Cant maintain maximum overclock, why?

[Zyon]

I have a msi rx9800 pro green pcb (this one http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v213/manifested/RX9800Pro-TD128.jpg ) on a vga silencer (original).

About 2 months ago, i was able to obtain 440mhz core overclock easily, artifact free.

For the past month now, i cannot hit 440mhz anymore without corruption. :confused:. nothing has changed.

I have tried:

Replacing the cooler
replacing the Thermal paste (AS3)
Different PSU (well, added a second psu, let the psu run the video card only)
different drivers (cat 5.8, omega 5.7, omega 5.6)

and i honestly cant think of anything else. It artifacts now at 420mhz. According to ATI tray tools, at 440mhz, there are 2000 artifacts, it crashes after 4 seconds, and a vpu recover comes up. 420mhz gives 30 artifacts. stock (380) doesnt give any artifacts.

ideas anyone? thanks.

edit: if it is of any help, this is the core clean (note the grey spec) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v213/manifested/P1000613.jpg

and on the back of the card, http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v213/manifested/P1000614.jpg . note how the blue thing appears to be hitting those cube things

[Morgoth]

I am leaning towards chip degredation.

[Major_A]

Here is my take on the 9800 Pro. Any overclocking slowly kills the card. Myself and several others had a 9800 Pro start artifacting and leaving corrupted desktops after a year or so. While I'm sure there are plenty out there that will disagree with me this is my own observation.

[Zyon]

another thing to note is the fact that on the pic of my card, above the CE logo at the top right, when feeling the pcb, the pcb is pretty warm.

what is also a possiblity is this. looknig here: http://www.overclockers.co.nz/ocnz/review.php?id=04vga00r9800promsi00000r9800pro0105

it says:

The card deviates a bit from ATi's reference R9800Pro design, especially in the onboard power circuit. In addition, the MSI R9800Pro uses only electrolytic capacitors while reference R9800Pro or R9800XT uses metallized film ones which provide better moisture resistance. Having said that, this card would probably be out of date long before the capacitors cave into moisture, as new graphics cards are released every 6 months.

i live 200m from the sea. maybe that is a possibility?

[einCe]

that would be interesting, because i am 5 minutes driving from the beach too.

[Vapor]

Doubtful, I think the silencer is dusty--I had to clean the one on my 9800XT like once a month :stick:

[Zyon]

Doubtful, I think the silencer is dusty--I had to clean the one on my 9800XT like once a month :stick:

shouldnt be, i cleaned it about 3 weeks ago