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Melted 9800 Pro HSF

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I can't wait till tech support hears this one. I'm foreshadowing the conversation to start like this, "Hello, sir, I looked through your FAQs online and it didn't seem to be listed, but what do I do when my 9800 Pro's fan drips off the heatsink? Didn't seem to be listed in the manual either." Then it will end like this, "YOU KNOW WHAT?? I'D TELL YOU TO GO TO HELL, BUT IT PROBABLY WOULD MELT YOUR HEATSINKS!"
 
What is so fascinating about a fan stopping and then melting due to the heat? Obviously when it stopped, everything got very hot. It naturally fell off when it melted. Sounds like a pretty ordinary fan failure to me.

I don't get all the hollering over a fan failure. Particularly when the fan had already stopped running before. It's not like the failure was unexpected.

It's clearly a bad fan and ATI should certainly help you out, but I don't understand all the fuss.
 
No, the melting caused the fan to halt. It was melting before it ever failed. When it finally seized, it accelerated the process, then fell off.

I find it amusing the inefficiency of the design. This is a multibillion dollar company, and they designed a fan upsidedown. You dont find that just a bit comical? What would you say if Viewsonic sent you a monitor and when you turned it on the picture was upsidedown? It would be funny. Just like this.
 
Originally posted by: PacFu
No, the melting caused the fan to halt. It was melting before it ever failed. When it finally seized, it accelerated the process, then fell off.

I find it amusing the inefficiency of the design. This is a multibillion dollar company, and they designed a fan upsidedown. You dont find that just a bit comical? What would you say if Viewsonic sent you a monitor and when you turned it on the picture was upsidedown? It would be funny. Just like this.
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I think you're wrong. Hundreds of thousands of people have 9800 Pros, and none of our fans have melted. You're saying that YOUR 9800 put out so much more heat than the rest of ours that it melted the fan. I find this highly unlikely. It's far more likely the fan itself was defective, and once it stopped, then your card got hot enough to melt things.

Anyways, maybe they'll send you a fanless 9600 NP when you ask for something 'safer.'
 
If the fan blades were hitting anything, like the melted plastic shroud, I would have thought it would be rather noisy and obvious.

Most likely the fan has been stopping intermittently. That's why it started to melt and then it just got worse and worse. Since you weren't overclocking it, you might never have noticed a thing until the fan stopped altogether.

At any rate, there is no excuse for ATI, it is their fault but I don't think it is a reason to condemn the whole company and refuse to buy their cards. Now, if they give you any crap about this, then I'm right there with you. 😀
 
Originally posted by: LTC8K6
What is so fascinating about a fan stopping and then melting due to the heat? Obviously when it stopped, everything got very hot. It naturally fell off when it melted. Sounds like a pretty ordinary fan failure to me.

I don't get all the hollering over a fan failure. Particularly when the fan had already stopped running before. It's not like the failure was unexpected.

It's clearly a bad fan and ATI should certainly help you out, but I don't understand all the fuss.
Click to expand...

How many fans have you seen melt and just drop off the heatsink into the bottom of the case? THAT's what the fuss is about. Not that the fan failed... or that it's a rather odd design... but that it failed and overheated to the point that the plastic melted and the damn thing just fell off the heatsink... it had to be hot enough to melt the solder that connected the wires to the circuit board too. What does solder melt at? 3 or 4 hundred degrees? Sure, the GPU didn't get that hot... most likely all that heat came from the fan motor when it stopped spinning and current kept flowing through it.

Whatever the course of events were... this isn't something you see every day... most people will NEVER see something like this in their lifetime... in a computer anyway.

I find it pretty amusing... if you don't, then ignore this post and move on, simple as that.
 
Jeff is right, this is an odd occurance. Maybe I'm just a simpleton and am amused by funny things, but so be it.
 
If your 9800 still works after all that, shouldn't it make you WANT to buy another ATi card? In any event, the melting is unfortunate. I have had countless fans fail on me before, but I've never heard of this type of situation.
 
