8800GTS problems..(i must have bad luck)

[neonlazer]

Well, After seeing the new 8800GT's coming out, i decided to wanted to sell this 8800GTS i had gotten as a replacement for the 7900gtx. I installed watercooling on it and everything ran perfectly fine..overclocked it nicely, and whatnot....but to sell it i had to put stock heatsink back on...which i was thinking would be piece of cake!..well...i put the stock back on and to my surprize i have artifacts all over the screen..here are some screenshots of monitor..i got blue screens every once in a while after booting up sometimes it had bad artifacts sometimes not.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m118/neonlazer_2006/P1000831.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m118/neonlazer_2006/P1000830.jpg

ticket #116213

[Sadasius]

That sucks! Did it happen right away after the cooler swap? Just curious!

[neonlazer]

Yea, happened on first boot after i had put back on stock cooler back on :ahhhhh:
Dum question but is a replacement still under warranty?...im guessing so...yikes

[werty316]

If you live in North America (Canada and the US), then yes but as long as the video card wasn't physically damaged when you installed a water-block.

If I were you I don't really see the point on getting a 8800GT when a 8800GTS is still a fast card...

[neonlazer]

After this card i think i am forgetting about watercooling and overclocking as overclocking doesnt do much(since voltage cant be increased) so next card is staying stock and ill put huge fan on it or something lol...but i knew if i wanted to keep it stock then a 8800GT would be best since its single slot design :)

[werty316]

Single slot isn't always a good thing as noise can increase due to a smaller fan and a smaller heatsink doesn't help. The reason I think it uses a single slotted cooler is the smaller 65nm manufacturing process which generally means less generated heat.

[Sadasius]

Yeah I would not overclock the next one. Seems to be problems arising from the 8800 models if you noticed the other threads. Besides these things are pretty stinking fast as is.

[neonlazer]

Single slot isn't always a good thing as noise can increase due to a smaller fan and a smaller heatsink doesn't help. The reason I think it uses a single slotted cooler is the smaller 65nm manufacturing process which generally means less generated heat.
Yep thats why lol...but yea...reviews showed it was getting up into 90's on load so yep...its h0t :o...but if i had to replace it i would want a 8800GT(well at least realistically...i didnt think i would get the new 112sp GTS as a replacement but you never know what Shannon could do...) :icon_tiphat:

[werty316]

(well at least realistically...i didnt think i would get the new 112sp GTS as a replacement but you never know what Shannon could do...) :icon_tiphat:
As long as you live in Canada or the US and you didn't damage the card.

[neonlazer]

I dont see how it could be physically damaged in any way, the only thing i noticed was a part that "looked" like it had partially been melted...but i think it was always like that and looked like that since i got it.(should have got a pic but i dont know if i feel like taking the crazy stock hsf back off since its a pain to take off :) But it worked fine after i put waterblock on it until 2 days ago.

[neonlazer]

Dum question but what would i get back as a replacement for a 8800gts? :rolleyes:
A old 92sp 8800gts?...8800gt?...a 112sp 8800gts?! :D Some people over another forum im on are talking about maybe being able to flash the 92sp GTS to the 112sp GTS lol...if that works i think many will go nuts...but i doubt it will work as they are laser cut i believe...smart people arent they :jawdrop:

[werty316]

I wouldn't keep your hopes on flashing it as nVidia has learn to use laser cutting since the 7 Series cards.

As for which card you'll get, its hard to say; if XFX has your card in stock, they'll send the same card and if they don't who knows what they'll send you but be asured they'll tell you for sure what you'll be getting as a replacement.

[neonlazer]

Ok this is odd,

Hello Jeffrey; thanks for the message and sorry you`ve had this problem. Do you have all the original RAM thermal pads that came with the card? Are there any parts of the original cooler missing? We could probably get you setup with warranty service if all stock parts are still on the card, so please confirm we have your full name, shipping address and phone number registered. Regards, Michael

[Jeffrey - 11/01/2007] RAM thermal pads?...as in the white stuff i peeled off? no...i put the stock on with artic silver..enough for it to touch heatsink. All the original parts are on it.

[MICHAELC - 11/01/2007] Hi Jeffrey; the card had small bits of thermal compound attached to the memory chips, and those are very hard to replace in case you lost those, and replacing it with arctic silver doesn`t work as well. We unfortunately cannot accept the card without those pads, since we don`t even have any of those in stock here. Regards, Michael

Last time i didnt need the pads...

[Sadasius]

Yeah you have to make sure to keep everything as it came. Even the thermal pads. There is a trick for taking off the pads. Keep the card in the computer and run anything it can to get the memory warm and then quickly take off the stock cooler while it is warm (even if it is just rebooting over and over). The pads will come off easily as it is wax that holds on to the chips. Warming it up loosens it. That way the pads stay with the cooler and then when you need it just put it on the exact same way you took it off. Sometimes taking off the pads while it is cool will cause it to peel badly and the pads will be broken and they will more than likely not accept that either.

[Miker]

PM XFX Support on this forum about it. Something here doesn't line up and Shannon (XFX Support dude) will be more then happy to look into it for you.

