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A tale of woe with a 7900GT

grahamjenks

grahamjenks

grahamjenks

Associate
Joined
8 Oct 2005
Posts
604
I bought a Leadtek 7900GT back in June and was perfectly happy with it.

The only problem was I wanted it to be a little quieter/overclockable.

Great I'll purchase on of these new ThermalRight HR-03 passive heatsinks - and If I wanna overclock I can attach a fan.

It arrived yesterday - I fitted it - seemed to be no problem as I did it. I come to turn on my PC and I get garbled corrupted screen. I can see the bios screen booting - but its behind an screen full of artifacts and errors.

Looks like I've screwed the card.

Is there anything I can do about this? Is it repairable? I guess I might be covered on my accidental damage cover on my home insurance.

Meanwhile I'm stuck with a very old ATIRage Fury Pro - can't get it to work in 1680/1050.

For £150 my best option seems to be a 7900GS or a X1950 Pro. Is there much to choose between them - and will I notice much difference between that and my 7900GT?
 
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Have you tried reattaching the old heatsink and booting with that? It may be that it really needs the active cooling.

Failing that, if you restore the original HSF you should be able to RMA the card.
 
melbourne720 said:
Have you tried reattaching the old heatsink and booting with that? It may be that it really needs the active cooling.

Failing that, if you restore the original HSF you should be able to RMA the card.
Click to expand...

Yeah I tried the HR-03 both ways and put the original heatsink back on - all the same result.

I have contacted Leadtek about a RMA - maybe I'll be in luck. The place I bought it from doesnt seem to be trading now - but I have proof of purchase.

I've seen plenty reviews with the HR-03 with ATI cards (generally hotter running I think) - and passively it seems to keep them at pretty much the same temps as the stock cooling and with a fan attached (which I did have) - it gets 20 degrees less than stock. It should be the best there is for air cooling.

The only other thing I can think of is I've applied the thermal paste badly and its overheading. I've done this before with previous GPU's and CPU's and never had any problems though.
 
Same thing happened to my 9800pro after I installed *** Artic Silencer. i think something must have cracked under the heavy pressure the cooler applied to the gpu.

a 1950pro will perform more or less the same as your 7900GT with similar power consumptions
 
1950pro and 7900GS are about equal performance wise, overclocking I have seen the 7900GS able to go further but that does require more active cooling like zalman vf900. Really just which you like more ATI or NVIDEA.
 
Tried again tonight with stock cooler and no luck, looks like a new card needed - no response as yet from Leadtek online support.

Anyone had any luck/difficulties with them, I couldn't see a UK number on their website?
 
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