RIP 7800GS

[Bateluer]

Some time ago I bought a 7800GS to test out Tt's Tidewater unit. The TW cooled the GPU great, but its lack of ramsinks forced me to use some cheaper aluminum sinks after the nce copper ones I bought refused to stick to the ram.

Since I typically game with headphones, I did not realize it when some of the ramsinks fell off the card.

Last night, I was playing EQ2 and started to notice some artifacts. Immediately, I logged out of EQ2, only to see snowflakes all over my screen. Acting quickly, I restored the card to default clocks and shutdown. A quick inspection of the card revealed that the sinks had follow off the RAM. I stuck them back on and turned the system back on. POST was fine, the windows load screen was fine, windows itself was fine . . . for about 10 minutes. Then the snowflakes returned, worse then before, and effectively locked the screen. I manually powered down, and went to bed for the night with my fingers crossed.

This morning, nothing is displayed on the screen. Still get a POST beep though, screen is just blank.

Let this be a lesson, DDR3 needs some cooling. It is ironic that I had some copper MC14 swiftech ramsinks scheduled to arrive this afternoon for the 7800GS. RIP 7800GS.

After work today, I get to install the Tidewater on my old 6800GT, so at least those nice MC14 sinks won't go to waste.

 

[ELopes580]

What brand/model 7800GGS was it?

 

[iamtrout]

Yeah, I totally don't understand video cards. They should make the core and the memory POINTING UP instead of down... better for airflow, no gravity issues, won't get in the way of the bottom PCI slots or whathaveyou...

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: ELopes580
What brand/model 7800GGS was it?

BFG, but since I removed the stock cooler and OC'ed the snot out of it, its not covered by their warranty.

I've installed the Tidewater on my old 6800GT with the MC14 Swiftech ramsinks, gonna let them cure for a bit before I install the card. Can't toast my 6800GT, all I've got left after that is an FX5500 PCI card. My notebook would be my primary computer for 3 or 4 months, although the FX5500 would allow access to the files on my desktop's drives.

 

[Bateluer]

A sidenote. OCZ BGA ramsinks are too heavy and don't stick. The Swiftech MC14 BGA sinks are nice, but if you are not careful when peeling back the tape over the adhesive, and an air bubble gets under the adhesive, that ramsink will never stick again.

At the moment, I have 7 MC14 sinks stuck decently, with 1 OCZ ramsink. Despite a cure time of several hours, the stupid thing only sticks when the system is on its side. Hopefully, over a night of being on its side, it will have stuck itself more securely.

When I installed my old Vantec Iceberq cooler and its ramsinks, 1 or 2 of the ramsinks fell off consistently, but once I was only to keep it secure overnight, it remained firm.

Such frustration . . . I wish AM2 or Conroe was out right now so I could build a PCIe system with a clear mind.

Edit - POS ramsinks fell off AGAIN! Why can't these fricking companies ship some decent adhesive with there products. I expected better from Swiftech.

I've removed the card before it goes up in smoke, hopefully an overnight cure will actually let these ramsinks stick.

 

[Praxis1452]

use some arctic silver ceramique

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: iamtrout
Yeah, I totally don't understand video cards. They should make the core and the memory POINTING UP instead of down... better for airflow, no gravity issues, won't get in the way of the bottom PCI slots or whathaveyou...

You can't do that, it's not in the spec. There's no guarantee the space above the PCI-E slot is free, and often it isn't.

 

[ELopes580]

A moment of silence for the lost of a great card...................

 

[djspl]

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_thermal_adhesive.htm
your ramsinks will never come off again.

 

[nitromullet]

sorry to hear about your card...

Originally posted by: iamtrout
Yeah, I totally don't understand video cards. They should make the core and the memory POINTING UP instead of down... better for airflow, no gravity issues, won't get in the way of the bottom PCI slots or whathaveyou...

BTX... Although it was an Intel standard designed by and for Intel, it had some good ideas. There are also a few cases that follow this idea and flip the ATX motherboard upside down. My Lian Li is like that. The only downside to it is that you must have good airflow at the top of your motherboard, which can be difficult because the drivebays are often in front of the video cards. I sacrificed 3 drivebays to add a 120mm fan to the front of my case.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: ELopes580
A moment of silence for the lost of a great card...................

