[Gossamer]

I decided when I got home from work that... well, damn it all! I'm going to fix this damn little thing if it kills me.

Well, here's what I did.... sorry I don't have a camera but I'll explain it as best I can.

Here is an HD4850::

Notice the horridly designed heatsink, notice the way dust can trap itself on the inner regions of where the fan is, never to be blown out by any air-compressor not made for industrial use.

Well, I took it and the plastic off and took a look inside.

Here's what it looks like, campy isn't it? Well....

all I did was strap an 80mm fan to the fins to pull a little more cooling in; as well as replace the old crusty thermal paste with Arctic Silver.
This however... didn't do much. I probably got about 3 degrees of cool out of it, which didn't help much.

However, this is tomorrow's little experiment::

Alfredo Blogs Page: The HD4850 temperature issue..., the way to self destruction...?

Unlike his demonstration; I'll only be cutting the memory strips down a bit to allow airflow... I'm too paranoid to remove them, and I intend on using strips of shrink tubing to block bad winds and all that noise.

Well, I'll let you know how it turned out after I'm done. Peace y'all.

 

[neoxalucard]

Good luck, I must say you are a braver man than I.

 

[Phil]

Im all for it lol. i hate dust

 

[Cid Highwind]

It looks like a POS similar to what came with my X1950Pro, despite being better than my 7800GS jet engine, it needed to blow so much and still couldn't keep things cool. Actually the crappy cooler was the reason why I went with the 4870, which had a nice dual slot cooler. The price difference between those cards was the same as what I'd otherwise have to spend on an aftermarket cooler. You get what you pay for.

 

[Kirby]

why not just buy a aftermarket VGA cooler?

It looks like my 4850 doesn't use a stock cooler....I'll see how it goes

 

[Gossamer]

I'm back from Wal-mart, picked up a copy of Prototype to test this rig on. I'll post a few benchmarks with it as well as Furmark.

why not just buy a aftermarket VGA cooler?

I'm poor as sin.

 

[Kirby]

I'm back from Wal-mart, picked up a copy of Prototype to test this rig on. I'll post a few benchmarks with it as well as Furmark.



I'm poor as sin.

you odiously had enough money for a full-priced game

 

[runawayprisoner]

The plastic part was supposed to be insulation for other chips that are sensitive to heat in the board. The GPU can operate at up to 120C for all the world cares.

In the long run, running without the plastic cover may... be lethal as it can easily overheat and loosen a few chips in that area. Proceed with caution.

If you absolutely must run this cooler for the sake of your other components, then by all means, get an aftermarket cooler.

 

[Gossamer]

The plastic part was supposed to be insulation for other chips that are sensitive to heat in the board. The GPU can operate at up to 120C for all the world cares.

In the long run, running without the plastic cover may... be lethal as it can easily overheat and loosen a few chips in that area. Proceed with caution.

If you absolutely must run this cooler for the sake of your other components, then by all means, get an aftermarket cooler.

Welp, I just made one of my biggest mistakes. The card is dead, the fan went full speed after installation and then I cut the PC off; she won't run anymore; I've tried quite a few tweaks including setting it back the way it was to begin with.

Well, all is not lost. I pulled my 8600gts from my junker rig upstairs. It'll hold me over until I can find a replacement. I'm just glad it wasn't something worse like a 260-298 or even a HD4870-4890. I'm kind of bummed out but I'm not really that torn about it; I rarely play newer games and Linux has a lot better Nvidia support; I'll start putting some money back for a 9800gt or a 250.

I've learned my lesson, from now on; it's aftermarket coolers if I'm heat paranoid. We've all got to learn somehow.

 

[Spyhop]

It's important to note in these circumstances that the engineers usually know more than you do. They design those coolers to be more or less bulltproof. They want the least amount of cards being RMA'd to them as possible. They may not provide the most extreme cooling, but they're completely adequate and usually very durable.

3rd party coolers or mods are usually only necessary if overclocking.

 

[koko]

I hate when i see dust on the card's fan, it stops it of working soundly.

 

[runawayprisoner]

I hate when i see dust on the card's fan, it stops it of working soundly.

Put the computer higher up... possibly on the table or something.

And always, always, always, keep the area around the computer well ventilated even if the computer is off.

Dusts won't be covered in your warranty.

And sorry to hear that Gossamer. My warning came late, I guess.

But it's also something I would like to tell people of this generation: most recent components are built to withstand an insane amount of heat... much more so than the last generation. It's almost impossible to burn some of them under normal circumstances. And laptop parts are built to run in even hotter conditions. So based on that logic, you shouldn't be afraid of a little heat buildup as long as you are under warranty.

 

[skoreanime]

ATi does have some ****ty coolers... I remember my x800XT. i replaced stock with an Arctic Cooling HSF and I'm glad I did. Much, much, MUCH quieter and cooled a heck of a lot better too. Bigger, yeah, but definitely worth it.

 

[Gossamer]

A little off topic but good lord, Prototype is fun. Ever want to be... god?

Hahaha, play it. I've been destroying things all day for my amusement.

you odiously had enough money for a full-priced game

...I've waited a long time for this game, man.

EDIT: Found a replacement, this should do perfectly; the Nvidia equivalent to what I owned with a better cooler http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130468

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

not even an equivalent, a downgrade infact.

 

[Princess Garnet]

Say what? As far as I know, it is about the rough equivalent. They trade blows. In fact, I'd say that when the day is done, the GeForce GTS 250 is probably the slightly faster one across the board, but it depends. It's a coin toss, though the nVidia card has a better cooler, runs cooler (probably quieter too), and uses a bit less power.

The GeForce GTS250 is basically the GeForce 9800GTX+"+", and yes, the two pluses are intentional. It's like a plus version of the GeForce 9800GTX+, which itself originally went head to head to the Radeon HD4850.

 

[neoxalucard]

You'd be better off with one of these

EVGA 896-P3-1260-TR GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3

BFG Tech BFGEGTX260896OCE GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3

:thumb:

 

[Gossamer]

You'd be better off with one of these

EVGA 896-P3-1260-TR GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3

BFG Tech BFGEGTX260896OCE GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3

:thumb:

I'd be better off with lots of things but replacing what I had with something similar is really what I want. I'm not really planning on doing a major upgrade until my next build which by my standards isn't for another 3 years.

I've got a few old yoyos(yes I used to collect yoyos) from my....collection up for grabs on an old forum I used to frequent; it won't take long. I put some oldies up.

 

[SCHUMI_4EVER]

Don't listen to these naysayers, the GTS250/9800GTX+ is fine and will be equal if not even a little better than your 4850.

 

[Cid Highwind]

I agree with Schumi, depending on the app it's really a coin toss between those two cards, provided drivers have most likely improved the performance for the 4850 relatively more than for the GTS cards, you'll have some nice redeeming factors in better developer support, OpenGL support and emulation. PhysX is a nice addition as well.

The only case where the 4850 would have a clear advantage would be in DX10.1 games and possibly DX11.