ProjectMercy
08-17-2010, 10:40 PM
So, skipping a rather lengthy story in exchange for another one, I have a GTX 280 that I bought and threw a D-Tek Fuzion GFX 2 on and a D-Tek unisink. I only used it for about a week doing trivial gaming (DragonAge) before I had to rip that system apart. It's sat in the static bag for about a year. I recently rebuilt my system with all new parts except for the GPU + block/sink, Rad, power supply, and one of the disk arrays. It's currently running completely bone stock as far as settings/OC.
Cranked it up, and started playing Risen, I would get random hangs with the screen locking up with grid artifacts on it. It required a hard system shutdown to continue. For a while I thought it was the game, but there wasn't enough bug reports to suggest it was a common problem, so I started diagnosing my system.
memtest86+ was fine, Prime95 was fine (stress test with CPU temps from coretemps about 36C). Then I tried out FurMark on a stability test at 1920x1200 and it would hang up within a minute or two with the uni-sink being crazy hot to the touch. GPU Core temps (measured with GPU-Z) would sit calmly at 41C, but it would still lock up. I tried pulling the unisink, replacing the TIM pads (for the memory and MOSFETs) and redoing the GPU TIM, and remounting it twice. I had the same results. Eventually I took a big house fan and pointed it at the card, and I could get it to run without issue, but the single 120mm fan I normally have pointed at it was insufficient to stop the hangs. So I figured I'd fried the card or something while it was in the static bag, or maybe it had always been bad. I took it all off, replaced the stock cooler, and booted it up. For grins I ran FurMark again. GPU Core temps shot up to 91C, but it ran without issue for 20 minutes until I was worried about the card and stopped FurMark. When I looked at the unisink once it was removed, the plating is darker around two of the memory seats, almost like it's discolored from heat?
So, if you've read this far, thank you in advance. Now my question (or at least poll for suggestions). I could buy a GTX 480, but the games I want to play in the short term won't really use it and the 280 should be sufficient for now. I'd thought about buying the 480 with the Swiftech MCW80 and their version of the unisink (which seems nice as it even has a fan mount on it. one hopes it will fit snugger than the crappy D-Tek one), but if the card works fine and it's just a cooling issue, maybe I could just pick up the MCW80 and the 280 unisink and hold off on the 480 for now.
My concern is, and I guess this is the real question, why did the D-Tek unisink get so massively hot, and will some other brand of (functionally the same thing) be any better or is this card just bunk? Are unisinks just a bad idea?
Thanks,
PM
Cranked it up, and started playing Risen, I would get random hangs with the screen locking up with grid artifacts on it. It required a hard system shutdown to continue. For a while I thought it was the game, but there wasn't enough bug reports to suggest it was a common problem, so I started diagnosing my system.
memtest86+ was fine, Prime95 was fine (stress test with CPU temps from coretemps about 36C). Then I tried out FurMark on a stability test at 1920x1200 and it would hang up within a minute or two with the uni-sink being crazy hot to the touch. GPU Core temps (measured with GPU-Z) would sit calmly at 41C, but it would still lock up. I tried pulling the unisink, replacing the TIM pads (for the memory and MOSFETs) and redoing the GPU TIM, and remounting it twice. I had the same results. Eventually I took a big house fan and pointed it at the card, and I could get it to run without issue, but the single 120mm fan I normally have pointed at it was insufficient to stop the hangs. So I figured I'd fried the card or something while it was in the static bag, or maybe it had always been bad. I took it all off, replaced the stock cooler, and booted it up. For grins I ran FurMark again. GPU Core temps shot up to 91C, but it ran without issue for 20 minutes until I was worried about the card and stopped FurMark. When I looked at the unisink once it was removed, the plating is darker around two of the memory seats, almost like it's discolored from heat?
So, if you've read this far, thank you in advance. Now my question (or at least poll for suggestions). I could buy a GTX 480, but the games I want to play in the short term won't really use it and the 280 should be sufficient for now. I'd thought about buying the 480 with the Swiftech MCW80 and their version of the unisink (which seems nice as it even has a fan mount on it. one hopes it will fit snugger than the crappy D-Tek one), but if the card works fine and it's just a cooling issue, maybe I could just pick up the MCW80 and the 280 unisink and hold off on the 480 for now.
My concern is, and I guess this is the real question, why did the D-Tek unisink get so massively hot, and will some other brand of (functionally the same thing) be any better or is this card just bunk? Are unisinks just a bad idea?
Thanks,
PM