Cleaning my desktop HP Pavillion Elite, model 190t

[Bodhi4]

I am cleaning my desktop and will be replacing the thermal paste and reassembling once I finish cleaning the graphics card and replacing paste and pads there. I am relying on info from old manuals ( hard to find) and instructions found on internet . I have met an obstacle in that I cannot get the plastic cowl/cover off the graphics card and do not want to damage any delicate parts. 

The card is GTX GeForce 260 OEM, model P898. When I get the plastic off, safely, I expect to clean the fan and replace paste and pads i find, and proceed with replacing paste under "southbridge" thingee and then reassembling to see if the computer still works.

I have removed the screws in back of  the graphics card ( no backplate) and kept them separate on a non-static pad I bought for this endeavor. I can't see any place obvious where cover is still held in place. I would appreciate advice on where they are because videos I've seen do not show this.  It's probably too simple to show, but I don't have this knowledge and am careful.

I am not trying to remove the motherboard, but cleaned it best I could with brushes, canned air and 99.9% isopropyl.

I have cleaned CPU heatsink, chip, and "northbridege" chip and heatsink, and VMR(?) heatsink ( 70 x 15 mm) that had a silicon pad and 16 chips under it. I have silicon pads coming in various thickness. I measure old one at 1mm. If you have correct thickness, or could confirm, I'd be grateful. Thank you for any advice. Not a gamer, I bought this for editing home movies.

[WAWood]

I'm impressed by your determination to clean everything, but removing the fan cover on the graphics card is totally unnecessary.  I have been cleaning PCs for a LONG time and all you need to do on a graphics card is clean the bus contacts and use a can of compressed air to spray into the fan housing.  That will clean out any dust.  It does not need to be absolutely clean.

[Bodhi4]

Thank you for your reply. It's old... the computer was purchased in about 2009, and this would be the first time it's had the thermal paste changed. Does the graphic card not need that?  I prefer not to, to be honest.

It is  Model P898, Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 ( OEM ),  I didn't know what OEM meant, but i believe it might be a modification of GPX 200 series peculiar to this system.  Just learning these things, I'd like to keep it alive... like an old friend.

Thank you.

[Bodhi4]

This all started with artifact and 'display recovery and shut-down' errors. I bought a new graphics card that someone recommended as replacement, Nvidia GT 710.   Box says it's compatible with Windows 7 and Windows NT, but Old Geekster was pointing out the old motherboards not using UEFI would make modern cards laregly incompatible... hence the effort to clean and preserve this one as first step.

[Bodhi4]

My motherboard is Pegatron PN:  554415-002.  Perhaps it was advanced enough back in the day to take this upgrade?

[Bodhi4 · Accepted solution]

Never mind, I figured it out myself. All clean, and OwlTree pad asortment arrived today.  Thanks, though.

[WAWood]

The problem with new motherboards and old equipment is not the UEFI vs CSM (Legacy) issue, but is instead the bus issue.

New cards are mostly PCI-e cards, generally 1x, 2x and 16 x (bus widths) and the newer motherboard have so many features built in that you have to spend a LOT of money to get a board with more than 2 slots.

While the video card slots are often compatible with older cards, the other add-on cards that need PCI slots will find no such slots on modern motherboards,

Even stuff like floppy drives have become obsolete, so there is no longer a jack on the motherboard to take the floppy drive cable.

And, memory slots change with every gen of motherboard that comes out.  Many today are DDR5 -- making my recent DDR4 memory obsolete already.