My ASUS 9600XT card just died right now...I'm typing on my back up system unfortunately. My system won't boot up and I took out the video card and plugged it into this system and it wouldn't boot either. it's too bad I don't have a spare AGP video card to verify this. The back up system has on board video.
One thing I noticed is that the Heatsink surface of the Arctic VGAS is very rough...not smooth like other heatsink I have seen in the past. I didn't mind too much then, because I just put a little extra Arctic Silver 5 on it. So I wonder if it didn't get enough contact and finally died or was it that I screwed the heatsink bracket on too tight and with the weather getting hotter...it finally expanded and cracked the core? I don't know, these are just theories, but I appreciate if people could let me know if their Arctic VGAS heatsink is also rough...then....I can rule that theory out....just trying to learn from my mistakes and try to replace my video card....hopefully this is the problem and not something else that may damage my system. Thanks.
Arctic VGA Silencer Rev. 2 rough heatsink surface??
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
I had the same thing happen with a 9800 Pro just a few days ago. If you run a fingernail against the heatsink, you can hear just how rough it is. It has ridges from machining. I originally put on plenty of AS5. After i took off the HS to look at the card, the core was bare of AS5. Only a few stripes remained on the core. The AS5 seemed to mostly get pushed out of the edges...The video card lasted 2 months or so, though, and it just died while I was using windows in a non graphic-intensive setting.
I'm stubborn, though. I replaced the card and put the cooler back on. I put even more AS5 on it this time. We'll see how long it lasts...
I'm stubborn, though. I replaced the card and put the cooler back on. I put even more AS5 on it this time. We'll see how long it lasts...
crypt0r,
ASUS 9600XT radeon cards have temperature monitoring and I noticed that at slow speed with the Arctic Cool VGAS was about 10 degrees higher than the stock heat sink and fan. The ASUS 9600XT also have a fan controller software for the stock heatsink/fan and running the software to control the fan @ 25% approximately 2500 rpm, it's just equally as quiet as the VGAS, but at the same time 10 degrees cooler. I also had ram sinks on when I tried both VGA heat sinks, just FYI. I too put a crap load of AS5 after the difference in temperatures, but it didn't help much. Arctic cool did reply to my email saying that the revision 3 of VGAS suppose to have a smoother surface. I also wanted to mentioned that ASUS was great...they replaced my 9600XT without problems, got in back in two weeks from time I shipped to time I received it.
I just bought the HiTECH dual DVI radeon 9600 card, it's a step down in performance and no VIVO, but at least I can get both my LCDs with DVI:). I will probably use my Zalman VGA heatsink for this new vga card. The Zalman is a pain to put on and put a lot of heat into the system, but it works well it pulling the heat out of the GPU. Luckily I don't have my power supply in the system, so there's room for the case to breathe and suck the heat out.
ASUS 9600XT radeon cards have temperature monitoring and I noticed that at slow speed with the Arctic Cool VGAS was about 10 degrees higher than the stock heat sink and fan. The ASUS 9600XT also have a fan controller software for the stock heatsink/fan and running the software to control the fan @ 25% approximately 2500 rpm, it's just equally as quiet as the VGAS, but at the same time 10 degrees cooler. I also had ram sinks on when I tried both VGA heat sinks, just FYI. I too put a crap load of AS5 after the difference in temperatures, but it didn't help much. Arctic cool did reply to my email saying that the revision 3 of VGAS suppose to have a smoother surface. I also wanted to mentioned that ASUS was great...they replaced my 9600XT without problems, got in back in two weeks from time I shipped to time I received it.
I just bought the HiTECH dual DVI radeon 9600 card, it's a step down in performance and no VIVO, but at least I can get both my LCDs with DVI:). I will probably use my Zalman VGA heatsink for this new vga card. The Zalman is a pain to put on and put a lot of heat into the system, but it works well it pulling the heat out of the GPU. Luckily I don't have my power supply in the system, so there's room for the case to breathe and suck the heat out.
Thanks for the info. I thought the regular 9600s were passively cooled. I'm not sure what to do now. I'm running with the case open right now, so that should make up for the temperature difference. I may have to lap the heatsink (probably easier to just get a revision 3 or wait for revision 4).
I have an R360 core on the new card, so I might be able to flash it to 9800XT and monitor the temperatures. Any idea what the max safe temp is?
I have an R360 core on the new card, so I might be able to flash it to 9800XT and monitor the temperatures. Any idea what the max safe temp is?
I've not a clue as to why we both are having problems with the VGAS, it's suppose to be an effective heat sink, perhaps someone else with the VGAS can comment. You can't monitor your video card temperatures unless the manufacturer of your video card had already designed it in to support it. I don't know the spec for the 9800xx cards, but generally I don't like to run any ASIC above 60C.