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4870X2 watercooled - now not stable

Nick1881

Nick1881

Nick1881

Soldato
Joined
4 Feb 2007
Posts
9,899
Location
Nuneaton, UK
My system had been running fine if a little warm. I took the stock cooler off the X2 and replaced the thermal compound with MX2 and used a 120mm fan in place of the standard fan, all was running fine and cooler too. I upgraded my CPU to a lower VID Q6600 then COD4 crashed on me, I increased vcore and it seemed ok. This weekend I have fitted an XSPC full cover block and a Swiftech CPU block. Now COD4 and WAW crash as soon as I join a server. I ran ATI tools and it runs fine, temps are 34 C on idle and dont really pass 40 C under ATI Tools load.

I updated the CCC drivers from 8.10 to 8.11 and its still the same.

I tried a 4850 from my cousins pc and COD4 and WAW ran perfectly.

Is my card shot? I'm an electronic technician so I was very careful fitting the block and making sure the card wasn't bent at all.

Any other ideas? The card is a powercolour and I have had it since release. Will my warranty now be void?

Thanks
 
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The block came with plastic spacers for the rear screws to stop it shorting.

Seems weird how ATI tools runs fine but cod crashes it instantly.

When It goes my screen turns off then after a second the pc restarts and I get a message saying it was a bsod.
 
There was a post on here from an Australian user who reckoned that one screw was shorting out with his EK block. Do a search - it was only yesterday I think. EK seem to be suffering lots of daft issues at the moment. It's a shame as Eddy's engineering skills are quite something.
 
I searched and in the pics I found it had 2 right angled metal plates on the rear of the card, my block didn't come with these and as I said all of the screws have a platic washer ensuring they don't short anything out.

I will see if I can install some other games and also try COD4 at a lower res.
 
I just played COD4 at 800x600 and it ran but there was an occasional flicker on the screen, I upped the res and the higher I set it the more flicker I seemed to get, after a couple of mins at 1280x1024 and it all locked up again.

Is my card borked? :(
 
is the card bent at all from pressure of the mount, some people seem to have had the issue with the EK block. Have you taken it all off and checked the contact with the chip inbetween the cores and all the memory chips, possibly one isn't being touched properly and the block is stopping any air getting to it so its overheating. check all the other bits that need cooling aswell, power circuitry etc, etc.

Same with CPu power circuitry, northbridge/pwm stuff could all be overheating with a lack of airflow being created from cpu fan. errm, leaks, damage to something around the cpu socket, or on the card from mounting.

Its fairly unlikely, but not completely impossible that a windows update has caused some driver to go haywire and screw everything, but based on the timing, I would assume hardware fault somewhere along the line from the mounting.
 
I was very careful to ensure the card wasn't bending. The memory shouldn't need any cooling at all as it doesn't run hot, all the temps in Everest look fine. My case has loads of airflow and right now my room is 14 C so I'm sure this isn't a heat issue.

I just ran furmark benchmark and it ran fine even at full res.

I ran 3dMark06 and it crashed by the end of the first test after flickering all the way through.

I have also realised OcUK sent me an XSPC block not an EK one yet still chraged me £82 when the XSPC one can be had for £18 less else where, have they ripped me off? At first I assumed they were the same so used it anyway.

I'm going to try the card with the standard cooler back on and see if it works then.
 
I have a funny feeling that there is nothing wrong with your card and that the problem is something to do with either your memory/northbridge/ or cpu.

becuse if your futuremark vantage completes without error and your 3dmark 2006 doesnt then its a fair guess that its your cpu or north or memory as vantage is a lot more GPU stressfull than 2006 with a 4870x2 card.
 
I just finished re-fitting the stock cooler and the card runs perfectly. I don't understand it, maybe it likes being hot?

I don't know what to do now.
 
mr_x_plosion said:
I just finished re-fitting the stock cooler and the card runs perfectly. I don't understand it, maybe it likes being hot?

I don't know what to do now.
Click to expand...

I am reckoning on the memory. Does the X2 have memory on the rear? I breifly had a 4850 1GB card with half the memory on the rear of the card and the chips used to get red hot. The memory on my 4870 get hot as well which is why i stuck some Zalman ramsinks on them. Strangely enough, the huge two fan cooler it came with did'nt have direct contact with the ram. It just relied on the fans keeping them cool. When i stuck my waterblock on it i decided to cool the ram properly.
 
Just to update, this is all sorted.

XSPC said to use thermal paste on the memory chips and on the crossfire bridge chip/controller or what ever it is between the GPU's. I did that and replaced the thermal pads with new ones and carefully refitted it all.

Idle temps now 28-32 C reaching 36 C running COD4 at 1920 x 1200 all settings to max.
 
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