My overclock

BIB · Jan 25, 2004

well i have a sapphire radeon 9800 pro (128mb) and all that i have heard was how good the sapphire cards overclock. Well i must have gotten a bad card then. Stock is 378/337 and i put it to 390/337. on that oc i get white dots when i run 3dmarks03, and other games. Might it be the software that i am using to overclock it with? I am using the rage3Dtweak. is there any better programs out there to try and see if i can get a better oc?

hUMANbEATbOX · Jan 25, 2004

rage3d prog should not be the cause of that.

if your getting artifacts at only 10mhz over stock, i would say the stock heatsink is making lousy contact with the core. they stuff a shim and a wad of yellow crud in there, but it doesn't really cut it.

you can remove the shim, and clean off the core/hsf. then reapply some as5 ond put the heatsink back on, it will make much better contact.

BIB · Jan 25, 2004

they stuff a shim and a wad of yellow crud in there, but it doesn't really cut it.

shoot, that makes me worry. Yeah i might have to mess with it, if i get the courage to.

Arkangyl · Jan 25, 2004

a little off topic but will Shim removal really help OC"s alot? I left the shim on but I have AS3 on there with a Maze4 GPU watercooler...

BIB · Jan 25, 2004

is this the shim you are talking about?
http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/radeon_voltmod/3.shtml

BIB · Jan 25, 2004

ok so i removed the heatsink, and i could not get the shim off. I did not want to break anything. So i just cleaned up the old thermal paste and put new stuff on. Put the heatsink back on and put it in my computer. Powered up and the fan was not spinning at all. I was also running 3dmarks 03 for a bit, so the computer was on for a while. ten minutes tops. That is when i smelled something not right. So i felt the heatsink and it was hot. Although i was able to keep my finger on it for a while. Then i powered off right away. so i ordered a new heatsink with fan, but i am wondering if i damaged the gpu? I mean it was still working fine when i powered off and all. So what should i do?

snvpa · Jan 25, 2004

if it didin't lock on you then no you probably didin't do any permanent damage. Did you plug the fan back in after you took off the heatsink.

BIB · Jan 25, 2004

if it didin't lock on you then no you probably didin't do any permanent damage.

woot, nope it did not lock. i had time to exit the program.

Did you plug the fan back in after you took off the heatsink.

yes i made sure to plug it back on.

so i dont know what i did, i was very careful. Maybe the fan was about to die anyways. i am just worried about that smell, but i should be fine, i hope

BIB · Jan 28, 2004

alright my new fan and heatsink are on the fedex truck as i am typing this. I am excited. You never now how much you miss something until it is gone.(or in my case does not work for the time being) i removed the old heatsink and everything looks fine. No burn marks at all. No black thermal paste either. So all will be good when i get my new fan on that sucker.
o yeah i also get four ramsinks with it. But the only things is that my card has eight memory chips.

kct2 · Jan 28, 2004

hUMANbEATbOX said:
you can remove the shim, and clean off the core/hsf. then reapply some as5 ond put the heatsink back on, it will make much better contact.

I am fairly sure the shim problem was 'fixed' for the 9800 with a redesigned stock heatsink. So the stock heatsink should not have had any contact issues. The stock heatsink and TIM, however, are not designed for overclocking.

Depending on what heatsink you got it may be necessary to remove the shim to ensure proper contact. Here's a good way to see if the core is lower than the shim (not all are). Take a razor blade and put the sharp edge across the shim and core. Then take a flashlight and shine in on the back of the blade. If you see light coming under the blade over the core the shim is higher and should be removed. If you do not see light then the core is higher or the same height as the shim. Be aware that removing the shim is potentially dangerous to your card; a few have cut resistors off the GPU package, or chipped/crushed the core when reinstalling the heatsink (and of course any warrenty is void). Just be careful and you should have no problem...

BIB · Jan 28, 2004

that is why i really dont want to remove the shim at all and probably wont.
but i got this heatsink for my card.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...-110-106&catalog=62&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1

kct2 · Jan 28, 2004

If your core is lower than the shim you stand to gain very little if you don't remove it because that cooler has a flat bottom.

You are overclocking the card, so technically your warrenty is void anyway, so trying to RMAing it in the future would be less than honest.

Another way to check contact with the core is when you get the new cooler, put AS on as you normally would (a thin layer) and test mount the cooler and see how much AS is trasferred to the bottom of the cooler. If there is none, or only a little, there is a chance of the card overheating, potentially worse than before.

BIB · Jan 28, 2004

If you do not see light then the core is higher or the same height as the shim.

looks to be the same height to me.

there is a chance of the card overheating, potentially worse than before.

how can that be? Saying that if the stock heatsink did not make good contact how can a new, better one be worse?

kct2 · Jan 28, 2004

BIB said:
looks to be the same height to me.

Then you should be fine, as I said some 9800s do not have the shim problem.

BIB said:
how can that be? Saying that if the stock heatsink did not make good contact how can a new, better one be worse?

I never said the stock heatsink didn't make good contact...

kct2 said:
I am fairly sure the shim problem was 'fixed' for the 9800 with a redesigned stock heatsink. So the stock heatsink should not have had any contact issues. The stock heatsink and TIM, however, are not designed for overclocking.

BIB · Jan 28, 2004

BIG BIG BIG relief. It works and everything is good. I am getting the same scores in 3dmark 01 and 03 with no artifacts at stock.
thanks for the help.

kct2 · Jan 28, 2004

BIB said:
It works and everything is good.

Glad to hear it.

Didn't mean to scare you, but figured you should know the potential problems...

BIB · Jan 28, 2004

np, i kind of knew the potential problems but did not want to face them just yet and now i wont have too. LOL

Damian · Jan 28, 2004

Some 9800s? I'm pretty sure absolutely all 9800s have the shim put on so that it doesn't interfere with the core. The only reason why the 9700 had the core lower than the shim was that ATI used a thermal pad, and replacing that with thermal paste caused problems. 9800s come with thermal paste stock, so the shim was redesigned to work with it.

kct2 · Jan 29, 2004

Damian said:
Some 9800s? I'm pretty sure absolutely all 9800s have the shim put on so that it doesn't interfere with the core.

I believe some 9800s do, in fact, have the same problem as the 9700s. Many people remove the shim from 9800s. I could see a few people getting confused and thinking they actually had a 9700, but I'm sure most people checked the height before removing the shim. I know I would have, I wasn't happy about taking a razor to my 9700.

Damian said:
The only reason why the 9700 had the core lower than the shim was that ATI used a thermal pad, and replacing that with thermal paste caused problems.

You have it alittle backwards. ATI used a thermal pad on the 9700 because the core was lower than the shim, not the other way around. Early reviewer's samples were shipped with thermal paste and they had constant overheating issues, the shipping version was then shipped with the thermal pad.

Originally posted by Damian
9800s come with thermal paste stock, so the shim was redesigned to work with it.

The heatsink was designed to take the difference in height into account. The heatsink has a raised area where it contacts the core. That is why it is able to use normal thermal paste.

I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure the actual shim is exactly the same as the 9700. It would take someone measuring the thickness of each shim with a micrometer to be sure.

iLLestOne · Jan 29, 2004

My 9800pro had paste, not a thermal pad. If that helps.

To my bind eyes, it looked like it was a tad higher then the shim. I put a small layer (like a layer u'd put on a cpu) on it, and put the hs on and took it off and it transfered quiet a bit.

My overclock

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