Disaster when changing cooler..

Just got a PowerColor AIW 9800pro card, and there are problems..

Now, this card only has a tiny HSF on the core, nothing on the ram. So the first thing I did, was to install my GPU waterblock and heatsinks on the memory chips. Used AS5 on the GPU block and AAadhesive on the ram chips (and removed the shim on the GPU of course..)

So, installed it, connected the water, plugged in the power and fired it up! DISASTER! Artefacts in Dos and also in winxp! But different artefacts.. In DOS I get something that looks like chinese signs in a regular pattern. Havn't counted yet, but something like a checkerboard pattern with 15*20 rows/columns.

In windows, the artefacts are different, and sometimes none at all. But then I can't install drivers for the card.. It is recognized as a aiw9800pro card, and it start to install, but in the end I get a "parameter incorrect" error message. So it works as an unrecognized card, but with no accelleration on anything..

Any ideas besides thrashing the card? I did have some problems with my last card as well. A water leak got on the card and into the agp slot, so one of the pins got corroded. Had som problems, but a bit of sandpaper helped then. Could this have come back to haunt me? Maybe the MB is to blame?

Kinda regret not testing the card first..

well, now there is no way of telling if the damage is your fault or not. It might have been originally bad or you broke it

I know..

Is ther a way to test different parts of the card? Like testing each pipeline, testing different areas of memory, that sort of ting?

There was another guy that posted a few days ago with the same problem..... he found that the waterblock wasn't contacting the core, and he was going to try and mod his water block so it sat a little lower and contacted the core.

I can't find the thread, but that might be what's happening to you.

Well, I removed the shim and has my WB bolted on with AS5 in there.. And the back of the card is cool to the touch. So probably not it, but I'l check it out anyway!