Can you say dissappointed?

C

cfetter79

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 16, 2004
Messages
217
Installed the ole' VGA Silencer today in hopes of getting some serious speed out of my 9800 Pro. R360core and Samsung memory.. ATI tool is pushing it to around oh..... 407. What the hell?? I've seen people on here in the 450range on the processor side. I used the Arctic supplied thermal compound, and i'm certain there's good contact between the gpu and the heatsink... Just a "bad" core?

Thanks in advance.
 
I can't answer your question but maybe you can answer mine.

I think we have the same card, (mine has the covered heasink), did you have to remove the shim?
 
the sapphire 9800pro i installed on my friends computer clocked to 428 without pushing it without any aftermarket cooling. sounds like a bad core to me, but i'm still a bit of a novice with vid card oc'ing
 
Gigabyte 9800 PRo 128mb. No Vmods, stock HSF and I added RAMsinks bought from ufokillerz in the FS/FT forum.

My card does 440/780 all day long. All it boils down to is luck of the draw.
 
Brent_Justice said:
some people do vmods

but of course you can fry your card that way
Click to expand...
Yeah.. I know about that the hard way :mad:

Ok, original poster, I would recommend two things.

A) Check GPU + heatsink contact. If you have the shim on, remove it. Also, check to make sure you used the right amount of paste. Too little and too much are just as bad.

B) Are you cooling your RAM?

My old RADEON (RIP, died during volt mod attempt) hit 412/360 stock cooling, and it was a R360 + PRO PCB board with 2.8 Hynix. My current one is a R350 + PRO PCB with 2.8 Hynix, but it hits 432/400 with a VGA Silencer + RAM Sinks.

450mhz Core is extremely lucky without a volt mod. Those people are probably running the XT PCB which increases voltage to 1.8v stock up from 1.7v. You can do a volt mod if you wish, however you probably just have a poor GPU if the above doesn't help.
 
i have a radeon 9800 non pro, and my core will go over 420.

sounds like a shitty core,
 
That's alright I had a 2.4C Pentium 4 that wouldn't go over 2.6GHz in the same machine in the sig.

I also had the "desireable" stepping that everyone else seemed to get great results with. However my luck just wasn't that good that time around.
 
The shim (i'm assuming it's the silver border of the VPU) is still on it. I used a flat edge of a ruler, and saw that it was exactly the same height as the top of the processor.... so I left it on. As for the amount of goo that I used, the spot before I applied the heatsink was probably the size of a pencil eraser... too much, too little? I've also heard that there is "burn in" time with thermal compound.. is this true? Also, no ramsinks.

Thanks!
 
Try removing the shim, but be careful with the tension when you reinstall. Just snug the screw up to the foam bushings, no need to crank it!

I used Artic Silver 5, very very little, probably half the size of a pencil eraser, and spread it evenly over the top of the GPU and removed any excess.

Try these out
 
The shim (i'm assuming it's the silver border of the VPU) is still on it. I used a flat edge of a ruler, and saw that it was exactly the same height as the top of the processor.... so I left it on. As for the amount of goo that I used, the spot before I applied the heatsink was probably the size of a pencil eraser... too much, too little? I've also heard that there is "burn in" time with thermal compound.. is this true? Also, no ramsinks
Click to expand...
A Pencil eraser size spot is probably a bit much. I addition to reducing thermal transfer by having too thick a layer of paste, you also run the danger of it dripping off the core and shorting out something (if using conductive paste).
What I do is just put a tiny dab on the core.
Then use a piece of cellophane stretched over my finger and carefully spread it to the edges of the GPU, removing any excess in the process, leaving a thin, almost transparent layer.
Then I set the heatsink in position on the core and wiggle it just a bit. Then check the bottom of the heatsink to ensure it has the full imprint of the core on it.
If not, I add a tiny bit more and repeat the above.
If you have to put a thick layer of paste on it to get full contact, the shim may be taller than the core.
Many people will just pile on the paste and not have any problem, but it kind of negates the benefits of installing an aftermarket cooler.
I don't know if the 9800 suffers from the same shim problem as my 9700 (the shim being taller than the core), but it's something to check. It was the reason the 9700 came with a thick thermal pad (TIM) installed betwwen the H/S and the core.
I sanded down my shim and installed a 1U copper cooler. Only got a 25mhz higher O/C out of it (without ramsinks) where others were getting much higher with the same setup. Some cores just run better than others.
Now, I have the VGA Silencer. Haven't checked the O/C, but it works real well and sure is a H3II of a lot quieter now.
 
