Anything I can do?

[shadowbreaker513]

I used to have a 9800 pro. I bought an Arctic Cooling Silencer Rev. 3 to install on it. It seemed to install fine, except the directions didn't mention that you had to remove the shim, so I didn't know I had to. Booted up the computer, I had red checkerboard rectangles over all of the dark colors on my screen. I underclocked the card and turned the cooler on high in an attempt to cool it down while I looked for a solution. I found that I had to take off the shim. I immediatly turned off the computer, let the card cool down and took off the cooler. It took me about 30min but I finally got the shim off. Reinstalled the cooler fine, with a fresh application of thermal paste. Put it back in the computer - too late. The card had already cooked itself.

I doesn't matter much anymore as now I have a 6800GT, but is there anything I could do with the card? It's just sitting there with the cooler on it taking up space. Should I throw it away, or is there some other use for it?

 

[vage]

basically the card is done but you could try and sell the cooler on ebay and make some buck.

 

[shadowbreaker513]

People sell broken game systems on ebay, why not this? Some person on there will see the cooler and flip whether the card works or not.

 

[skyyfox]

How do you like your 6800gt? I think it is overpriced personally. I bought a 6600gt and had all kinds of problems with it so I bought a ati radeon x800pro. Hopefully I will have good luck with this one.

 

[shadowbreaker513]

I love it. Tears down anything I can throw at it.

 

[Tiny]

where have you seen that you have to take the shim off the 9800pro? I just took the stock cooler off and put some AS5 on and then the ATI Silencer...nothing more, nothing less.

 

[shadowbreaker513]

Some of the early 9800 pros especially the ATI versions and sometimes the old saphires had a shim that was taller than the GPU. The stock heatsinks had a "dimple" to compensate for that. These obviously don't work with flat heatsinks. I've heard that it was a manufactoring defect in those cards, but I haven't gotten that confirmed yet.

 

[GregP24]

I love it. Tears down anything I can throw at it.

Throw MOHA at 1600x1200 at it. That will make your GT cry for mercy. I know it made my UEE beg for it.

 

[shadowbreaker513]

Lol, my moniter can't even handle 1600x1200. It can only handle 1280x1024 at 60Htz. I tend to turn down the resolution even on this card so I can actually see around 70fps.

 

[Tiny]

Some of the early 9800 pros especially the ATI versions and sometimes the old saphires had a shim that was taller than the GPU. The stock heatsinks had a "dimple" to compensate for that. These obviously don't work with flat heatsinks. I've heard that it was a manufactoring defect in those cards, but I haven't gotten that confirmed yet.

I have the Saffire 9800Pro and it has the raised shim on it, but my Silencer 3 has the 'dimple' on it so the shim is no problem.
See image one:
1.

I checked on Newegg AND Arctic-cooling.com and looked at all there cooling options for the ATI Silencer series and the ONLY one NOT to have the dimple is model # AVC-1000 REV.3, is that the one he bought. And if so why?

 

[ncantador]

Yeah, thats the one he's talking about. I had the same cooler and didn't have a problem. But like one of the posters above said, the shim on some earlier 9800s where taller and prevented contact between the HS and the core. This is what probably happened to the OP.

 

[shadowbreaker513]

That's exactly what happened. It said it was compatible with 9800 pros. How was I supposed to know that it wasn't compatible with all?