Added new fan. Results = artifacts

J

jas0nt

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 4, 2003
Messages
81
my friend uninstalled a new copper fan (it is generic) onto my 9600 pro. i let him do it because i have absolutely no idea how to, and he looks like he has more experience as he works in the IT field.

however, after installing the fan, i expected some better results. instead, after running a game or running 3dmark03, it instantly has distorted graphics and weird transparent and white shapes.

before installing the fan, i could run 3dmark03 until a certain point, but now, once entering the first test, it has problems. similarly, once playing a game, it would allow me to play for ~30 minutes, then it shows artifacts. now it shows artifacts after the first second. and to make matters worst, i was just browsing the internet, and the computer froze + some graphics screwed up.

what's wrong? one thing i suspect is once we put the thermal grease on (again, this is a generic brand), we simply put a little blob on the core, unevenly spread it around with a hard credit card and put the fan on. we also removed the stock thermal grease by using a card to scrape (using slight and noticable force) the core. the core still remains sticky, becuase we didn't clean it with isopropyl alchohol or anything. we thought it wouldn't damage the card as visually, the core looked exactly like the memory. and strangely, my Power-Color 9600 pro doesn't have a shim (i know what shim looks like, there are is no silver/grey border around the GPU, it's all green with the black core)

i'm really worried we might have caused some irreversable damage to the GPU, most likely by removing the thermal grease.

what does this sound like?
 
sounds like it's overheating. take off the hsf. clean BOTH VERY WELL with isopropyl (higher % the better...you can usually find 93% at walgreens I believe) or acetone. Use some non-generic thermal greese...AS3-5, ceramique, or even the AS thermal adhesive. spread it on EVENLY, in a thin coat...apply it too thick and it will act more as an insulator than heat conductor. clamp down the hsf good and tight but not tight enough to crush the core.

next, run it at stock speeds (this includes stock AGP voltage)and do not stress it for a couple days (time to give the thermal compound a chance to "set in" or whatever they say it needs). After that, give it another shot and see what happens with 3dmark.

Hopefully if you haven't been running the piss out of it while it's been artifacting you haven't caused permanent damage. The second I saw artifacts I would have stopped using the card for 3d and redo the hsf.
 
The heatsink is probably sitting on the support frame around the edge of the GPU package and not touching the die itself. You can either spackle it up with thermal paste, remove the support frame (carefully), grind down the heatsink so it clears it, get another heatsink that allows for the frame, or put the original heatsink back on.
 
It probably is the heatsink paste. The other alternative is that he somehow managed to cut or knock off a component on the board.

I don't really like AS3/5 for GPU's. The cheaper OCZ Premium Silver 2 seems to have a thicker consistency and seems to "stick" better, where the AS tends to run, which is bad on an upside-down mounted GPU.
 
ceramique works well.

I put that under my oceberq 4 on my 9500pro.
 
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