the installation manual for vga silencer didnt say to remove the shim... plus the shim is a protection to gpu..i have a vga silencer for my 9800Pro too, R360 too, wouldnt over clock very high so i kept at stock..plus the stock cooler i had didnt have thermal pad or paste on it, just plain heatsink...R360 core are known for not overclocking well
if the Vga cooler isnt installed properlly, the gpu would overheat and give artifact, to a point burned... so i doubt shim would be a problem...
 
AMDX1325 said:
the installation manual for vga silencer didnt say to remove the shim... plus the shim is a protection to gpu..
Click to expand...
Go look at the instructions. Do they have a shim installed in the instructions?

:p
 
like i say in cpu boards. not all video cards are created equal. some will o/c higher some wont o/c at all.
 
Does 128bit vrs 256bit matter when over clocking?

You do have a Sapphire and their "budget" 9800 Pro is 128mb/128bit technology. They also just recently renamed the card from a 9800 Pro 128 to 9800 Atlantis.

-=M=-
 
My 9800Pro starts artifacting at around 415Mhz (stock cooling), so it's not too shocking to me.

Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't either way you have the equivalent of a 9800XT for a lot less money ;)
 
My guess is that you just got a weak card. Some things just do not like overclocking, but others, like my 9700 pro, have no problems flying even with stock cooling.
 
RE: above post.. no, in the picture, they don't have the shim installed, but like I said, I checked with a straight edge, and it's even (to my eye at least). If there is a difference in height, it couldn't be more than 1/64" of and inch, if any. Yes, it's the 256bit version. No real biggie for the overclock I guess. I will try a different amount of thermal compound and check it again. I did the "wiggle" maneuver to seat the heatsink onto the core.

Thanks for the input. I will report if I get anything different with different amount of thermal compound. Also, should I get some Arctic Silver? Seems on these forums that it's the shizzle.
 
Well, I recently (a couple of months ago) put a VGA Silencer on my 9800np (in sig) and, to say the least, I'm quite happy. When I installed the VGA Silencer I removed the VPU shim (just because I didn't want it on there), put a tiny bit of AS3 on the VPU (per AS's instructions), assembled the whole thing, and it all works great.

BTW, my card is a BBA 9800np with 3.3ns Samsung RAM, flashed with a 9800Pro BIOS, and OC'd to 455MHz core / 370MHz mem (740MHz DDR)...no volt mods or anything--just the VGA Silencer, some aluminum OCZ RAMsinks, and a simple BIOS flash. :D

You could have just gotten a card that doesn't overclock that well. It happens. Like my friend's P4 2.8C...isn't stable above 3.06GHz even on water with high voltage :eek: (You can probably imagine how pissed he was to find this out just after he spent like $300 for a nice full system watercooling setup... :rolleyes: )
 
cfetter79 said:
Installed the ole' VGA Silencer today in hopes of getting some serious speed out of my 9800 Pro. R360core and Samsung memory.. ATI tool is pushing it to around oh..... 407. What the hell?? I've seen people on here in the 450range on the processor side. I used the Arctic supplied thermal compound, and i'm certain there's good contact between the gpu and the heatsink... Just a "bad" core?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

the r360s dont really go that high. And your OC is quite sad considering my 9700TX with a VGA silencer gets 415 Mhz without any mods. But only gettin like 410 out of the R360 98pros is quite common.
 
Sounds like a bad core. I got what I assume is an R350 in my Powercolor 9800SE. This 9800SE bad boy clocks to 446 core 387 mem with the arctic cooler and no extra ram cooling. However, I do have a custom PC-65 Lian-Li blowing two 80mm fans directly on the graphics board.
 
the problem is that many r360 cores that dont make the xt clock speed qualification end on a pro .. so they clock to around 410/420
 
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