Is it safe to place heat sink such that it joins multiple voltage regulators?

This is quite possibly a stupid question, but the GPU cooler I bought leaves me with little choice but to position heat sinks such that they straddle and join multiple voltage regulators. Is this a bad (ie. disastrous) path to take?

The heat sinks are standard aluminium so they will obviously conduct. However, the voltage regulators seem to have some kind of cover over them.

The instructions that came with the cooler are completely unhelpful in this regard.

Here is a picture of the voltage regulators on my board:

enter image description here

And here is how I was planning on configuring the heat sinks:

enter image description here

me--

Posted 2012-07-25T13:18:38.403

Reputation: 235

2A picture would be nice. – James Mertz – 2012-07-25T13:21:41.210

1Pictures added. – me-- – 2012-07-25T13:31:31.323

Answers

Those are actually inductors. The Voltage regulator is basically a LRC circuit with a mofset controller

enter image description here

The purpose of these are to:

The Voltage Regulator Module or VRM is a device that performs DC-DC conversion (DC = Direct Current). This conversion is fundamental because many chips, like the GPU in our case, do not operate at 12V or 5V but at lower voltages like 1V. Then devices to reduce the voltage are required and these devices are the famous VRMs. So a VRM is a DC-DC converter. The other goal of a VRM is to provide a constant DC output voltage as well as providing a lot of current (amperes) to the GPU.

Picture and quote courtesy of Geeks3d

The reason that I bring this up, is that adding a heatsink to the inductors, probably isn't going to be all that advantageous. Adding a heatsink to the mofset controllers, would probably prove more useful, especially if you plan on overclocking your GPU.

As far as your original concern, I don't think that there's an issue of spanning the heatsinks across the inductors, as they are typically in a protective covering that is of high resistance.

James Mertz

Posted 2012-07-25T13:18:38.403

Reputation: 24 787

Thanks. Are you able to identify the VRs in my photo? Are they the square black components under the capacitor clusters near the bottom of my photo? – me-- – 2012-07-25T14:54:20.127

@user13414 http://imgur.com/o53wp

– James Mertz – 2012-07-25T15:17:19.893

Turns out, putting heat sinks on any of those components wouldn't fit anyway, so I left them without. I just put sinks on the RAM chips. – me-- – 2012-07-25T17:11:12.037

My first concern would be one of introducing noise into the environment if you do this. Noise would come from alternating current though, and not direct current. The voltage regulators will be regulating DC, so there is no issue there. Based off of your picture you won't hurt anything. I thought you question was, "My GPU cooler will overhang the GPU and make contact with some voltage regulators." This will work without issue.

Everett

Posted 2012-07-25T13:18:38.403

Reputation: 5 425

This is really a comment. I suggest either getting more facts and updating your answer or migrating this to an actual comment. – James Mertz – 2012-07-25T13:32:30.340

There, now it's an answer. – Everett – 2012-07-25T13:40:09.600

It doesn't really matter if the components are passing AC or DC. The only potential issue, with putting a conductive heatsink across components with a conductive case, would be creating a ground loop, if the cases were grounded. This still shouldn't be an issue, as heatsinks are often shared across components, even AC triacs, etc.

– Jonathon Reinhart – 2012-07-25T14:25:07.087

Those aren't voltage regulators; they're far too big. I believe they are inductors, which should produce very little to no heat whatsoever. Have you run this, and seen if they even get warm?

That leads to the real question: Why do you think you need to put heat sinks on them? If the manufacturer didn't, and you're not causing them to operate any differently, this is a complete waste of time.

Jonathon Reinhart

Posted 2012-07-25T13:18:38.403

Reputation: 2 917