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Installed silencer on 9800pro and now games crash

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JBoyEngy

Registered
Joined
Aug 9, 2004
I got an ATI Silencer 1 and some iceberq copper BGA ramsinks and installed it all yesterday onto a radeon 9800 pro 128mb. everything worked fine as far as running the computer and such. watched a movie too. then that night i finally decided to load up battlefield vietnam to see if i could induce the artifacts i always got. i made a game, jumped into a helicopter and started flying, and after about 30 seconds the game locked up with sound skipping. then i tried UT2k4. same thing. CS: Source also produced the same results, though it ran longer. then tried starwars galaxies and the VPU reset and i ended up still having to hit the reset button. no slowdown or artifacts or anything in any of the games prior to it crashing. this morning i pulled the card and stuck my old 9000pro in and had no problems in bfv. i tried it a few times and it wouldn't crash. stuck 9800 back in and it crashed. so i'm pretty sure it's the card, and it's seeming like most games will crash.

doesn't seem like it would be, but if it's the cooler what is the best way to install it? how much thermal grease (i'm using the stuff they sent) and how tight should i screw down the bracket? any problems you had regarding this and your solutions would be a big help. thanks!

edit: no overclocking or anything
 
the backplate should be screwed on until it starts to get difficult to turn. I wouldn't use the paste that came with it as this doesn't contain any silver at all. I used just enough AS5 to make sure the gpu was completely covered with a thin layer. Also, turn off vpu recovery in the drivers section as that will only cause problems and doesn't help in any none way.
 
Download ati tool and scan for artifacts. Watch the temperature on your card. See where the temperature is at when it locks up. Then go from there and try lowering your temps more. Make sure on ati tool turn your fan speed up 100%.
 
Biofear said:
Download ati tool and scan for artifacts. Watch the temperature on your card. See where the temperature is at when it locks up. Then go from there and try lowering your temps more. Make sure on ati tool turn your fan speed up 100%.

this is a radeon 9800 pro. i can't monitor anything :(. i ran ati tool some as well last night and it didn't do anything. i'm pretty sure it's something much worse than heat though. everything is running great in games, but i don't get very far and then it just flat out crashes. no slow down or artifacts or anything to suggest the card is heating up. god i think i did something bad to this card while installing that silencer. probably gonna have to RMA the thing, and i hope they'll take it back.
 
arg you installed a aftermarket cooler.... so technically you voided warrenty. it used to happen to me on stock cooling(the freezing and everything). i heard the suggestion to up my agp voltage to 1.6 or 1.7 and it will run stable.

but my card is dead now because i think its been through to many surges and my mobo has something to do with it because it killed 2 cards within a year.
 
Sounds like a bad seating job to me. Try reseating your silencer, that might help.

Don't RMA it... if you fried your card, you did it yourself; it's not ATI's fault.
 
YellowDart said:
Sounds like a bad seating job to me. Try reseating your silencer, that might help.

Don't RMA it... if you fried your card, you did it yourself; it's not ATI's fault.


reseated it a few times. i think the first time i did a bad job with the grease. i don't care who's fault it is, i'm RMAing it if i have to. i'm not about to have a dead card because i was trying to stop the artifacting i was getting at stock speeds in most games even after i RMAed it once.
 
Pull off the silencer, clean up ALL the thermal paste with isopropyl alcohol, reapply a small amount on the CORE only, then reseat the silencer, and tighten the bracket.
 
What they are saying is that you pulled off the stock heatsink, thereby voiding the warranty.

Goodluck trying to get that RMA'ed...

Its your fault, you shouldnt make ATi pay for YOUR mistake.
 
jbloudg20 said:
What they are saying is that you pulled off the stock heatsink, thereby voiding the warranty.

Goodluck trying to get that RMA'ed...

Its your fault, you shouldnt make ATi pay for YOUR mistake.


i understand that, but my next step is probably going to be pay them 400+ dollars for the next video upgrade i would have made, upgrading from a card that should never have had the artifact problems it did in the first place. i didn't pull the card out and throw it against the wall or anything. i removed the heatsink and put another one on. i'm going to try and see if they'll do something for me before i shell out 2x the cash i've already spent.

edit: and thank you for the suggestions :D
 
JBoyEngy said:
i understand that, but my next step is probably going to be pay them 400+ dollars for the next video upgrade i would have made, upgrading from a card that should never have had the artifact problems it did in the first place. i didn't pull the card out and throw it against the wall or anything. i removed the heatsink and put another one on. i'm going to try and see if they'll do something for me before i shell out 2x the cash i've already spent.

edit: and thank you for the suggestions :D

Oh I completely understand, and if I were trying to RMA it, I woudl explain to them EXACTLY what happened, and what you did. That way they wont deny your RMA when they see that the stock sink was "tampered with".
 
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