ATi Radeon 9800 Pro Overheating

[teknodude]

I bought a Connect 3D ATi Radeon 9800 Pro about a month ago. It seemed to run fine, then after a while of playing Half-Life 2 I noticed artifacts on screen and then the game would eventually crash. Attributing this to overheating I removed the stock cooling and put on a huge VGA cooler from Artic Cooling. When I loaded up HL2 again the artifacts were EVEN WORSE!

When I took the graphis card out of my PC I realised this was because the GPU has a shimmy on it, which meant that the heatsink of the VGA cooler wasn't completely flush with the heatsink, thus cooling it worse than the stock cooling did. So I took off the VGA cooler and spent ages painstakingly filing the heatsink down so that it'd fit properly. I then put the VGA cooler back on, booted up my PC and loaded HL2... even worse artifacts and crashing! The heatsink is even less flush than before and so the cooling's just crap.

The card runs Windows no problems, but stuff like HL2 kills it. I wish I'd got a graphics card with decent stock cooling.

Anyways, any recommendations on what I can do short of buying a new graphics card? If not, what ATi Radeon 9800 Pro card would you recommend that has decent stock cooling?

TIA for your advice people!

teknodude

 

[rforum]

I have an Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer v. 3 on my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. It keeps things cool and the fan is very quiet. Got it cheap off Ebay. I would recommend it.

 

[MegaWorks]

Originally posted by: rforum
I have an Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer v. 3 on my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. It keeps things cool and the fan is very quiet. Got it cheap off Ebay. I would recommend it.

 

[slpaulson]

You can take that shim off with a razor.

 

[teknodude]

Originally posted by: rforum
I have an Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer v. 3 on my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. It keeps things cool and the fan is very quiet. Got it cheap off Ebay. I would recommend it.

Umm.. that's what I have and have had no end of trouble getting to work properly! Lol.

Thanks cRazYdood, I might well give that a go... cheaper than spending another 170 pounds!

teknodude

 

[Tiamat]

Umm, there is a possibility that your card is at fault. It might not be a heat issue. It would probably be a good idea to call up the manufacturer and ask questions. Tell them you are getting artifacting with the stock cooler...

 

[teknodude]

Originally posted by: Tiamat
Umm, there is a possibility that your card is at fault. It might not be a heat issue. It would probably be a good idea to call up the manufacturer and ask questions. Tell them you are getting artifacting with the stock cooler...

True, but I've surely voided any warranty the card may have by removing the stock cooling and putting the Artic VGA Cooler on it... ?

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: teknodude

Originally posted by: Tiamat
Umm, there is a possibility that your card is at fault. It might not be a heat issue. It would probably be a good idea to call up the manufacturer and ask questions. Tell them you are getting artifacting with the stock cooler...

True, but I've surely voided any warranty the card may have by removing the stock cooling and putting the Artic VGA Cooler on it... ?

I would guess so. I still don't know why you didn't call them in the first place but instead decided to void the warranty by fixing it yourself.

 

[akira34]

Before assuming that the problem was cuased by heat, I would have contacted the card maker to find out what's going on... I've had cards before that had bad memory on them, which prompted a replacement. Before contacting them, put the stock one back on. I'd also install the drivers that came with the card, since it's possible updated drivers are part of the cause. If you have just the stock (on cd) drivers that came with the card, check the maker's site for updates (perhaps to deal with the issue that you originally had).

If all software/driver updates fail, then you probably have a bad card. If it would have been under warranty (if you didn't change the cooler) then get a hold of the maker. They might have you run some tests on the card to confirm that it's NFG before sending you a replacement...

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Who is "Connect 3D"?

 

[akira34]

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
Who is "Connect 3D"?

That's one of the companies that makes cards with the ATI chipset...