Zalman ZM80C-HP and GeForce Ti4200 unstable?

MoJo-chan · Post by **MoJo-chan** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 7:07 am

I fitted a Zalman ZM80C-HP to my MSI GeForce Ti4200 about a week ago, but ever since my computer has been unstable. Textures are corrupt in games (before they crash) and even visiting certain web pages in Mozilla will lock it up. The freezes all seem to be graphics card related, as when I tried another card everything was fine. I have tried using a fan to cool the ZM80C-HP but it has not made any difference at all.

The heatsinks on the graphics card do get quite hot, but not too hot to touch, when running more or less "idle". I tried using different amounts of thermal paste (at the moment there is quite a bit on there) but none of it makes much difference. Any ideas what could be wrong? As a last resort I might try the (fan) original cooler.

MoJo

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 8:24 am

Sounds like what happened when I put a zm80c on my 9800pro. It seemed ok when I put a box fan blowing into the side of the case. But any normal case fan blowing on the heatsink would still have graphic errors.

Zyzzyx · Post by **Zyzzyx** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 10:13 am

I'm really thinking you've got the base of the ZM80 installed wrong somehow and its not pulling nearly enough heat from the GPU.

I'm running a BFG ti4200 128mb with only the Zalman ZM17CU cooler. Much smaller than the ZM80, and I don't have a fan on it. Heck, before that I ran the puny stock heatsink with the fan unplugged. Either setup I've been able to run a 1 hour loop of 3DMark ('03 or '01) with no problems.

I would definitely take a closer look at the mating of the cooler and the GPU, making sure its flat and fully covered with a nice amount of thermal paste.

Or maybe I just got lucky and have a GPU that can handle crazy amounts of heat? <shrug>

Tigr · Post by **Tigr** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 11:05 am

I think Zyzzyx may be right, you know. I have a ZM80 running on a Ti4200 for the past year or so. Never had any problems at all. The radiator gets really hot (there is no fan at all) but things never fail. Check it, try to reinstall before anything else.

mtlcafan79 · Post by **mtlcafan79** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 11:22 am

Did you clean the GPU really good before you installed it? Mine had thermal epoxy that I needed to clean off. See pic. Runs without problems now at a 320MHz compared to 295 before with the stock hsf.

MoJo-chan · Post by **MoJo-chan** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 12:35 pm

Thanks for the responses guys. I guess I'll just have to remove the heatsinks again and see if I can re-position the one on the GPU to make better contact.

I have to say that the mounting system for the heatsinks is a little bit odd - it's very hard to get them level on my board. The mounting screws cannot sit flat as the GPU is raised so much off the board

MoJo

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 4:00 am

I have a ZM-80 on a GeForceFX 5900 Ultra, and it runs fine, and that is one hot GPU. Like the others said, sounds like there are some issues with the way you've installed it.

MoJo-chan · Post by **MoJo-chan** » Thu Dec 11, 2003 4:59 am

I have now checked and re-checked everything. I replaced the thermal compound on the GPU with some Artic Silver 3, but it has not made any difference (well, perhaps a very marginally lower amount of corruption when doing 3D stuff). I still get lock-ups with 3D apps and when visiting some web sites.

Is my GeForce just dead now? I am wondering if the weight had cracked the board somewhere, so that when it heats up a track breaks somewhere. The heatsinks are getting fairly warm, even with a fan on them, and I can't see how I could make a better thermal interface between the GPU and heatsink. Maybe the RAM is overheating, but I never had problems with that with the old heatsinks/fan.

I checked my CPU and RAM, they are both fine. I even tried another PSU, but that didn't help

MoJo

Zyzzyx · Post by **Zyzzyx** » Thu Dec 11, 2003 7:33 am

Perhaps try it with the old heatsink/fan again? If they were on with just a clip, should be easy. If it was glued on, slap down some AS3 o the chip, but leave a couple corners clean and but a dab of super glue there to hold the heatsink on.

