First Class Idiot Reporting!

[Half Baked]

I just killed my 7900GT in my new e6600 system and feel a right idiot

I fitted a Aerocool VM-102 fanless cooler to the 7900GT and booted the system. It loaded fine and after a few minutes I decided to reboot. Nothing appeared on screen and the motherboard made some beeps, although they did not quite match any of the message beeps the manual said it made. I could hear the hard drive spinning up and presume that it booted, but nothing on screen to tell me.

When I felt the 7900GT and VM-102 they were both very hot to touch and I presumed it was overheating. I replaced the stock cooler and rebooted, but the same problem. I'm guessing my pretty new graphics card is fried and I'll have to buy another

I don't think there is anyway around, but I would like some ideas of where I went wrong so I don't repeat the same mistake. Both card and heatsink were very hot and when I removed the VM-102 the thermal grease looked well spread so I think I fitted it properly. Even if it did overheat I thought it would just crash and return to normal when it cooled again.

My case is an Antec 3000B with three Scythe S-FLEX 120mm fans at 1600RPM. An intake at the front, outake in the rear and one blowing down on the SI-128 cpu heatsink.

Any thought I what I might have done wrong?

[krusty]

I fried an AGP video card once because I didn't fully seat the card
in the AGP slot.

Another time, I got some solder splash on my 4200 and thought it was
dead, but got in some good light to look for problems and noticed
the solder splash. It worked afterwards.

My thoughts.. If the card was hot, then you had good heat transfer
to the GPU, so it wasn't that. My guess is something metal shorted
to a component on the board, or maybe a connector seating issue.


I would remove the heatsink and get in a good light to look for any
problems. Maybe the board was defective.

[krusty]

http://www.aerocool.com.tw/p-cooler/vm- ... lation.htm

Pics 9 and 10 here look dangerous.

If those are metal screws, the multilayer board needs to have trace sufficient
clearance in the holes and around the holes. I would guess near those
holes is where a short took place.

[Candor]

It kinda sounds like that cooler was not enough for your 7600. If the heatsink was hot along with the card, it sounds like the heat was being spread through the heatsink, but it wasn't able to get it out fast enough.

I'd be really careful about using it on another card. If you want to try it again, monitor the temperature very carefully, and maybe start with a fan pointed at the heatsink. Slowly turn the fan down or move it away from the card, until you've reached a comfortable temperature (no hotter than ~70C, I think). If you get above 70C at idle, you've definitely got a problem.

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience.

Edit: I just read krusty's post and looked at the heatsink online. That thing looks pretty competent, so I am probably mistaken that it wasn't prepared to handle a 7600GT. The only other things I'd be concerned about is whether you had enough airflow or if the heatpipes were broken somehow.

[josephclemente]

I have killed a 6600GT with one of Zalman's heatpipe coolers.

I've had great luck with the AeroCool VM-101. I am currently using one on a 7900GT and the other on a 7600GS. But with my previous bad experience, I worry when I'm pressing the power button for the first time after I install the thing on a card.

Things that can go wrong... Heastink base is not centered well enough over the GPU, causing it to lift and lose contact... ...Video card components touching the assembly, interfering with contact or causing components to break off... ...Crushing or chipping the GPU core... ...Using electrically conductive thermal grease and thermal grease gets somewhere it shouldn't... ...Over- or under-tightening heatsink base screws... ...Defective video card or heatsink...

[Half Baked]

Thank you all for your sympathy. I don't think I crushed the core, but I would not be surprised if it was thermal grease or overtightening the screws or some other display of my incompetance. Anyway, I have decided to try and avoid DIY cooling of the replacement video card. I'm not sure my wife will be as tolerant if I screw it up again

Any suggestions on a decently quiet video card of similar power? It does not have to be fanless, but I don't want to hear the card above the case fans if possible. Some of the options are:

Gigabyte 7900GT with zalman http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductI ... tID=443252

Passive MSI 7900GT http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/produc ... -vt2d256ez

7900GTX as I have heard the fans are reasonably quiet. Not sure that they will fit in my Antec 3000B case though. I only have two HDDs and can arrange matters so they are not in the way.

The only problem with the passive MSI card is finding somewhere that has them in stock.

There is also these guys:

http://www.grafikkartenpower.de/shop/ca ... p?cPath=59

Does anyone know of a company that does the same thing in the UK?

[Tzupy]

I bought a VM-102 that I planned to install on a 7900 GT, because I had good experience with a VM-101 on a 6600 GT.
But after closer inspection of the VM-102 I was dissapointed by the small surface area / weight ratio and went with a 7900 GTX instead.
The 7900 GTX is pretty quiet (and 50% faster than the GT, which I needed in Oblivion), but it's long and may blow hot air on harddisks that are too close.
In my current Antec 3000B I have put sound dampening over the top side intake, improving aiflow for my current setup.
I mean, hot air from the 7900 GTX won't stay low, where it could have overheated the harddisk and TR HR-05 chipset heatsink.

[Half Baked]

Tzupy: Thanks for the advice . It maybe a stupid question, but the 7900 GTX is in your Antec 3000B case?

I'm not too concerned about the harddisks having hot air blown over them as my intake fan blows cool air over them.

[Half Baked]

Another question! I only have a Seasonic S12 380W psu with the following components:

Asus P5W DH Delux
e6600 Conroe
2 Gig of Memory
2 x 300 GB Samsung HDDs
DVD RW

Will it be able to handle a 7900GTX?

[Tzupy]

Yes, the 7900 GTX is in the 3000B, but I already bought a P150 without PSU for my new setup.
Which will probably be a E6600 on Gigabyte DQ6, overclocked to 3 GHz, but those have been hard to find in my country.
I am going to get a Seasonic PSU, probably the S12-600. Although the 7900 GTX shouldn't draw more than 7A on the 12V, I prefer to be safe than sorry.

[land]

Take a good look at the GPU core. I once chipped a 6600GT with a VM-101 (and that was a much lighter heatsink), though I also installed once successfully on a 6800. From my experience with the VM-101, it tends to lose contact with the core, which means one is tempted to put too much pressure on the chipset.

As for the PSU, yes, a 380W Seasonic should be enough. I am using a 330W and am amazed at what it can carry on its tiny back...

[Half Baked]

Thanks guys! I have ordered a 7900GTX

[Tzupy]

Just a footnote: the 7900 GTX is loud for 3-4 seconds at boot. I suppose it runs it's 92 mm fan at maximum speed for that short amount of time, and that should be enough to get rid of the dust that settled on the heatsinks. I find the fan in my vintage (18 months old) Neopower 480 a bit louder than the 7900 GTX fan at low load. And IMO it doesn't ramp up much in games.

[gasganet]

Another question! I only have a Seasonic S12 380W psu with the following components:

Asus P5W DH Delux
e6600 Conroe
2 Gig of Memory
2 x 300 GB Samsung HDDs
DVD RW

Will it be able to handle a 7900GTX?

I think my system uses more power than yours and it works great with a 350W PSU.

[Half Baked]

Thank you everyone for their help, advice and reassurance. The 7900GTX arrived and is happily running in the system now . I haven't stretched it yet, but all seems good and silent enough for me.