I had a similar situation with one of those cheap one slot coolers that suck air away from the video card and blow it out the case. I'm not talking about a VGA silencer - I mean a separate "card" that's just a fan blowing out the rear of the case. Anyway, it seized up and melted just like PacFu's. Obviously nothing inside the case ever got so hot that it melted. I think it's as Jeff suggested - current kept flowing while it was seized and it melted itself.

Hopefully ATI will treat you okay, PacFu. I'd expect nothing less than a new 9800Pro. It's standard for the customer to pay for shipping on the RMA'd product but they should pay the shipping from them to you.
 
It's standard for the customer to pay for shipping on the RMA'd product but they should pay the shipping from them to you.
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Yup... and you should make sure you send it insured with some sort of tracking/delivery confirmation. I always send RMA stuff via UPS cause they automatically insure up to $100 on anything you send.
 
Well, I havent got the RMA ok'd yet, maybe its the holliday weekend....oh no wait...ATI is Canadian, so Canada day was last week. Has anyone shipped to canada before?? This is going to cost me an arm and a leg.

Oh and for the person who asked if the card still works, yea, if I put a 6 in oscillating fan up to it on hi...Its even cooled my case 5 degrees and my CPU 10 degrees 🙂

Only problem, no matter where in my appartment I am, I hear the fans...bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
 
I'm so glad I bought the Zalman ZM80C-HP with the OP-1 fan attachment. I still kept the OEM fan as a backup for an RMA.

Good luck on squezzing an X800 out of them!
 
Originally posted by: PacFu
Well, I havent got the RMA ok'd yet, maybe its the holliday weekend....oh no wait...ATI is Canadian, so Canada day was last week. Has anyone shipped to canada before?? This is going to cost me an arm and a leg.

Oh and for the person who asked if the card still works, yea, if I put a 6 in oscillating fan up to it on hi...Its even cooled my case 5 degrees and my CPU 10 degrees 🙂

Only problem, no matter where in my appartment I am, I hear the fans...bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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Make sure you ship to ATI's New York address. Saves money but "costs" you an extra couple of days. 😉

They say "up to 30 days for an RMA" but mine took 10 - they overnighted it at my request (no extra charge).
 
I recieved my RMA replacement 2 days after ATI recieved it.

I'm Canada to Canada, but east coast to west coast. 😛

That is pretty hot though. Very odd indeed. You'll definately qualify for an RMA and they don't hassle you, not even for a reciept.
 
id be interested in hearing a conversation with tech support on this one, hehehe

"ok...did you try putting it back on?"

heh tech support manuals werent ready for THIS one 🙂


just check the laws in your state, you may need to tell ATi they are being recorded
 
How many fans have you seen melt and just drop off the heatsink into the bottom of the case?
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I have never had any fan failures in any of my pooters, as far as I know. Googling finds examples of melted CPU and GPU fans.

It just seems logical to me that if the fan stops, a fairly common occurrence, it's going to get very hot around the heat sink, so melting plastic wouldn't surprise me, and I don't see why it surprises anyone else.

I doubt it will surprise ATI.

I just disagree with the ATI bashing before they have a chance to make it right.

After, okay. 😀
 
Originally posted by: LTC8K6
How many fans have you seen melt and just drop off the heatsink into the bottom of the case?
Click to expand...

I have never had any fan failures in any of my pooters, as far as I know. Googling finds examples of melted CPU and GPU fans.

It just seems logical to me that if the fan stops, a fairly common occurrence, it's going to get very hot around the heat sink, so melting plastic wouldn't surprise me, and I don't see why it surprises anyone else.

I doubt it will surprise ATI.

I just disagree with the ATI bashing before they have a chance to make it right.

After, okay. 😀
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I'm not bashing ATI... neither is PacFu. I think it's understandable that he's a little disgruntled about what happened... afterall, it was a defective ATI part. If he chooses not to buy ATI products anymore, that's no different than me chosing not to buy Maxtor hard drives after having two of them fail (one catastotrophic failure).

I actually have a 9800 Pro coming to replace my FX5900 since I can't afford more than that for the new generation of cards.
 
^^Well, if you caught on fire, I'd make sure I piss on ya to put it out. You don't care about this, proceed to the next thread and direct your comments to that brick wall over there.
 
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