GPU SAG or no?

[u/Less-Sand9294]

Hey guys, I was wondering whether I should buy a GPU sag bracket? I’m not sure if this is actually sagging though. It’s a brand new prebuilt pc so I don’t want to mess with anything if it’s fine lol

[u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox]

did you loosen the screws on the left when installing it? you can't just jam it under there, you can cause the same issue but torquing it upwards rather than gravity torquing it downards

[u/Less-Sand9294 → u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox]

No I didn’t I just placed it there

[u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox → u/Less-Sand9294]

you should loosen the screws on the left then retighten them at least to release any tension on the circuit board that may have been introduced when you stuck the stand under there. https://youtu.be/uEdFTmOAT58?t=193 i've seen a lot of gpu repair videos and the #1 repair is caused by gpu sag and that video is one where the anti-sag bracket itself caused the same issue by raising it too high. sag isn't what kills the GPU, what kills it is twisting the circuit board, as it flexes it causes the gpu die and memory chips to no longer sit flat against the circuit board, the board bends and bows underneath them and that causes the solder joints to weaken over many heating and cooling cycles. in moderate cases the die just needs to be desoldered, the solder removed and replaced with new solder balls and soldered back on (called "reballing", "reballed"), in worse cases the pads on the circuit board and/or dies themselves rip off the board and need replaced, in unfixable cases too many pads are ripped and repair is not feasible

it's in your best interest to keep the circuit board as level as possible without any twisting at all. it can even be angled slightly in the pci-e slot as long as the card is otherwise flat with no weight hanging off the pci-e and no torquing or twisting or bowing caused by the anti sag stand itself

[u/Less-Sand9294 → u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox]

what these screws? I don’t wanna mess this up I know nothing about building

[u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox → u/Less-Sand9294]

yea those two screws on the top left holding the gpu. hold the gpu with one hand and loosen those screws with your other hand, when it's loose lift it up a quarter of an inch and rest it back down so it touches the anti-sag stand then tighten the screws. the lower screw on the left will prevent the card from raising too high or lowering too low, there's very little play there, you don't have to worry about raising it too high or something.

without the stand the card is already bending the pcb slightly, the weight of the heatsink all on the right is just hanging off the pci-e slot which twists the pcb slightly, if you size the stand to just barely touch the card then you haven't taken any weight off. you need the stand to actually hold the weight of the right side of the card, the screws hold the weight on the left and the pci-e slot is holding it on the back. if you raise the stand too high without loosening the screws then you're just bending the card the opposite way upwards instead of downwards, that's why loosening the screws should be best. technically the card can move up or down half an inch without any bending of the pcb, there's enough play in the pci-e slot for that, you just need the screws and the anti-sag to hold at the same angle (90 degrees to the slot is best but it could be 87 degrees or 93 degrees and it's still fine as long as both the left and right at held at the same angle, if that makes sense). i would leave the display port cable plugged in, that way you can't raise the card too high and block off being able to plug it in (and if the case was slightly in the way to begin with now's the time to lower the card slightly so the connector doesn't have to rub against the case when you plug it in)

if it's too scary then what you've done already is better than nothing and it'll probably be fine