Oh dear - have I borked by 6970?

DrSteve

DrSteve

DrSteve

Associate
Joined
9 Nov 2004
Posts
592
Location
Northern Ireland
Ok, so I just did a complete rebuild of my pc into a 600T which all went very well until I started gaming. No problems with the build, no leaks. Temps all great and noting has been over 45C according to GPUZ and coretemp.
Setup is D5 with x-top, bay res, triple rad, EK block on the CPU and full cover EK block on the 6970 - this came from the MM so I needed to get some new thermal pads for the fitting.
Basically getting lots of artifacts in games - sparkling lights and lines appearing at random which were not there when air cooled. Could this be something simple like the cooler being too tight to lose or does it sound like a terminally ill 6970?
 
Ran MSI Kombustor to see what happened. Temps in the 30s so ok there. It ran the burn in test with the fluffy logo fine. When I tried the benchmarking there were artefacts everywhere - it seems to be when drawing polygons - the one with all the little square boxes was a real mess.

I took off the block and all the thermal pads on the memory seem to have been making good contact with the block. I'll try refitting the block and see what happens but it doesn't look too promising.
 
Make sure that none of the thermal paste was pushed over the edges of the GPU when you fitted the waterblock onto it also. It can conduct electricity and bridge connections on the PCB if it contacts it. Have a very good look at your RAM chips on the card as well to look for signs of damage.
 
DrSteve said:
Ran MSI Kombustor to see what happened. Temps in the 30s so ok there. It ran the burn in test with the fluffy logo fine. When I tried the benchmarking there were artefacts everywhere - it seems to be when drawing polygons - the one with all the little square boxes was a real mess.

I took off the block and all the thermal pads on the memory seem to have been making good contact with the block. I'll try refitting the block and see what happens but it doesn't look too promising.
Click to expand...

GPU temp or VRM temps?

If you get lines (red ones usually), its probably a memory problem, I have EK blocks and you can over-tighten which affects coverage of the memory chips either that or the chips have given out.
 
GPU temp 28C, 27C, 30C, Vreg temp 25C according to GPU-Z
Just took off the block and refitted it - still the same. Looks like I killed something :-(
 
Well I stuck the original cooler again and the card seems to be working ok. Can only assume that something wasn't making contact somewhere with the waterblock.
 
DrSteve said:
Well I stuck the original cooler again and the card seems to be working ok. Can only assume that something wasn't making contact somewhere with the waterblock.
Click to expand...

I wonder if you have the right thickness thermal pads? See the instruction manual, I think one needs to be 1.5mm (memory and regulators) and the other 3mm (the isolated regulator). (double check dimensions with EK fitting manual)
 
DrSteve said:
Well I stuck the original cooler again and the card seems to be working ok. Can only assume that something wasn't making contact somewhere with the waterblock.
Click to expand...

I thought I had killed my 7950 when I put on an EK block a few weeks ago! Same process as you, took the block off and refitted old cooler - all worked fine. I re-seated the block making sure the thermal pads covered anything that was supposed to be covered and made sure that there was no where on the PCB shorting on the block. It is a right PITA with having to plumb it in and fill the loop to check it works. Mine did work after this - good luck with yours :)
 
inSilica said:
I wonder if you have the right thickness thermal pads? See the instruction manual, I think one needs to be 1.5mm (memory and regulators) and the other 3mm (the isolated regulator). (double check dimensions with EK fitting manual)
Click to expand...

That's a thought. I got the card off the mm so there were no thermal pads with it. I checked with the pdf on the EK site and I'm fairly sure I ordered the correct ones but I'll go and double check. As said above it's a bit of a PITA draining the loop every time I make a change but guess that's the fun of water-cooling!! :)

This is where I got the thermal pad thicknesses from.
 
Last edited:
Yep. Ordered 3 different lots of pads according to that and fitted them as pictured. Only thing I can think of was the 1.5mm pad was a much denser material than the others and maybe didn't compress well so stopping the other pads making good contact. Really just clutching at straws though..

Maybe I'll see if there's a decent price drop on one of the tech labs 7970s this week and treat myself :D
 
OK, really only repeating the instruction manual here. did you fit the block, remove it and check for decent compression marks on the pads to show good contact?
 
Tried refitting the block again. As above fitted and removed several times to check for compression marks. As far as I can see it's all making contact. Tried running heaven and it's a total mess of corrupted lines and blocks. Ah well. I think 5+ bleeds and rebuilds is enough for 1 day.
 
Try making a insulatory gasket out of paper. Make a "brass rubbing" of the block and cut out the squares where the core, ram and vrms make contact so that you can overlay the gasket over the block with the relevant contact patches exposed. Apply the tim and reassamble. The paper should prevent shorting as long as you don't massively overtighten, and if you do it should show where it is punctured. This will at least tell you if it is down to basic electrical shorting anywhere on the block away from the actual contact patches.
 
Nice tip, thanks. Back on the stock cooler again for the sake of my sanity - plus the fact that I've gone through a bucket load of mx-4 with all these cooler swaps. Seriously thinking about calling it quits on the full cover block. Thanks for all the suggestions above.
Might have another crack at it in the future.
 
Feel really sorry for you as killing the card is my worst nightmare when I fitted 2 full cover waterblocks on my GPUs. I'd probably pay a company like OcUK for a prefitted card just to reclaim those two years of my life I probably lost through stress doing it myself lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom