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Melted 9800 Pro HSF

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PacFu

Member
Let me start off my saying I will never EVER buy an ATI product again. With that said, last summer I bought a 9800 Pro 128MB (Built by ATI). Never once have I tried oc'ing it. The other day, my HSF stopped spinning. I figured the fan just went out. I got it started again...until yesterday. My computer locked up, so I figured it was the fan again. I powered down, removed side panel, then took a look. "What the...??!!" No fan. Look 3 slots below, there it is sitting on my audigy. Holy shizz, the fan MELTED OFF the sink. Then everything started to click. The fan stopped working because the plastic connecting it to the HS was beginning to melt, causing the fan to not move, in turn, melting the fan right off. A friend of mine, Jeff (Jeff7181 on these forums) came over and looked at it, realizing that the fan is designed UPSIDEDOWN!!! For EVERYONE who hates nVidia for dual slot cooling solutions, and bitch about how much of a pain they are...well, ATI should take a lesson. What does it say about a company whose cooling solution for a very hot product MELTS OFF. Kudos, ATI, you just lost a customer. I can't wait till tech support hears this one. Oh, I have pictures too.
 
lmao ive never heard of this happening before, maybe you were just extremely unlucky.

The pics would be a laugh if you want to host them 😛
 
as sooon as I can find somewhere to host them, I'll get them up.. They are quite large so you can see detail.
 
Fan Label 1
Fan Label 2
Fan... uhhh... motor and circuit board?

On that last picture... notice the dust built up on the leading edge of the fan blades... and look how the fan blades are shaped. They look backwards to me... doesn't the concave side normally face in the direction of airflow? I wonder if ATI did this to reduce the noise generated by the fan?

And on the first two, notice the plastic sticker is bubbled like plastic tends to do when you get it hot.
 
Jeff you used the dark ones...the light ones actually show more detail. Let me send you the ones I want you to post...
 
Wow...I can't believe that! I can't imagine how hot the heatsink had to be to melt it's own fan off. I seriously suggest investing in an artic cooling VGA silencer if you've had this bad of an experience.
 
I'm also going to call tech support and record the conversation, which hopefully I can post tomorrow. I'm going to try and squeeze a x800 out of them.

And to reply to above, my artic cooler rev.3 is ordered as of yesterday afternoon cause I knew the fan was dying. Then got home, and you know the rest.
 
Originally posted by: Jeff7181
On that last picture... notice the dust built up on the leading edge of the fan blades... and look how the fan blades are shaped. They look backwards to me... doesn't the concave side normally face in the direction of airflow? I wonder if ATI did this to reduce the noise generated by the fan?
Click to expand...

Hmm, I just took a look at my HSF from my radeon 9800 pro and I think you are right... it does look like it's blowing away from the heatsink. 😵
 
Originally posted by: PacFu
Jeff you used the dark ones...the light ones actually show more detail. Let me send you the ones I want you to post...
Click to expand...

I'm still waiting on the pictures =) Those three were the only ones I got... and it was a fuggin 5 MB e-mail... lol... reduce the size of the pictures when you send them to save some time... crop them n stuff.
 
Hey I came up with a new theory...

When the fan stopped spinning, current kept running through the motor, and without the EMF to increase the resistance of the windings in the motor, current flows through as if you just shorted it out... so THAT's probably what melted the fan... not actually heat from the GPU.

Either way... I'm kinda surprised the card still works.

*EDIT* If the other pictures aren't any more clear than these, I can bring my camera over and take some good closeups... the macro mode on mine works very well in conjunction with the optical zoom.
 
Uh oh... no remote linking 😀

Oh... and I think I may have figured out the reason the for 9800 Pro fan being designed that way. I believe that type of fan actually draws air in the middle and blows it more outward... since the heatsink has fins all around the fan, I'm assuming that's how they designed it. The 9800 XT fan still looks more efficient though.
 
I think what happened is poor design of the fan, obviously. Instead of pushing down and out/away from the GPU, it's pulling in and up, drawing heat from the HS and bringing it to the center point in which it is supposed to be cooling.
 
Originally posted by: PacFu
I think what happened is poor design of the fan, obviously. Instead of pushing down and out/away from the GPU, it's pulling in and up, drawing heat from the HS and bringing it to the center point in which it is supposed to be cooling.
Click to expand...

The question is which direction does the fan spin... someone with a fan still attatched to their heatsink will have to answer that... but from the buildup of dust on your fan, it looks like it was spinning so that it took air in the center of the fan, and exhausted it outward on the fins. See how dust is built up on the leading edge, but only toward the center of the blades? Not at the ends. If it was a normal fan, the concave side would face in the direction of airflow, and dust would be built up evenly across the fan blades.

BTW... you'll have to e-mail them to me because I can't get to them... it's just a small picture that says no remote linking.
 
there....look for a 1 MB email, not a 10 lol.

I would like to have someone with a 9800 Pro look at the fan's spin direction...please post someone

As for the fan spinning backwords....take a thin piece of cardboard. Move it through the air angled into it...eg...clockwise //....now angle it \\ and move it the same way. There is no resistance because you are cutting through the air, not resisting it. Whichever way you look at it, HORRIBLE design.
 
how about we make this easy, jeff and pac. free uploading


much easier =). Sorry to hear about your experience... ive also had problems with my 9700 pro overheating and im pretty much sick of the overheating caused by the R300+ cores. I just dont think they made a good enough design, or big enough. the 9x00XT was probably the only card with a good hsf on it
 
Originally posted by: Evdawg
how about we make this easy, jeff and pac. free uploading


much easier =). Sorry to hear about your experience... ive also had problems with my 9700 pro overheating and im pretty much sick of the overheating caused by the R300+ cores. I just dont think they made a good enough design, or big enough. the 9x00XT was probably the only card with a good hsf on it
Click to expand...

I have a buttload of webspace... pics are up now...

sm1
sm2
sm3
sm4

9800 Pro
9800XT

*EDIT* Why don't I just give you an account on my pic-hosting crap... that'll be easier... just like bbzzdd.com. I'll set it up and e-mail you your username & password.
 
Originally posted by: Evdawg
how about we make this easy, jeff and pac. free uploading


much easier =). Sorry to hear about your experience... ive also had problems with my 9700 pro overheating and im pretty much sick of the overheating caused by the R300+ cores. I just dont think they made a good enough design, or big enough. the 9x00XT was probably the only card with a good hsf on it
Click to expand...
they vary from one manufacturer to another.

the ATI Radeon Pro 256/256 had a decent HS . .. the Sapphire one is crap.

I'd also like to hear ati's reply. . .. doubt your gonna get anything but what you had . . . in about 10 days so so (they are slow unless you live in Canada). 😉
 
6800GT sounding really good right now. If I can get, say, a 9800 XT, I could sell that for a GT. I'm telling the tech guy on the phone that I will never put a 9800 pro in my machine again, due to this faulty design, so if you want to keep me as a customer, then give me something safer. I dont want to have to sue ATI for burning my house down 🙂
 
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