My 7800gs shall honor its memory in Oblivion!!

Mmm...Distant Lands on...tasty!

 

[amenx]

I doubt it was the ramsinks (or lack of) that caused it. Ramsinks have minimal effect on the temps of the chips, their surface area being so small. Dont have the link off hand, but in a review of a copper fan cooler that came with ramsinks, these were found to have made about 1 degree difference in ram chip temps. So it could be something else that messed up your card.

 

[Munky]

If you're not putting inreased voltage through the mem, then I don't see why you'd need heavy pure copper ramsinks that dont stick well. I used the light aluminum ramsinks that come with the zalman coolers, and I never had the ram overheat or the sinks fall off. In fact, those things are stuck so tight, you'd have to pry them off, and then you can easily reuse them on another card with the same adhesive tape.

 

[The Dome]

Well will likely never see BTX on a major level, since Conroe can hit 2.9Ghz and still dump less than some prescotts at idle. To push a formfactor on a market that doesn't need it just means spending an assload of money retooling all the production lines and doesn't make sense to me. What speed was the ram running at, unless it was really high I find it hard to believe not having ram sinks on it would be enough to do it in. On the ram ontop of the card issue, Asus makes a 6600gt with the core ontop of the card along with the memory (may be split 4v4 though....) but as far as I know it's only in Europe.

 

[Bateluer]

Just an update, an overnight cure time didn't help, in fact, more of the MC14 sinks fell off.

Gonna have to go with what munky stated and attach some generic aluminum spares I had laying around. At least they seem to be holding.

It was overheated ram that messed up the 7800GS, the core never went above 50C. The ramsinks fell off during a EQ2 gaming session.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

what clocks were you running on the ram. must be very high.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
what clocks were you running on the ram. must be very high.

Stock actually. When I couldn't get the nice copper sinks to stick, I picked up some cheap aluminum heat sinks and was reluctant to do any OCing on the RAM with them. So, the 7800GS's ram ran at 1.25Ghz.

 

[TheRyuu]

The RAM sinks shouldn't fall off if you did everything right. Make sure to first clean off everything really good on the board.

Also you might want to but some Thermal Tape:
http://www.bestbyteinc.com/index.html?p...2&deptid=62&parentid=9&itemsperpage=10
(for some reason, you can buy it from that screen, but just don't click on the item, you get a 404 or something. And I'm talking about the second from the bottom, the tape with the picture)

That stuff is 10x better than stock and takes a hairdryer to get off sometimes. It isn't falling off with that stuff.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
The RAM sinks shouldn't fall off if you did everything right. Make sure to first clean off everything really good on the board.

Also you might want to but some Thermal Tape:
http://www.bestbyteinc.com/index.html?p...2&deptid=62&parentid=9&itemsperpage=10
(for some reason, you can buy it from that screen, but just don't click on the item, you get a 404 or something. And I'm talking about the second from the bottom, the tape with the picture)

That stuff is 10x better than stock and takes a hairdryer to get off sometimes. It isn't falling off with that stuff.

Thanks for the link, but I did clean the ram off, with 91% alc. 6 of the 8 sinks stick just fine, its just two that consistently fall off.

 

[The Dome]

jeez you must have some bad airflow in you case for the ram to get hot enough to fry itself. Try the card in another computer with a fresh set of drivers, maybe that will do the trick.

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: wizboy11
The RAM sinks shouldn't fall off if you did everything right. Make sure to first clean off everything really good on the board.

Also you might want to but some Thermal Tape:
http://www.bestbyteinc.com/index.html?p...2&deptid=62&parentid=9&itemsperpage=10
(for some reason, you can buy it from that screen, but just don't click on the item, you get a 404 or something. And I'm talking about the second from the bottom, the tape with the picture)

That stuff is 10x better than stock and takes a hairdryer to get off sometimes. It isn't falling off with that stuff.

Thanks for the link, but I did clean the ram off, with 91% alc. 6 of the 8 sinks stick just fine, its just two that consistently fall off.

Well, the tape still works better. I had the same problem as you with the Copper ones. Now, this is with my vf700's before I got Water Cooling. I had to replace the ones that fell off with the stock Al Zalman ones.

When I went water I put on all new Thermal Tape from the Link. That stuff is on there good and will most likely never come off unless I want it too.