Doing ATI 9800 Pro - Zalman HP80C today

MikeK · Post by **MikeK** » Sun Jan 18, 2004 11:16 am

I have had problems with my comp restarting, I talked about it in some old threads. I have a 120mm case fan and a Zalman 7000alcu which both have a fanmate on them. The restart problem occurs with high system usage obviously. I have gotten it to restart after a while of 2 Prime95s but for the most part it happens when having a few programs open and playing Age of Mythology or Quake3 or running 3DMark. When the fans are turned up there is no problem at all. I took out the card and am about to do the deed, when unplugging the stock fan, I noticed the heat sink wobbles quite easily when I was trying to get a grip on the little fan connector! I'll take it off, maybe this was the problem. I'll get back to you, I promised to share my progress a long time ago but I haven't done any mods in quite a while. I'll have to resurrect my thread in the newbies section

MikeK · Post by **MikeK** » Sun Jan 18, 2004 11:53 am

ok there was a poor job of goop on the core, it wasn't covered in some parts. Hopefully that was the problem. Now, the front base you put on it won't touch it at all since it doesn't have the lowered part like the stock HSF had. I guess it will take lots of goop. Well now that I look at it from the side it looks like the core and the surround are level. Maybe that's why the stock HSF was unstable, the lowered part rested on the core but the rest of it didn't touch the surround, allowing it to wobble on the springs.

MikeK · Post by **MikeK** » Sun Jan 18, 2004 4:15 pm

Well success so far! I ran 3dmark a few times with other stuff running and fans on low, once with AOM. It got hot so I guess I did it right. I plan on putting a panflo on the side of it on a zalman arm bracket, I just need to bend it for it to fit. There are a few more things on the vidcard that get incredibly hot. I didn't get the OP1 zalman fan for it because you guys said it was too noisy. It wasn't that hard to do, it just took a while and you have to be a bit careful. The hardest part was getting the goop spread evenly in the heatpipe depression. I don't think too much goop is really an issue. I lifted up my gooped together pieces a couple of times and could clearly see metal like the goop had been pressed away nicely. This is immensely better than the crap job that was on there before, and waaaay quieter. So much for the theory that Built By ATI is the safe way to go. Yay, quieter computer! now for the PSU.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 5:48 am

MikeK wrote:This is immensely better than the crap job that was on there before, and waaaay quieter. So much for the theory that Built By ATI is the safe way to go.

Unfortunately, poorly applied TIM from OEMs is the rule, not the excetion. It's very common to find badly applied thermal compound on lots of different Northbridge and GPU chips direct from most of the manufacturers, ATI doen't have a lock on this.

MikeK · Post by **MikeK** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 7:21 pm

After many games of AOM, no restarts!

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 7:21 am

MikeK wrote:After many games of AOM, no restarts!

Well, it's about time! Congratulations!