6800LE WAY too hot!

[Paya]

Hi all,

I was wondering if someone could help me out with my problem that has appeared for the last 2 weeks. I searched a lot about my problem on google but I still wasn't able to fix it.

About 2 weeks ago I noticed that my VGA cards GPU temperature was rising and dropping constantly. I cleaned the surface of the vga card and the surface underneath the vga cooler (i have a zalman 7700) and applied a thin layer of paste ( I did this process a couple of times because one or 2 times it seemed to help).Today I uninstalled my nvidia drivers because I was seeing stripes and all kind of artifacts on the screen so I was not able to do anything anymore. Now I'm not seeing the artifacts anymore but the temperature is still the same as you can see below:
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/8504/tempxr8.th.jpg (http://img68.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tempxr8.jpg)

I then installed Coolbits so I could have a look at the overclocking section and this is where I got amazed..My overclock memory is set on 1.40Ghz which should be 700Mhz?
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/653/coolbitsuy2.th.jpg (http://img185.imageshack.us/my.php?image=coolbitsuy2.jpg)


But when I slide it back to 700Mhz and I press the button to test it then I get the following screen:
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8051/testbp3.th.jpg (http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=testbp3.jpg)

I installed Rivatuner so I could manually do the overclocking..I set the settings as you can see in the picture below but when I look at the Coolbit section again, it will be still on 1.40Ghz and the temperature is still 153C.
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/9059/rivatunerqx2.th.jpg (http://img68.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rivatunerqx2.jpg)

Could someone help me out please or is my VGA card screwed? :(

[Mr.Guvernment]

either your heatsink is not making contact properly
you used too much thermalpaste - you can actually insulate your GPU this way
you didn't remove the old paste / crap on the gpu / heatsink(any plastic coatings or some cheaper cards use a foam padding almost as "paste"
You have a VERY hot room or your case is shoved in a corner with no ari flow and no fans in the case???


either way, do you have a digital camera? to take off the cooler, clean it, take a pic, put on the paste, take a pic, attach heatsink - take some pics to show us...

are you sure the fan is working on the heat sink?

[MasterG]

There's no way that chip is running that hot or you'd have smoke pouring out of your comp. 153C is a little over 300F by the way. The sensor on the card is most likely shot. Your clock settings should be 320 and 350 by the way. Give that a try and see what happens.

[Paya]

either your heatsink is not making contact properly
you used too much thermalpaste - you can actually insulate your GPU this way
you didn't remove the old paste / crap on the gpu / heatsink(any plastic coatings or some cheaper cards use a foam padding almost as "paste"
You have a VERY hot room or your case is shoved in a corner with no ari flow and no fans in the case???


either way, do you have a digital camera? to take off the cooler, clean it, take a pic, put on the paste, take a pic, attach heatsink - take some pics to show us...

are you sure the fan is working on the heat sink?

1. i dont know if my heatsink is not making contact properly but I believe it does because I used the paste to make a thin layer..I didnt put to much or to less on it.
2. Every time I renewed it with new paste, I removed the old paste with a paste remover I ordered from the internet.
3. I have enough fans in the pc to make the air flow well. I build the PC about 4 years ago myself and I made sure it has a good airflow.
4. The fan on the heatsink is spinning properly so i dont know..

I have a digital camera but I'm out of paste atm or else I would have made a picture. All i basically want is to get the memory clock that is currently on 1.40Ghz lower, but cause of that error that keeps coming up when I set it lower, I'm not able to do it.

[Paya]

There's no way that chip is running that hot or you'd have smoke pouring out of your comp. 153C is a little over 300F by the way. The sensor on the card is most likely shot. Your clock settings should be 320 and 350 by the way. Give that a try and see what happens.

I'd like to put set the settings of the memory clock lower in the nvidia overclockings panel (using coolbits), but as I said before, I get this error saying "the test failed to run at the selected clock frequencies. Please lower your settings and try again".

That's my main problem, I even disabled the clock test in rivatuner but somehow it doesnt accept it and i still need to test it. Is there also a way to disable it in the nvidia control panel?

[Paya]

I'd like to put set the settings of the memory clock lower in the nvidia overclockings panel (using coolbits), but as I said before, I get this error saying "the test failed to run at the selected clock frequencies. Please lower your settings and try again".

That's my main problem, I even disabled the clock test in rivatuner but somehow it doesnt accept it and i still need to test it. Is there also a way to disable it in the nvidia control panel?

Someone told me the 1.40Ghz means that it's 700Mhz anyway because it's DDR2. I found out that my fan was running at 53% and that the temperature was constantly 153%. After 15 min I start to see artifacts until I get a black screen.

Using Rivatuner I was able to put the fan up to 100% but now the temperature is playing when I look at it in the nvidia control panel. It goes like this: 70c / 66c / 152c / 148c / 68c /153c etc etc.

What the hell is wrong with my vga card? :/

[AsusLover]

sounds like the core is on the way out. What type of TIM are you using? Maybe you have some pins with some of it on them?

[Paya]

sounds like the core is on the way out. What type of TIM are you using? Maybe you have some pins with some of it on them?

I believe the second time I applied the paste i used..the paste was "stretched" out to far and i bit came out of the sides of the chip. But I'm not sure they touched the pins next to the side. If they did, what can there be done? Cause I know the paste that came off the chip has been removed en cleaned.

[MasterG]

If something shorted out then your card is probably toast. Most thermal pastes out there aren't good conductors of electricity though (because they're designed that way). If you're using one that does though (there are a few), you might have shorted something. If it has actually shorted, then just removing the paste isn't going to repair the damage caused by the short. There's probably not much that can be done to repair it manually.

[Paya]

If something shorted out then your card is probably toast. Most thermal pastes out there aren't good conductors of electricity though (because they're designed that way). If you're using one that does though (there are a few), you might have shorted something. If it has actually shorted, then just removing the paste isn't going to repair the damage caused by the short. There's probably not much that can be done to repair it manually.

I see. Well i'll buy 1 more thermal paste and see what happens. If it doesn't improve again then I guess it's time to buy a new one. Thanks for all your time and help. I appreciate it.