Concave GeForce2MX chips?

[Wa11y]

I recently damaged my GeForce 2 by trying to replace the heatsink on it (i was just lazy, and didn't pay attention to proper safety). It may be repairable, but I just don't wanna spend the time on it right now. Mayhap I was just shorting something out.

But this video card, a hercules GeForce 2 MX400 32MB only had a heatsink, no fan. So I wanted to replace the heatsink with a Tennmax (http://www.tennmax.com) Lasagna cooler. When I pulled off the old cooler this is what I saw.

[Wa11y]

Notice how the heatsink only connected at the edges of the chip. Well, I was more than willing to blame that on the heatsink. So I cleaned up the GPU, applied a nice layer of ASII, and attached the tennmax cooler, and tightened it down. I did have metal washers and nuts on there, so that may have led to my troubles (I'll explain later). So i cranked down the new cooler, and ran into problems, so I pulled it off. Lo and behold, it appears my GPU is CONCAVE!

[Wa11y]

Well, I also scratched the back of the video card taking off the clips from the original heatsink, so I think that may have had something to do with my problem, or it may have been a short caused by the metal washers and nuts I used to secure the heatsink. I'll look into that and get back, but here's what my screen looked like after putting on the new heatsink and scratching the back of the card.

[Wa11y]

Darn my spastic fingers!

[Silversinksam]

Wally,

Looks like one of the resistors may have been damaged or Arctic Silver may have been the culprit.

My best friend had that same screen, and it was caused by more than 1 resistor being knocked off.

[Wa11y]

Originally posted by Silversinksam
Wally,

Looks like one of the resistors may have been damaged or Arctic Silver may have been the culprit.

My best friend had that same screen, and it was caused by more than 1 resistor being knocked off.

Hm.. I don't think anything got knocked off, I just scratched some traces on the back. I'll double check when I get home. Thanks.

It may have been a short, since I was using metal nuts and washers. I've lined them with electrical tape, but haven't put them back on yet. My biggest concern is the lack of contact between the HSF and GPU. Has anyone else seen this?

I've already replaced the video card, so I'm not worried about making it work, but why is the contact so poor?

[rogue1979]

I have found alot of gpu's and northbridge chips to be concave. I usually lap them and or use extra artic silver.

[Wa11y]

Originally posted by rogue1979
I have found alot of gpu's and northbridge chips to be concave. I usually lap them

You are a braver man than I.

and or use extra artic silver.

I would more agree with option 2, thanks.

And in answer to Silversinksam, it doesn't look like I knocked anything off. I just looked at it under my lighted magnifying lens (that this is SO useful!), and nothing looks broken, just a few scratches where I wasn't careful. But I uncovered two traces (doesn't look like I cut through them) right by one of the mouting holes. It's possible I was shorting them with the washer. I'll cover them over with some clear nail polish, and see if that helps.

Also, would it burn up the card to POST without a heatsink on my GPU? I'm tempted to try it, since I've already replaced the card, but I'd hate to damage anything else in the process.