X800XT Issues. HSF Problem?

D

Devnull

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Apr 21, 2000
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I have a Sapphire X800XT PE I have been having a lot of trouble with. I have had intermittent crashes and visual artifacts in games. Once I even had the card seemingly "shut off" during normal windows use, my monitor just stopped getting a signal. I suspect it may be overheating. I've seen it 80C+ from heavy gaming. The fan makes some bad noise when I first boot up. I even added a "slot blower" type cooler right next to the card but temps still don't look great.


Anyways I have contacted Sapphire support and my general impression is that they are ignoring me and they won't provide me with an RMA. Furthermore, all the information I can find says that it takes 4+ weeks for them to "process" an RMA because they send the cards back to China. If they are that slow, I would have to buy a new card(which I can't really afford). I'm never buying Sapphire again.


So I am thinking if it's just a cooling problem I would be better off fixing it myself. If the card later died... Would it be apparent if the cooler had been removed, new thermal compound applied and if I had cleaned and oiled the fan? I never mess with my video coolers at all.
 
You could try ATITool, and force the speed of your existing fan to 100% at all times. For some reason, manually setting the fan to 100% seems to make it spin faster than it ever would even during gaming on my X800XTPE. It can't hurt, and if that doesn't work you could always use the program to slightly underclock your card. I had to go down to 500/500 (regular X800XT speeds) at a LANparty once where it was like 110 in the house.

I have the connect3d model, and it came with a rather small heatsink, about the same as I see pretty often on x800 Pro cards. I replaced it with an Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 4 and it helped temps a lot. My card rarely goes above ~65C in games now.
 
I've already tried both of those in ati tray tools with moderate success. Not sure if that will keep it from crashing. Guess I could just wait it out a bit more.
 
I also have the X800XTPE (Shapphire) and noticed it normaly ran at 40-45 c. So I just removed the stock cooler cleaned up the card and applies AS5. Re-attached it and it dropped it by almost 10 c. When I removed it the cooler it was just covered in thermal compound. By reseating it you may get better results, it could be that it is not making good contact with the GPU. Try it, it will be less expensive than buying a new cooler and cheaper than a new card.

GotNoRice's quote of using ATITOOLS is right on the money. Raise the fan speeds and if neccassary drop the core and memory speed.
 
After playing Oblivion for abour 30 minutes, I exited the game and saw my GPU temp at 86C. Is that as bad as I think it is? I never payed attention to temps before I started having problems.
 
Yes that is extremely hot. Most GPU's can take more heat than CPU's but 86c is pushing it. You really need to try to re-seat the heatsink and apply some good thermal paste or get a new cooler. My X800XTPE never gets over 57c after playing for two hours. Man, I wish you luck with this one.
 
97C while playing planetside. :eek:


That doesn't seem like it can be right, but I'm done using this thing for gaming until I fix it.
 
N H O said:
err its pretty straight forward ;)
Click to expand...


I wish... Crappy chinese screws :p I just about stripped one of them taking it off. There was a little bit of thermal grease on the die and a lot on the sides of it. So I cleaned it and applied AS. Temps are still in the high 90s, it didn't help at all. I guess I will need to replace the entire cooler, the fan in it is messed up.
 
For reference, my X850 Pro runs at 37-40C idle and 60-65C load.

Stock cooler that's never been removed (i.e. stock thermal compound)

If it gets over 70C then I'll do something about it but I've never had any problems.
 
Well if you are still getting those temps you may need better airflow or a better card cooler.
 
I put one on my x800xt aiw. 41c idle and never gets above 55c while gaming.
 
Sapphire is trying to tell me my card's serial number is from an ATI branded card...


But it clearly is a shapphire card with their heatsink that came in their box. I wouldn't recommend anyone get a sapphire card :mad:


Good news is that I actually removed the "slot blower" cooler I was using and it improved temps a little. This card is somewhat stable, it seems to artifact sometimes when ATI tray tools is loaded. So I am just not going to use ati tray tools.
 
Of course, the pricey thing depends on how long you want to keep the card. If you plan on keeping it another 2-3 years, then it might be worth it. Looks like Sapphire might be trying to screw you, but they could also have some misinformation. Just for kicks, you may want to call ATI and see what they say about those serial numbers. Is the card working any better for you now?

I'm a little confused by one of your responses. Did you say you did try the Arctic Cooler? If not, then this would be the way to go.
 
Intresting thing about the Sapphire comment. Is your card blue and does it have an ATI cooler on it? I had one that was a blue PCB but had an ATI cooler and serial number on it. Strange, but I was able to go to ATI and the serial was one of theres. I know that Sapphire makes a majority of their cards including the Built by Ati cards. ATI does not make their own cards. So it possibly could be an ATI serial number.
 
RadDad said:
Intresting thing about the Sapphire comment. Is your card blue and does it have an ATI cooler on it? I had one that was a blue PCB but had an ATI cooler and serial number on it. Strange, but I was able to go to ATI and the serial was one of theres. I know that Sapphire makes a majority of their cards including the Built by Ati cards. ATI does not make their own cards. So it possibly could be an ATI serial number.
Click to expand...


Blue PCB... ATI logo on the fan and sapphire logo on the heatsink. Box and manual and driver CD all sapphire as well. :confused:
 
That is a little different than mine. I actually had an ATI cooler with logo and everything on a Blue PCB. Strange? If your cooler has the sapphire logo and image on it they should acknowledge it as theirs. As I said earlier though I believe Sapphire produces the majority of ATI cards even the Built by ATI so they could be right in the fact that it has a BBA serial number.
 
You may want to call ATI to verify if it is indeed their card or not. If they say no, then you better get ATI and Sapphire on a freakin' conference call or something. :eek: :D
 
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