I added a VGA Silencer from Arctic Cooling to my 9700 Pro last night and now my computer runs really really really slow. Its an XP3000 with 1 gig of memory, and its taking about 2-3 minutes to boot up and once the OS is loaded, it won't load anything else except the task manager which shows nothing unusual. The only thing I can think of is poor contact between the VGA Silencer and the core chip. Would that cause these problems? One thing I noticed was that there was some yellow thermal pad material still attached on the periphery around the core, but not on it itself. Could this be the problem? How could I remove it as alcohol and fingernail scratching did nothing. And last but not least, it seems as if there is a shim around the core of the chip. Should this be removed?
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Comp runs slow after cooling mod
- Thread starter tunaman
- Start date
I really doubt changing a heatsink to your video card can slow down system performance (I am guessing your problems are software related). But to be positive, try reinstalling the video card drivers, if that does not work then I suggest you swap in a different video card and see if boot time decreases. And that yellow TIM material around the video card core is non conductive so it shouldn't hinder anything.
Edit: I hope you didn't use nail polish remover to try and clean up the area around the core as nail polish remove eats through the PCB.
Edit 2: Gawd I needs to wake up. Anyways, the shim on the 9700 are known to sit higher than the core itself but for teh 9800 (at least in my case and many others) the shim sits about level. So on my 9700 I removed the shim and on my 9800 I didn't. Your call but just keep in mind to be extremely careful when removing the shim with a thin blade..one slip and you can cut off those small resistors sitting near the core which would nail you a dead card.
Edit: I hope you didn't use nail polish remover to try and clean up the area around the core as nail polish remove eats through the PCB.
Edit 2: Gawd I needs to wake up. Anyways, the shim on the 9700 are known to sit higher than the core itself but for teh 9800 (at least in my case and many others) the shim sits about level. So on my 9700 I removed the shim and on my 9800 I didn't. Your call but just keep in mind to be extremely careful when removing the shim with a thin blade..one slip and you can cut off those small resistors sitting near the core which would nail you a dead card.
Ok, I took the VGA Silencer off and found that contact seemed to be good and even between the core and the HS. A straight edge ran across the core and shim produced lines in the arctic alumina applied to the core.
As for my issues being software related, I can't help but think they are somehow related to the video card as my computer was working more or less OK (idling at 62C, but it worked) but after changing out the heatsink to the VGA Silencer is when the problems started happening.
As for my issues being software related, I can't help but think they are somehow related to the video card as my computer was working more or less OK (idling at 62C, but it worked) but after changing out the heatsink to the VGA Silencer is when the problems started happening.
tunaman said:Ok, I took the VGA Silencer off and found that contact seemed to be good and even between the core and the HS. A straight edge ran across the core and shim produced lines in the arctic alumina applied to the core.
tunaman said:
As for my issues being software related, I can't help but think they are somehow related to the video card as my computer was working more or less OK (idling at 62C, but it worked) but after changing out the heatsink to the VGA Silencer is when the problems started happening.
I hope i'm reading this correctly...you're idle temperature on your CPU is 62C?
According to bios and Sisoft Sandra, yes my idle temp was that high in a room with an ambient temperature in the high 80s. The odd part is that my HSF is a SLK-900a.
Ok, I reapplied another layer of Arctic Alumina, reattached everything and popped it back in my system and booted it up. Works good now. I don't know what happened, but I am thinking maybe too much Arctic Alumina. I started doing some reading, and everybody talked about applying just a small amount. So I applied a small bead and spread it out as best as I could. Seems to help.
Ok, I reapplied another layer of Arctic Alumina, reattached everything and popped it back in my system and booted it up. Works good now. I don't know what happened, but I am thinking maybe too much Arctic Alumina. I started doing some reading, and everybody talked about applying just a small amount. So I applied a small bead and spread it out as best as I could. Seems to help.
Ok, so check this out. I figured I did the same thing with my CPU, so I took the SLK-900a off, cleaned all of the dust off of it, cleaned the surface with some rubbing alcohol and then reapplied some arctic alumina. I then cleaned out the whole computer of dust as well. Went back, put the HSF back on, and booted it up. Reset the bios started it up into windows and everything worked perfectly. I checked temperature and found that I was idling at 40C which is much better than 62. I then wanted to see if my computer was any quieter with the VGA Silencer. So I reached over and started turning down my fans. First one down was CPU fan, then exhaust fan, and then intake fan. All were at MAX before. By the time I got to the last fan, a loud klaxon from my computer made me jump. It was pretty loud and kept repeating itself over and over again, and the computer screen went black. I had to unplug the computer to get it to stop. So I turned the computer back on and it boots up so I hit del to go into bios and a few seconds later the klaxon starts up again. I restart again but this time don't touch anything and windows comes up. I click start and then the computer shuts off and the klaxon starts on again.
What the hell went wrong!!!? I can't figure it out as temp was idling at 40C before, and I know that CPUFAN fail is off.
What the hell went wrong!!!? I can't figure it out as temp was idling at 40C before, and I know that CPUFAN fail is off.