Problem with Accelero Xtreme 8800
I bought a pair of AX8800's this week for my Gainward 8800GTX's and the heatsink doesn't touch the thermal pad on the NVIO chip. The stock cooler clearly does touch this chip on either however making me think turning my PC on at this point would be a "Bad Idea™". This is the same on both cards, there's about a millimetre gap between the HS and pad. Is this a big deal? Have I ended up effectively killing my GTX's or doesn't the NVIO chip require active cooling (unlikely admittedly)? I have emailed Arctic Cooling asking for clarification too.
Re: Problem with Accelero Xtreme 8800
I'm guessing the yes that would be a bad thing.
This is from the madshrimps review
Quote:
The heatsink is tightened to the video via 6 mounting holes/screws, install takes only few seconds and can be compared with the installation of the standard 8800 heatsinks. As I've told you on previous page, the GPU, memory and NVIO chip are being cooled by a nearly full cover heatsink. The memory chips need thick thermal pads in order to get decent thermal contact with the heatsink base, for the NVIO chip Arctic Cooling added a thinner thermal pad. Unfortunately, the NVIO thermal pad was made too thin and I noticed how it did not even touch the large heatsink base.
I contacted Arctic Cooling and it seems this is a known issue with early review samples, they forwarded me with 2 new pads and those worked out just great. Just to be clear, retail samples will not have this issue. The installed heatsink will add light pressure to the thermal pads which makes sure that you'll never loose them during the heaviest operations.
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=get...66&articID=667
Try contacting AC and asking about it, hopefully they'll send you the thicker pads required.
Re: Problem with Accelero Xtreme 8800
Yeh I figured as much. I did turn the PC on briefly yesterday but I didn't game. Just check the temps etc. I emailed AC on Friday but I'm not expecting a reply till tomorrow. Hopefully they can just send me the new pads. It's strange as some retail packs have this issue and some appear not to.
