Burning, bad smells, and overheating - upgrading problems

[whitewulfe]

Decided to update a few things on my ancient rig, mainly basic stuff... Swap in a DVD burner in place of a cd burner, replace dying/dead fans, and replaced the fan on my radeon (for future overclocking). I also removed all of the cathodes from my system (two 12", and two 80mm circular) that weren't being used at all.... I also added a passive heatsink to the southbridge.

System specs are as follows...
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe (nForce2 Ultra 400)
1x 512MB PC2100/DDR266 (running at default 2-3-3-6 timings)
LG 8x dual layer "all formats" dvd burner (used to be Pacific Digital 52x24x52)
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (running at stock 1667MHz, ThermalTake PIPE101 heatsink w/ SilentCat90 fan)
Generic 300w PSU
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (w/ Vantec Iceberq Copper cooler just installed)
Maxtor 40GB ATA133 2mb cache
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer
Windows 2000 Professional Edition (SP4, with all the patches up to two weeks ago installed)
8in1 card reader

Yes, I know, it's an ancient setup, but it does the job for now... SATA RAID 0, more memory (2x512MB PC3500), and a better processor are on the way, as will a new power supply.

Essentially what happened after I put everything back together (and was quite happy about the lack of a wiring mess in the case), she fired up... Managed to install the drivers for the card reader and was in the process of installing the software for the dvd burner when the computer decided to reboot itself. A few different options coursed through my mind as to what might possibly be happening, and after logging in... That's when the smell hit.

Naturally, I shut 'er down as quickly as possible, and ran through the mental checklist of what had been modified... No burning from the southbridge, no smell from there either... A bit of thermal paste appeared to have darkened in color (aka browned) on the Radeon, so I reapplied the thermal pasted I was using (ThermalTake stuff I got with the PIPE101), applying a tad more just in case I didn't use enough... At this point I noticed that the card was fairly hot, which was suprising to me.

Then I finally checked on the power supply, and boy... Did it ever smell of burnt silicone...

So apparently I burnt out the power supply (gives me an excuse to buy a OCZ Modstream 450w or Vantec Stealth 520w), but what concerns me is this... Is that Vantec Iceberq cabale of handling the heat output of the Radeon 9800 Pro (with R360 core), and is it natural for the whole card to feel warm/hot to the touch?

As well, if it helps... The exhaust fan (Coolermaster quad LED 80mm) is hooked up to chassis 1 (and reads on the mobo around 2500rpm), the vantec is hooked up to the other 3pin fan plugin (and reads between 2500-2600rpm for some strange reason), and the intake fan (another Coolermaster quad LED 80mm) is hooked up via a 3 to 4 pin adapter...

[unrealuniverse]

I know the radeon is a hot card, but the vantec iceberq 4 should handle it. See if the card is overclocked and the cooler is on correctly. The different fan speeds are just because different fans are used.

You didn't see that power supply, 300W is a minimum for me, for 1 cdrom drive 256mb ram about 2GHz processor and onboard sound and video. anything better and a bigger wattage PSU is needed.

[Dougal]

I have the Vantec iceberq 4 on my Connect3D 9600XT.

Not very hot at all.

[herulach]

You want to be using as little thermal paste as possible, its just to fill up gaps.

[whitewulfe]

It's not an Iceberq 4, just the standard Iceberq (Vantec CCB-A1C). Is there a huge difference between the two of them?

Card is not overclocked, unless somehow installing Catalyst 5.5 drivers suddenly overclocks a card... No softmodding to a 9800 XT 128MB has been done either.

As for the power supply comment... Computer was originally built as a budget gaming rig, and featured the 9600 (non-pro), which happened to die on me a while back (thank gawd for extended warranties that'll upgrade you to a Radeon 9800 Pro for $50, and give you a new extended warranty on that), and I didn't notice the new power requirements...

I'm just curious as to why the card was so hot after not having to do much 2D work (no 3D) - is it possible that the Iceberq I've got was only for chipset cooling (as their website seems to indicate, yet the packaging says is good for the 9800 Pro)? As well, was I supposed to remove that metal around the R360 core, or can than that stay when swapping the cooler?

And as for the fan speed... My mistake, chassis 2 is registering at 0rpm, because the Iceberq does not have the third wire for monitoring. SilentCat's running at 2400rpm, while the exhaust Coolermaster's running at 2500-2600rpm.

Is it natural to get a little bit of discoloration on thermal paste,whether using a little more than required or just enough?

Last thing I need is the bill of repairs to go from $120 or so to $400+ CAD...

And thanks in advance for your help, guys, it's greatly appreciated. Dremels are one thing, but changing out heatsink/fan combos I'm still new to.

[unrealuniverse]

I think as far as i can find infomation that the iceberq is for chipset and low power graphics cards only such as the geforce 2 and 3 . This won't explain however how its getting so hot so quickly through 2d mode, which is but don't quote me on it a downclock on the 3d mode. This would meen a substantial reduction in output over standard 3d heat.

Most graphics cards can handle up to about 100-130°c of heat . discolouration of thermal compound seems to occur at or above 85°C.

