Due to the MANY, MANY times people ask about this in the forum...

A tutorial about heatsink modding on the V5500

Part 1
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1. Find a see-through polythene bag.
2. Place V5500 into bag and push all the air out the bag.
3. Seal bag with tape.
4. Put into freezer and leave overnight.

Part 2
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1. Find a small flat ended screwdriver.
2. Remove bag from freezer.
3. Rip open bag and QUICKLY and CAREFULLY do the following...
4. Put the screwdriver under one edge of a heatsink and gently pry it off (put a credit card or something similar between the screwdriver and the PCB so you don't damage tracks).
5. Repeat with other heatsink.
(being careful not to knock off resistors, etc...)
6. While the card is still partially frozen - use a stanley knife to scrape off the remaining glue on the VSA-100 chips.
7. Use some fine grit sandpaper to remove the leftover small bits of glue.

Part 3 (tips)
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For heatsink compound - I'd recommend ARCTIC ALUMINA (it's best to use non-electrically conductive compounds if you're a noob, as they will not accidentally short-out components)

Heatsinks...I'd recommend anything by THERMALTAKE...

Be sure you get heatsinks that hace removable fans - so if the fan fails it can be replaced at a later date.

When spreading the compound on the GPU's and RAM chips, use ONLY enough to cover the chips BARELY - remember you're not icing a cake!

That's all folks!

Good luck and BE CAREFUL - try not to total your V5500 in the process!

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There should be a credit card or something similar between the screwdriver and the PCB so the screwdriver doesn't harm the traces when you pop off the heatsinks.

Personally I don't use fridge methods, too. Though I didn't remove heatsinks from VSA-100 chips, I did from other cards (including the Voodoo3 which is probably easier because of the softer conductive material) which had a hard epoxy too. Just lift it up with a screwdriver. Be sure to protect the card itself by using an old creditcard (or something) just like G. Donovan did in the video with the V5 6000.

i use the freezer myself, cold makes the glue brittle, hot you would think would make is soft i guess 

I used the freeze method on my 4500 and 5500 and worked like a charm.

I didn't even have to apply any force, it came right off with a small twitch of the screwdriver

I take good care of my baby.

I used a cc between the screwdriver and the heatsink, I've let it sit outside the puter for a day in a mediocre warm room, so all moist would be off of it.

Then I cleaned it up real nicely and applied the new heatsinks to it and let it dry for a day.

After the installation, it now runs just fine. Already had it run 3 hours of benchmarks @ 190Mhz and she's doing great, no hickups, no artifacts, no nothing.
Heatsinks on the ram get warm. so they do their job, but in warm I mean warmer thenm room temp, but not much.

In 3dmark99 scores are the following:

@ 166Mhz = 10900
@ 180Mhz = 11040
@ 190Mhz = 11182

like elfuego said...but you cannot "twiddle" the heatsink from the chip coz 3dfx used very ugly and adamantine glue...

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Freezer works best, see my video here-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kGhIg58zOY

15 minutes in the freezer works great.