MyPC8MyBrain

@Mr. Fox I couldn't agree more, I hate that millennials MS execs think that a personal computer should behave like a smartphone. I have to spend so much time on a brand new system just to get it working right. my prospective is not how much time I spend to get it to work rather afterwards when it is setup to my liking. and the fact that undoing the nonsense MS is doing is possible in win11 while retaining latest technology and compatibility.

personally i don't get the point in deleding then slapping IHS back on instead of direct die application. in the past i used this Permatex 22072 Ultra Black Maximum Oil Resistance RTV Silicone Gasket Maker, small drop in each corner same as Mr. Fox advice. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HBIBOY all laptop these days use direct die for additional 20c savings over having an IHS, the main reason people placed the IHS back on is to compensate for the height, today there are plates specifically for that, click the video below to see a bench with one of these applied to a recent desktop 13900 cpu.

looks like there's only performance chassis for the 7x80 line.

the 7870 layout looks the same as the 7770, i bet one could swap the board and components. they kept the same exact thermal design and a 240w power supply.

i think you have the wrong image for the 7670, dGpu footprint seems similar, its also the same dGpu and footprint in the 7770.

did you ever do a clean install or you running base OEM image? if you are with OEM image your problem could be rooted there.

I have nothing against your stub solution, as you said its just HDMI sound driver. I cant recall what brought up the stub solution, I just remember something was acting up for you prior. the point i was trying to make is its clear that something is slowly creeping up on you there. i was just trying to draw your attention to possibly a pattern you maybe overlooked that could have started way back.

i think you're chasing chasing the wrong lead. if the SD card itself was bad you'd get read or write errors not PCIE errors. it seems to me that everything started after you created a stub for NVidia device. something happened that made you do that first, then two weeks later you notice the system is over heating. and now this PCIE issue.

The way I do repasting is similar to what you described up until the cleaning portion. From there, I use electrical tape all around the CPU and dGPU silicon die as close as I can. I then create a flat layer of paste that covers the entire die evenly. After that, I remove the tape, which leaves a perfect flat two-millimeter layer of paste perfectly on the die. The next step is critical, which is mounting back. Do not just tighten it down based on number order. Place the entire mount gently in its place, using its screws as guides. I like to go over each screw and turn it counterclockwise until I hear it pop on top of its screw slot. I do that for all screws to ensure that they all start in the same position. Then, go by the numbers, tightening them back, but only do a 1/4 turn at a time, going around until they are all tight. This ensures that the plates are not deflecting the paste to one side or the other as it's being seated back.

Linus Torvalds (Father of Linux OS) and Linus Sebastian (LTT) are not the same person. Linus Benedict Torvalds - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds Linus Gabriel Sebastian - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Sebastian it is, if the system is acting up with sleep power options simply uninstall and reinstall display driver.

i wasn't referring to the pumps, the lines into the rad are sucking air back into the loop because the in/outlet are sucking from the top (if I'm not mistaken) instead of the bottom, air bubbles will trap and expand at the highest point which is where your inlet/outlets are, if you flip the rad upside-down so inlet and outlet are at the bottom, air will still tarp at the top but you will be circulating from the bottom without air,

this and few other pics you posted of your system are making my OCD acting up. you should raise your external res at least above the highest line point inside the case. you have huge air pockets you will not be able to get rid of, which interns reducing your cooling efficiency significantly. your external rad from the limited views i was able to catch is also setup incorrectly, your inlet outlets should be at the bottom not the top (it would be wise to flip it upside down).

i find it hard to accept that in one month span paste could lose so much of its efficiency. maybe the fan/paste is not the smoking gun after all. did you somehow enabled hybrid mode by mistake? when you said you dual boot and see the same behavior in another OS that pretty much narrows it down to either misplaced bios setting or some odd hardware issue that might been creeping in slowly.

maybe its my age but i do not hear my fans working at all when on cool, i can never tell unless im in a heavy load situation. or maybe its just the acoustic differences in our environments, I'm in fairly wide open area with no clutter around. i also think all the curve in the plans (accept maybe ultra) are outdated and not really suitable for the newer gen cpu's. indeed cool also caps dGpu, i run a script to switch modes.