Get a better cooler for your graphics card such as the arctic cooling solutions that exhaust the heat out the back of the case.

[whitewulfe]

I think as far as i can find infomation that the iceberq is for chipset and low power graphics cards only such as the geforce 2 and 3 . This won't explain however how its getting so hot so quickly through 2d mode, which is but don't quote me on it a downclock on the 3d mode. This would meen a substantial reduction in output over standard 3d heat.

Most graphics cards can handle up to about 100-130°c of heat . discolouration of thermal compound seems to occur at or above 85°C.

Get a better cooler for your graphics card such as the arctic cooling solutions that exhaust the heat out the back of the case.

Well then, that would explain that problem... Are those Arctic solutions relatively quiet, or are they noisy? Hmmm, and they aren't that bad price-wise (around $30-35 CAD) And would the ATI Silencer 3 work with the 128MB card I have, or is it just for the 256MB (with 8 chips)? I ask because I might as well get memory cooling as well...

Can't believe that the marketing department at Vantec is saying they can be used on a Radeon 9800 Pro if it was designed for GeForce 3's at most... Oh well, I'll have an active cooled northbridge when I get a new hs/f for the radeon... I'm not going to put that stock one back on...

[SilentDeath]

Iceberq and similar coolers are very poor performers but they are small and very cheap to make. The standard iceberq was worse than the stock cooler on my 9700 which has a slightly better design. The difference in standard iceberq and the iceberq 4 is the fan, which is quite a bit faster.

Get an arctic cooling silencer intead...

[whitewulfe]

Iceberq and similar coolers are very poor performers but they are small and very cheap to make. The standard iceberq was worse than the stock cooler on my 9700 which has a slightly better design. The difference in standard iceberq and the iceberq 4 is the fan, which is quite a bit faster.

Get an arctic cooling silencer intead...

Thanks... had I know it was a poor performer, I wouldn't have bought it a year ago back when I was still running a 9600 non-pro... Which of those artic cooling silencers should one go with though? There's so many of em...

[SilentDeath]

Most graphics cards can handle up to about 100-130°c of heat . discolouration of thermal compound seems to occur at or above 85°C.

Most chips will not remain stable much past 90°c.

They are rated to ~130°c - but this is a rating that indicates only what temperature irriversable damage will occur at. It does not have anything to do with the card remaining stable or useable.

[SilentDeath]

Thanks... had I know it was a poor performer, I wouldn't have bought it a year ago back when I was still running a 9600 non-pro... Which of those artic cooling silencers should one go with though? There's so many of em...

Theres the original one reviion3, that would be good enough, and be cheapest.

There is also a much improved copper version (sorry dont know which it is) but I recently saw it for sale for roughtly the same price, so go for that one if you can find it.

[whitewulfe]

Theres the original one reviion3, that would be good enough, and be cheapest.

There is also a much improved copper version (sorry dont know which it is) but I recently saw it for sale for roughtly the same price, so go for that one if you can find it.

Sounds good... I'll have to shop around, see what's on the market both online and locally...

How much of an improvement was the new one over the old one, out of curiosity?

[Frosty]

didn't read through all of thread but i noticed you'd changed the fan on a 9800pro, when i modded mine i noticed you had to take the shim off the chip so it would be flush with the heatsink, if you don't then there a gap of air and real heating issues that could easily kill your card...but i don't think its that since it would have probably killed by now if you left the shim on.

*yes im on tranquilizers-ezezez*

[whitewulfe]

didn't read through all of thread but i noticed you'd changed the fan on a 9800pro, when i modded mine i noticed you had to take the shim off the chip so it would be flush with the heatsink, if you don't then there a gap of air and real heating issues that could easily kill your card...but i don't think its that since it would have probably killed by now if you left the shim on.

*yes im on tranquilizers-ezezez*

How does one remove that shim? (the shim was a concern of mine)

[SilentDeath]

Take your heatsink off and look at the inprint left by the thermal paste. If it is even, and shows good contact all over the core, then theres no need to remove the shim.
If its all to one side, or indicates bad contact, try putting more paste on, move the heatsink around a tiny bit before screwing down to smudge it out, and make sure its tightend evenly. If that doesnt help, take it off again and check the paste again, and remove the shim if nessasary.

Removing the shim is quite easy. Slide a razor blade or other very very thin sharp metal object under the corners of it and gently lift the shim up a tiny bit at a time from each corner.
Afterwards I *always* use 5 layers of electrical inulation tape to make a new shim, aobut the same hight, but soft enough to be squashed down by the heatsink. Witht he crappy two-hole-only mounting system it would be very esay to chip the core without a shim of any kind.

[SilentDeath]

Sounds good... I'll have to shop around, see what's on the market both online and locally...

How much of an improvement was the new one over the old one, out of curiosity?

I found out that the old aluminuim one is called rev1-3, while the copper version that fits i called the rev4 ATI.

The old one is really the minimuim I would like my card at, and wont be much good for overclocking. The rev4 should be capable of a good overclock and *possibly* a small vmod but I have never used one.