ATI 9800 Pro with problems

[StigOE]

Hi.

I just got an ATI 9800 Pro card from a friend which he said were showing a lot of artifacts in the picture (blocks and such). It seems to have both swollen caps and a heatsink not being properly flat against the GPU. The caps looks to be Nichicon HC caps. The cooling funnel for the heatsink fan hits the crystal oscillator, preventing it from sitting flat, so I guess I will have to modifiy it somewhat. Enclosed are a couple of pictures of the caps and heatsink. Are these three caps probably bad?

Stig

[Rainbow]

Re: ATI 9800 Pro with problems

Yes, the caps are bad, possibly from overheating.
Cut out a bit of the plastic from the heatsink, replace the caps and it should be fine. Provided that the chip isn't damaged from overheating.

[StigOE]

Re: ATI 9800 Pro with problems

Thanks, will do.

Stig

[Fizzycapola]

Re: ATI 9800 Pro with problems

Good closeup pictures.

Unfortuntately the high performance cooler isn't even touching the VPU at all.

The metal square in the picture is just a shim.

If you don't want to modify that cooler (it's design causes bad airflow to components by putting a thick plastic infront of them). You could try modifying and bolting on a CPU cooler instead (as long as it weighs same as this vga cooler and theres clearance it should be fine and will eleviate bad airflow problem to VGA components)

[Per Hansson]

Re: ATI 9800 Pro with problems

The Zalman flower coolers are ideal for this...

They cool the whole card...

[Fizzycapola]

Re: ATI 9800 Pro with problems

Also instead of cutting the cooler, the area that needs reforming is quite small, I think you could just heat it up with a cigarette ligher (with the blue flame probably to avoid burning it) then just press it in with a finger when it's still maleable (but not molten) and wipe over with a tissue dipped in cold water to reharden into perfect component clearing shape. I do this with all sorts of plastics that aren't the shape I want works great, just recently my earphone covers came loose and didn't have any glue to hand only my lighter, remolded them together, they'll never fall apart again.

[stevo1210]

Re: ATI 9800 Pro with problems

Also instead of cutting the cooler, the area that needs reforming is quite small, I think you could just heat it up with a cigarette ligher (with the blue flame probably to avoid burning it) then just press it in with a finger when it's still maleable (but not molten)

I use a soldering iron to do that instead. I usually just get the very end of the tip of the soldering iron and put it onto the area very very quickly or you could put the soldering iron down to a lower temperature setting and maybe get a few extra seconds in the re-moulding process. It works pretty well for me.
But if you don't have a soldering iron available, the cigarette lighter is also a very good idea but you have to be a bit more careful.... just in case the lighter gets out of control.

[StigOE]

Re: ATI 9800 Pro with problems

Good idea, but I think I'll pass on both using a lighter or the soldering iron. I have a Weller WMD-3 with a soldering iron, a desoldering iron and a hotair pencil so I think I'll use that instead... But thanks for the idea, hadn't thought about that.

Stig