nv silencer rubber grommet failure

A

archevilangel

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 15, 2003
Messages
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So I fired up doom 3 and I was replaying one of my old save points, when all of a sudden I started getting horrible artifacting before it finally crashed. I looked at my card and felt the underside of my nv silencer and it didn't feel warm. Then I noticed one of the rubber gromets was missing. I looked around and found it on my desk, but it had a slice right through it. I quickly realized what must have happened, the rubber gromet must have been split and flinged off by the pressure of the fastener. The other three grommets look fine. Should I bother arctic cooling about this, or just head down to the hardware store and start looking for replacements(should be very cheap)? I did tighten all of them to the point where it wouldn't tighten anymore, but if only 1 fails doesn't that make it defective?
 
Either way. AC should replace it if you ask. Did you inspect the other grommets?

I only hand tightened (no screwdriver on purpose) it on mine. That compressed the grommets about 25%.
 
I tightened by screw driver, the other grommets look slightly warped, compressed like 50%. I think I'll just buy some cheap at the local hardware store, no need to wait for shipping and they're probably 10 cents each anyways.
 
I think you should still let them know that it failed. Personally, I don't really like that method of mounting the cooler. I would prefer they use springs, bolts, and nuts to put something that big and heavy on. Furthermore, I wished they had a few more attachment points to the card, rather than the 4 that is there.
 
I used the original back plate for a spacer.. You just need to reem out the orginal holes just a little bit.. It works perfectly.. It won't allow the supplied nuts that come with the NV-5 to bottom out either.....
 
sounds like a good idea I'll try it *edit* it's too early to be sure(that and I didn't keep accurate tempature readings) but I believe I'm getting a few c lower idle tempature from using the backplate instead of the grommets, I guess it applies direct pressure to the card, with the down side of if you over tighten you crack the card instead of destroy a grommet.
 
I noticed that the nuts provided along with the rubber washers looks like trouble.. If I remeber right the size of the stud on the NV-5 is 2.4mm (you can find 2.4mm nuts at just about any electronic shop)..

I replaced my nuts with normal nuts that you can use a socket on (You can use the supplied nuts just fine as long as you are using a solid spacer that don't allow the nut to bottom out). I tossed the rubber spacers in my spare parts bin and drilled out the original back plate a little to allow the 2.4mm studs to slide right through the holes with the perfect amount of space needed...

It works perfectly.... I also used a small round blob of AS5 on each memory and a little larger on the core. (After I cleaned them all with acetone..(not a good idea to use rubbing alcohol as is is oil based and leaves a film of oil behind..) I'm not sure about denatured alcohol though?
Anyhow I achieved a 460mhz/1250mhz on both 2D & 3D w/ 1.5v on all three voltage settings with the bios editing tool available. This OC is 24/7 stable on a Evga Ultra....

Note: I tightened the NV-5 down by holding the card sideways in the light and watching all four corners of the shim around the gpu and tightened slowly until all four corners of the shim slightly touched the heatsink... If you wanted to, you could back off each nut a little the same amount from the point of touching the shim, thats if you are worried about bending the pcb a little... I chose not to back them off, because it was allowing better contact between the memory and the NV-5....
I hope this helps to reduce the amount of users that will end up twisting off the stud, because the supplied nuts bottomed out.
 
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