it? how are people with shrims putting these on the top, Id love to see a picture
In order to avoid shorting out any components, thereby ruining your miner, you need to have a pad / insulator between the top of the chips and the shim. Letting the shim touch the bottom plate of the top heat sink is inconsequential, electrically speaking.
Be aware that the more shim thickness you put in there, the higher the risk of crushing a chip or breaking a pin/s where they connect the chip to the copper traces.
Torque the screws evenly and do not over tighten them what ever you do.
That's all I did with the stock pads in there, was evenly tighten and torque the screws.
Honestly, I know some of the pods are pretty messed up requiring some intervention but I believe it is unnecessary in most cases to even mess with changing out the pads or adding heat sink paste. It has nothing to do with HW errors in any case, IMO. The pads are non-conductive by default. It's the gap between certain components that cause a difference in a minute amount of emf capacitance between the bottom heat sink plate and the chips on the card. When it's a certain gap, it possibly causes HW errors at certain frequencies due to this capacitive issue. When it's at the ideal gap, the capacitance issue hence HW errors go away.
That's what I think is going on.
Ok So what Ill do then is use a blade and cut the original pad in the shape of the shim, and then let the shim touch the big heat sink bare back .
Id STILL LOVE to morph two pods in to the one.. Not sure if people saw my other post where I did a photo edit and morphed two pods into one removing one of the Top sinks and replacing it with one fan sharing the 2 boards. Basically starting from bottom up, Large Sink > Small Sink (Fan removed on bottom pod) 2nd pod > small sink with 2nd board facing up > Attach the cross member onto the 4 gold screw stands then comes the 1 Fan..ALl the screws line up and its just a matter of putting it together... The pod looks a little longer than the original pod But has 2 boards in there 10 chips and only uses 1 fan.. This -= Less wattage = Less space...
Only thing I wonder is the heat and air flow....
I would love to try this
Yep, sounds like a plan. I think you've got it figured out.
I like the morphing idea. And bathing the chips with air from the fan will work well but sucking air from the chips will probably not work well at all. They need to be bathed/covered/soaked/drenched in cooling air in order to be properly cooled.
Same with blowing instead of sucking air through the fins on the top heat sink. That's the way all heat sinks are cooled. By FORCING air through them, not sucking it. Well, unless they are ducted, then perhaps sucking air through would work.
So.....Nice idea though.
Bed time! Nighty night yall!
sorry wolfy but your wrong here matey.
Some heat sinks remove the hot air from them allowing the cool room temperature air to flow in, create a negative pressure difference - ie graphics card remove the air, i know for a fact the sapphire vapor x does it this way. its more effective to create a negative pressure. Nowadays with processor power some top end heatsinks and fans use a push pull system, to really improve the air flow.
and sorry dont know the link, but there was a review i read while building my water cooled system on different configurations for cooling of the radiator. the most effective cooling was to use a push pull system with the fans mounted in a collar 5-10 cam away from the radiator. the second most effective way was to pull the air through the radiator, again fan mounted 5-10 cm away from radiator.
Just looks at the heat sink, tell me air can cleanly and clearly flow to the chips!? nop no chance, turbulence all the way. will it work yes, will it be efficient and effective not really. to get max cooling and efficiency from your fan flip it over, so it is pulling the air out the system, and lift it away about 5cm or so in a shroud. itll mean lengthening the cable a bit though. fans mounted directly to heatsinks are ineffective, the very nature of a fan cause this, it creates a dead spot right in the middle of the fan, just where the motor is where little or no air hits. lifting the fan removes this dead spot. this is a well known fact, that i assume most serious overclockers know about, but its a common "fault" on factory heatsinks - its all about factory cost, for the AVERAGE user, not an overclocking user.
Basically the grids cool well in stock for stock frequencies. start overclocking these and you should consider doing something to improve cooling, before 3-6 months down the line youve burnt your system out. your pushing the chips and other components past their safe limits, it puts more waer on them. just like your car engine cools fine, but start turbo evrywhere and riding the revs high itll not be long before youve blown the engine.
Overclocking generates more heat and this extra heat need to be removed from the system.
And heck even just say that the chips run really cool anyway overclocked, what harm is it going to do? NONE! if anything itll only help, a cooler chip is a happy chip. itll def last longer.
Although you could always just stick the grids next to a big fan or two, 14cm fans push pull system.
Stock heatsinks in this trade are all CRAP. yeah big enough, but allow fro properly air flow no. look at the usb bitcoin miners and the heatsinks, then think how you would put a fan to blow air over them, then consider where the actual air flow is going. from above it gets blocked by the hub or usb port, from the side the first fin blocks the air flow, as most are vertical fins. simple and cheap. effective yes efficient NO
No, I am not wrong about how fan forced cooling works. Geesh, read a book on the subject and get some experience too! Geesh!
) then recommended to upgrade the thermal pads and cooling. Our overcloking is equiv to hashing bitcoins. Just an after thought i had. so yeah maybe not need to upgrade the cooling but wont hurt, if nothing else peace of mind. besides its what we modders do 
