Sapphire X1950 Pro, know "Power off - reboot" issue

[Richh]

Well they arent exactly at the same place.



WHERE ARE THE VOLTAGE REGULATORS?

Look carefully at the comparison pic you've posted. The geographical layout of the two boards isn't exactly the same but it's very similar, and the components themselves are almost identical. This is as you'd expect seeing as they'll be fairly narrow variations on a reference design.

In the case of the red board, as Slothy says, the VRM chips are under what appear to be heatspreaders - the dark grey bits with the rectangular indentations pressed into them.

[trovah]

Well how am I supposed to get them off? They dont come off easy.

Update: I put the heatsinks right on top of the black thingys. No problems yet and Ive been playing AOE3 for three hours

[Richh]

Again Trovah, you are the one with the card in your hand. Thus it's far easier for you to work out how to get them off than it is for us to guess.

If you want a guess, I'd surmise that if they are heatspreaders, they're probably held on with one of those sticky thermal pads. Thus, if you gently warm the headspreader up with a hairdryer (or similar) set on low heat, you might (even more gently) be able to work them off, probably using a flat bladed screwdriver wrapped in tissue paper. Try and make sure you lever against the edge of the board rather than one of the other components.

[torched_geek]

I was thinking of buying one of these, until the DX10 cards come out..
But I won't bother if I have to pay extra for cooling.

[trovah]

Can we expect lower prices on 7800GS? I dont want this card anymore :[

[dac5]

Sup people, so I've got basically the same problem and right now i'm PISSED cuz i didn't read anything about this in any of the reviews of the card.

So I've got:
AMD 64 3500+
Powercolor x1950 256mb (normal not extreme)
650 watt coolermaster

Same problem: freezing of games / 3D apps after a few minutes or seconds, most likely due to insufficient VRM cooling as far as I've researched.

My question: What do i do now? return the card (if so, for what?) or get a VRM heatsink thing?