I keep blowing up R9800 Pros. Why?

[SuperSubZero]

I seem to have really bad luck with these cards, which is sad because the cards are very nice and they perform just as I need them to.

I originally got a Powercolor R9800 Pro about 14 months ago. That card lasted two weeks, and then the stock HSF seized. Rather than replace the fan I just replaced the entire card under RMA, and also got a VGA Silencer. Bolted it all together, slapped it in, it worked perfectly.. for two weeks. Then the card started having problems with garbage on the screen and it would get unstable. While I RMA'd this second card I bought a R9800 Pro made by ATI at CompUSA and put the Silencer on it. The 2nd RMA I got back from Powercolor went into a different rig I had with another Silencer. A few weeks later, THAT Powercolor died. I had it RMA'd again, and meanwhile I got another ATI 9800 Pro at CompUSA. I sold the RMA return Powercolor to a friend (who knew about all the RMAs).

Now several months have gone by, and I blew out one of the ATI 9800 Pros. The PC just locked up and won't even POST with the card plugged in. I put it in another PC and it did the same thing. So ANOTHER run to CompUSA and another overpriced 9800 Pro later, I'm sitting here befuddled. I run these at stock speed, with no tinkering besides the Silencers. The PC's they are in have Intel motherboards, and are stock speed.

Could it be the Silencer? I dunno, they do seem to work well and they are very quiet. I haven't heard many complaints about them. My one PC is near a heat source that I can't control, but the other isn't, and 9800 Pros have failed in both of them. I'm using the standard ATI drivers, I think 4.8 or so. I'm so confused ; ;

 

[KevinO]

You have your computers on a UPS. Maybe bad power coming into the computers, I don't know. That is some bad luck there and I don't know where you would start troubleshooting. Does ATI provide a utility to monitor the temps? Maybe the silencer isn't working or seated right and eventually the heat is getting to them.

 

[tommo]

What a pain. Maybe your other hardware is causing this. Do you have a good quality powersupply?

Oh, and replacing heatsinks is risky. Even touching the stock one is not a good idea. You can break the bonds of the thermal glue or paste.

 

[DaLurker]

Sounds like your motherboard might be overvolting the AGP line too much? Go see if you can run motherboard monitor on it, and check the AGP voltage line. Either that of your getting some serious dirty power, but if that were the case, everything else in your computer should be mysteriously dying as well. Check out the motherboard voltages.