[neonlazer]

The point is why didnt i need the pads on my 7900gtx?....if i would have known i needed them i would have kept them. Now im stuck with no video card...damn lucky i got a laptop 2 months ago..Yea, I had the same idea as shannon hasnt said anything yet :P

[werty316]

Mmmm I find this odd as the reason I see for XFX asking if you still have the thermal pads which sounds like they are saying that the cooler doesn't make contact with the memory chips but as far as I know the cooler should make full contact even if you used thermal paste. Quite odd this situation has become.

I kinda see how this could be since the cooler on my 7900GT doesn't make contact with the memory chips unless thermal pads are used like in this pic:

http://s30.photobucket.com/albums/c312/werty316/th_3ac31885.jpg (http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c312/werty316/3ac31885.jpg)

[neonlazer]

I agree, using AS5 might not be as good as there isnt as good a contact as with the pads. I wonder after all this time..why havent they designed the heatsink to hit directly on the memory?..or just closer...to save money on not needing thermal pads :P

[kiwiplayer]

to mass produce a premoulded or CNC full block that is guaranteed to make full contact of all components could prove to be a problem. so i guess they have taken option two, make sure the GPU has firm contact and CNC the rest of the block to it's as close as possible to the rest of the components, but most probably still not touching. so now the use of thermal pad is needed.
if they tried to design the full block to use thermal paste but the contact wasnt perfect, we would all be complaining about a large amount of RMA's.
of course there are many different designs that could have been used, a copper block on the GPU, separate blcocks for the other components which are all spring loaded and all this done with the help of heatpipes but that would just bump up the price considerably.

so all things considered, the factory cooler isnt too bad and the use of thermal pad tells me the designers are realistic about price.

back to your card, have you tried to put the water cooling back on?
heres another thought, no doubt you have added some new thermal paste to the GPU, so i dont see why they would have a problem if you were to buy and fit some new thermal pads (http://www.bergquistcompany.com/tm_gap_pad_list.cfm)
the thermal pads arent cheep, if XFX were to replace the pad on every RMA they had, it would cost too much.

good luck :grin:

Edit: email this site (http://www.petrastechshop.com/ekrevoretimp.html)and see if it would be a good replacement for the factory pads.

[xfxsupport]

Don’t forget with the GPU and RAM all covered by the same cooling device it can have bigger gaps from say the memory as opposed to the GPU or visa versa. The idea behind the thermal pads is you don’t need a big glob of thermal paste (which isn’t a good idea to have a large amount) and all the components with the thermal pads make good contact with the heat sink. Our Warranty terms are outstanding in my opinion, overclock it, mod it do what you want just put it back to stock condition if you need to RMA it. We are not voiding your warranty just requiring you either find or order some thermal pads to put it back to stock condition and we can take care of the rest.

[neonlazer]

Any recommendations on what maker of thermal pads to get?..or are they all the same.

[xfxsupport]

What ever is easier for you to get your hands on. I personally havent heard of one type being better then the rest becasue it is still rather new to the scene.

[neonlazer]

Such as this? http://cgi.ebay.com/Accelero-X1-X2-13-x-13-x-1-4mm-Thermal-Pads-4-pcs_W0QQitemZ270159477324QQihZ017QQcategoryZ46322Q QrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

Also im guessing it might be important to get 1.4mm or 2.4mm pads...would be funny for it to be too thin :D

[kiwiplayer]

i've seen most people asking for the 2mm gap pads
hope that helps :grin:

[Sadasius]

It has been my experience with the XFX thermal pads to be rather thick. The 2mm one's should do. I actually posted pics in a thread that shows the thickness of their pads.

http://www.bjorn3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18083&page=9

http://www.bjorn3d.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1054&d=1193289681

[neonlazer]

I should have asked this before...but i heard that when the thermal compound gets messy it can mess up the electrals because its lying across two connectors...can this cause artifacts?...or would the card not work at all...here is a screenshot if you can see...my camera dont have much zoom so go magnifying glass :D http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m118/neonlazer_2006/P1000833.jpg Just ordered some 13x13x2.4mm pads so hopefully they wont take a month to get here :)

[werty316]

Using Arctic Silver Ceramique would have been better on those small voltage regulators and it looks like you used too much AS5 as doing so can make it run off and possibly short out your card which could be why it went all screwy when you installed the stock cooler back on.

AS5 is conductive.
Ceramique is non-conductive.

[neonlazer]

So if i put i had put ceramique on it instead and not as5(and the artifacts were caused by the shortage) would the card work fine?...maybe i should try that....

[werty316]

If in deed something was shorted chances are using Ceramique won't make a difference as once you short something out, its shorted out for good.

[Miker]

In that picture I can point out like 15 things that are shorted from AS5, amazing it even works at all.

[neonlazer]

Well after getting a second 22in monitor(yesss it was black friday morning...got to best buy at 1am and waiting till 5am in 40f weather..brrrrrrr...but im happy with it) I got anxious and put watercooling back on with ceramique instead of AS5...so far(im installing call of duty 4 right now) i have yet to see a single artifact...i might be defying the laws of conductivity and shortivity...

[neonlazer]

Played call of duty 4 for a hour or so and perfect!...must not have been a short then :)