MoJo-chan · Post by **MoJo-chan** » Thu Dec 11, 2003 2:51 pm

Thanks for the advice Zyzzyx. In the end I tried the card in another machine, and strangely it worked fine, even without a fan! I should really have tried that first, but I figured since the only thing I thought I had changed was the heatsink I naturally assumed it was to do with that.

I re-installed Win2K SP4 (the service pack, not Win2K) and got the driver update from the Windows Update (I installed the one from the nVidia site but it still said I needed to update). I also tried to re-install DirectX, but I always get a "file could not be copied" error at the end. Anyway, this seems now to be some kind of software problem, so I'll try a more appropriate forum for advice.

Thanks everyone.

MoJo

Boomerang Rapido · Post by **Boomerang Rapido** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 1:07 pm

MoJo-chan wrote: I also tried to re-install DirectX, but I always get a "file could not be copied" error at the end.

Actually I just had that problem too. If it's any help, all I did was do an install of w2k on top of my existing installation. Solved that problem.

MoJo-chan · Post by **MoJo-chan** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 5:01 pm

Interesting advice Boomerang Rapido, thanks. I did a "repair" today, but it has not helped.

Do you mean you installed Win2K over your current installation? Did you loose all your registry stuff like lists of installed programs etc? I'm determined to find a solution that does not involve me having to re-install all my software (apart from Windows 2k service packs etc).

MoJo

Bean · Post by **Bean** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 8:22 am

If the vid card works in another machine then I'm thinking along the same lines as Boomerang its driver related. A real test would be to put a vid card from a working system into this sytem.

Also, when I replace a video card, I uninstall all the old card drivers and software before removing the old card. Even if you did it this way it may not be a bad idea to do it again.

MoJo-chan · Post by **MoJo-chan** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 10:16 am

Hi Bean.

I put in my brothers MX440 without removing the nVidia drivers and it was picked up right away. There were no problems at all with it, it was perfectly stable. Put the Ti4200 back in and it was just the same as before. It's very odd to say the least.

I'm currently trying to find a way of fixing this DirectX error where I cannot install it. I don't really want to re-install Windows but it might come to that. The sad thing is that there are literally hundreds of people with this problem posting to Usenet and various forums, but no mention at all of it on the Microsoft web site

MoJo

Boomerang Rapido · Post by **Boomerang Rapido** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 12:17 pm

MoJo-chan wrote:Interesting advice Boomerang Rapido, thanks. I did a "repair" today, but it has not helped.

Do you mean you installed Win2K over your current installation? Did you loose all your registry stuff like lists of installed programs etc? I'm determined to find a solution that does not involve me having to re-install all my software (apart from Windows 2k service packs etc).

MoJo

Yeah I installed over my current installation (think on my w2k CD it was called "Upgrade to Windows 2000"). I didn't format my drive first.

And I didn't loose any registry settings that I can tell so far. Everything is still installed and working properly.

v3n · Post by **v3n** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 6:17 am

just fitted a ZM80C-HP to my 4200 and its fine in CS

will try adding a silent fan to it soon

v3n · Post by **v3n** » Tue Feb 24, 2004 5:21 am

Radeonman wrote:
If it's fine in CS, why bother with the fan?

to reduce case temperature and to get a higher overclock without sparklies

PretzelB · Post by **PretzelB** » Tue Feb 24, 2004 7:03 am

MoJo-chan wrote:Hi Bean.

I put in my brothers MX440 without removing the nVidia drivers and it was picked up right away. There were no problems at all with it, it was perfectly stable. Put the Ti4200 back in and it was just the same as before. It's very odd to say the least.

I'm currently trying to find a way of fixing this DirectX error where I cannot install it. I don't really want to re-install Windows but it might come to that. The sad thing is that there are literally hundreds of people with this problem posting to Usenet and various forums, but no mention at all of it on the Microsoft web site

MoJo

You might want to try to un-install the drivers using the Windows add-remove and then boot to safe mode and use on of the free driver removal utilities. The only one I can remember is called Nasty File Remover (NFR) but there are many more.

But, if the MX440 works I'm not sure this will make a difference.