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Is my card fried?

R

Riptide_NVN

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 1, 2005
Messages
2,063
Just want some opinions here.

I have a Sapphire X850XT PE AGP. I ordered a AC Silencer 5 Rev 2 for it. After installation, which went perfectly, the system would POST and boot into Windows but I got no video. Tried reseating the card and power connector, still just a dim monitor. So we put the stock cooler back on there and it worked again. I suspect the Silencer was a defective POS.

Here's the issue. After putting the stock cooler back on ATI Tool artifact scanner won't run for more than 20 minutes without resetting. Previously before we put the Silencer on there it worked fine for over 30 minutes (before ending the test).

My friend thinks the Silencer may have fried something and caused the card to become a bit flakey. If I downclock core or memory w/ATI Tool the card passes.

What do you guys think? Is the card screwed up or is this a heat issue now? The thermal pads on the stock cooler, I'm assuming anyway, don't make contact as well when you reapply them. If so perhaps that is why the thing won't pass the test now. Does this make sense or am I going to have to exchange my card? I might try a VF700-cu cooler and OCZ copper ramsinks in order to see if this is a heat issue or not.
 
First thing I'd try is pull off the stock HSF, clean everything with some 99% pure isopropyl alcohol and carefully reinstall the HSF paying special attention to getting good contact and perfect application of some decent heatsink compound.

If it passes underclocked, it is likely a heat issue. Unfortunatly, from time to time, something goes wrong when you start modding things. Which is why as soon as you pop that cooler off, your warranty gets flushed.

Does your particular ATI Silencer have the memory contact tabs? They may be getting in the way. I'm running my x800pro VIVO @ XT without any ram cooling, The memory doesn't necessarily need cooling, and often gets in the way of getting good alignment.

-dB
 
There might be a metal shim around the GPU that you might have to pull off...
 
The Silencer was installed perfectly near as we can tell. Great coverage of the arctic silver 5 over the core and the memory pads were contacting the ram well (near as we could tell anyway). Not sure what was wrong with the silencer but it definitely seemed to have a problem of some sort.

I do have a Zalman VF700-Cu that should be here tomorrow and OCZ copper ramsinks as well. I guess I'll find out for sure if this is just a heat issue tomorrow but I wanted to get some opinions out of you guys and see if you think that's likely to be the case (heat) or if the defective Silencer could've damaged some component.

I know this thread seems pointless since I'll know for sure tomorrow but I just wanted to get some thoughts before hand on the situation.
 
Riptide_NVN said:
Great coverage of the arctic silver 5 over the core and the memory pads were contacting the ram well (near as we could tell anyway).
Click to expand...
Remember apply thin even coat of AS5 don't smother the HSF or core with the compound.
 
The silencer was installed perfectly. It was the problem, not something we did when installing it.

Really the more I think about this the more angry I get at arctic cooling. If their POS product fried my card then technically I shouldn't be exchanging it with newegg because I voided my warranty. So what are you supposed to do if you are in my situation? Well if you follow the rules you eat that $500 video card purchase. Because arcitic cooling won't compensate you if their cooler trashes your card.
 
Riptide_NVN said:
The silencer was installed perfectly. It was the problem, not something we did when installing it.

Really the more I think about this the more angry I get at arctic cooling. If their POS product fried my card then technically I shouldn't be exchanging it with newegg because I voided my warranty. So what are you supposed to do if you are in my situation? Well if you follow the rules you eat that $500 video card purchase. Because arcitic cooling won't compensate you if their cooler trashes your card.
Click to expand...


Exactly. When you take a perfectly functional card, remove it's included cooling system, put a replacement cooling system on, and then it fries (Wether through your fault, or the manufacturer of the cooling systems fault) you are s.o.l.

There's an old saying
"If you can't do the time, don't do the crime"or
"You pays yo' money, Yous takes yo' chances"
Tough luck on you, but newegg *is* going to know, they are looking out for this exact sort of thing, so I wouldn't even try.
 
Not 5 minutes ago I had a similiar situation happen. Except Im pure stock. Playing BF2, crashes, reboots, and windows is black. Reboot into safe mode, uninstall drivers, reboot again, reinstall, still black.

Reset cmos, reboot, everything is fine.
 
:eek: The truth about Ati is in what he wrote above. thank you...crash* :eek: I told you so accept the last line...
 
Well it looks as if the card is NOT fried.

A buddy came over and we installed a Zalman VF700-Cu last night along with OCZ copper ramsinks. Unlike with the Silencer, this time the machine would actually POST. :p

Core temps are 18c lower than with the stock cooler and the beauty of the whole thing is the card now passes ATI Tool artifact scanner. It looks like my problem was due to heat and the stock cooler, when we put it back on, didn't apparently contact well enough. Probably the thermal pads against the memory.

The Silencer was defective though, there is no doubt about that. Oh, btw, we did try to reset CMOS when we installed it. That didn't help.

But I'm pretty happy this morning since my card isn't fried and my core temps are now 60c @ load even with an ambient temp of 78 fahrenheit in the room. Not bad at all. So alls well that ends well! :D
 
<cough> <cough>

Decibel said:
First thing I'd try is pull off the stock HSF, clean everything with some 99% pure isopropyl alcohol and carefully reinstall the HSF paying special attention to getting good contact and perfect application of some decent heatsink compound.

If it passes underclocked, it is likely a heat issue. Unfortunatly, from time to time, something goes wrong when you start modding things. Which is why as soon as you pop that cooler off, your warranty gets flushed.

Does your particular ATI Silencer have the memory contact tabs? They may be getting in the way. I'm running my x800pro VIVO @ XT without any ram cooling, The memory doesn't necessarily need cooling, and often gets in the way of getting good alignment.

-dB
Click to expand...

That's correct, I am in fact saying "Told You So!"

:p

-dB
 
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