Artic Silver 5 == Voiding my warranty?

[redgarl]

Well, I got heat problem. I would like to apply AS5 to lower my graphic cards temperature, but would it void my warranty?

I got 2 Asus 4850 TOP... they are by far one of the worst product I could have purchased.

 

[AKM880]

I was told that taking apart the card will void the warranty

 

[chef7734]

Yes with asus it will void your warranty. With xfx and evga it would not.

 

[randomizer]

AS5 is not the best stuff to use on a GPU that has no heatspreader. It's probably still better than the stock stuff though, largely due to the horrible factory application of the TIM rather than the TIM itself.

 

[redgarl]

Hell... really great stuff... I can't get rid of them and I can't deal with the problem either.

It was the last time I buy an Asus product. The performance is great and with my additional fan I get great result, but my cards get to 85C at the highest load. Without a fan it goes over 100C... just damn crazy... only because they are in Crossfire. Really poorly made product...

It's out of question that I spend 100$ on coolers for cards that cost me 165$. I prefer them to burn in hell than spending a single $ more.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Youve tried aiming a system fan through modding at your cf setup? Also, your case have both front and back airflow?

 

[randomizer]

My Zotac GTX275 hits 86C even in a game as light as Left 4 Dead, and this is with ~62F/18C ambient temps. And that's only a single card!

 

[redgarl]

Youve tried aiming a system fan through modding at your cf setup? Also, your case have both front and back airflow?

Yeah, I have put a 120mm fan at one inch of the cards blowing fresh air. It was my old Big Water radiator fan with a rheostat, really useful to change the speed for quieter ops.

Still, without this my system was crashing after 30 minutes of play. After I've done that, my PC never crashed because of overheating security.

Still, you buy something and it's not designed to work properly out of the box. If Asus can release something like that, who knows which of their products will be the next victim?

I am not asking for the moon, just that my stuff work properly. As for now I will not be as trust worthy of the Asus brand as I was.

 

[redgarl]

My Zotac GTX275 hits 86C even in a game as light as Left 4 Dead, and this is with ~62F/18C ambient temps. And that's only a single card!

I know that, it's not what really matter here. What is bothersome is that Asus put the thermal security at 95C. So getting to that point, without proper additional cooling strategies, your computer will crash and provoke artifacts on the next boot... for another crash until everything cool down.

I know that, my old 8800 GTX OC was getting to 85C too in huge loads, but it never crashed due to overheating. By the way, I am seeing you a lot in these forums, are you a tech or something

 

[randomizer]

Thermal protection is often set quite high. My fan will spin up to 100% once the card hits 94C, but usually runs fast enough by the time it reaches 85C to keep it stable there. I have managed 89C though. Remember that they want to keep the cards quiet for as long as possible too. You should never run it without a fan unless the heatsink was designed for this to be possible. Most aren't.

You could use Rivatuner to set your fan speeds to something fixed and reasonable to keep the card cool before it reaches excessively high temperatures.

 

[AKM880]

Or EVGA Precision works fine aswell.

 

[RazberyBandit]

The Catalyst Control Center's built-in Overdrive should allow fan management on it. Regardless, it should not be getting that hot... Not with their "TOP" thermal solution.

Personally, I'd stick it in a PoS old machine, disable BIOS temp protection, cover up the fan, run Furmark, and RMA that sucker when it catches fire.

AKM880: Since when does Precision support ATI cards? I've been under a rock for a month...

 

[royalcrown]

My Zotac GTX275 hits 86C even in a game as light as Left 4 Dead, and this is with ~62F/18C ambient temps. And that's only a single card!

Hey..update your config, it still says 9600

 

[AKM880]

Oops my bad got mixed up with another thread.

 

[randomizer]

Hey..update your config, it still says 9600

Oh, so it does. I didn't think anyone read that anyway.

 

[royalcrown]

Hey randomizer, don't you also have a dual opty setup for folding ? I thought you did/do from another place...

I wanted to get into folding and got a dual server to use, but that damn GL360 sounds like a vacuum cleaner on turbo, so in the closet it went...lol.

 

[randomizer]

I have no 2P rigs, not sure what thread you found that in.

 

[royalcrown]

Just cornfused then.

 

[redgarl]

The Catalyst Control Center's built-in Overdrive should allow fan management on it. Regardless, it should not be getting that hot... Not with their "TOP" thermal solution.

Personally, I'd stick it in a PoS old machine, disable BIOS temp protection, cover up the fan, run Furmark, and RMA that sucker when it catches fire.

AKM880: Since when does Precision support ATI cards? I've been under a rock for a month...

In single card mode, I never got a load higher than 76C, but in crossfire... just setting them in crossfire raise the temperature 15C higher on idle.

These cards should never have gone out on the shelves.

I don`t know why, but I got the strange impression that I got a 4850EAH with a BIOS of 4850EAH TOP. The PCB is identical to the 4850EAH.

4850EAH (I got something with the exact same PCB layout)

4850EAH TOP

 

[redgarl]

After a discussion with an Asus tech, I will RMA the cards. There is too much anomalities and I can't risk to lose my investment for now.

 

[RazberyBandit]

These are different PCBs. Designs will always vary due to revisions over time. The only way to be sure it is what it is would be to call ASUS and have them trace the serial number back to the point of assembly, if they do that... Otherwise, ya gotta go with whatever the card says it is on the sticker.

Seems the only thing that truly separates a company's identical GPU-series cards might only be something as simple as a VGA BIOS setting.

 

[evolve60]

regardless doesn't the 4XX0 series usually run hotter anyways? even with a factory revision? and just by looking at the pics you posted that HSF looks like it does a worse job at cooling then the stock fan most other 4850s have.

 

[megamanx00]

I have a 3850 with the same cooler. Works pretty good, but of course the 4850 produces more heat . Still, I think you just got a bad couple of cards because those temps are crazy.

 

[redgarl]

I did some research on the internet and I contacted Asus to know what was going on. So I learned that the PCB are the new revision.

I wanted to know if the old revision was better... and they are mostly the same, both overheat in crossfire configuration.

I learned that the coolers are really bad for multiple cards setup. These cards should be avoided for any crossfire setup... without any additional cooling solution.

Still, for any single card system, they are easily the most silent and cool 4850 cards.

I am quite lucky to be able to run them in Crossfire at stable temperatures, but adding a 120mm fan really did the difference.

Phhh... stuff like that never occurred when NVIDIA and ATI were selling their cards... now it is more a mainstream reality.

Here the article... interesting read. I usually don't buy anything without reading reviews, but I was trusting Asus and they really let me down this time. Well, I guess it was my last experience with them since I don't plan buying any of their future products.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16229/4

 

[randomizer]

The problem with these cards is they don't exhaust hot air out of the case, so when two are close together you have a little fan-forced oven cooking away.