VF900Cu heat problem...

[Houdini]

I don't get this, at all!

I read tons of reviews about VF900, in some they ROCK! And in some people says it's worse than Stock cooler.

So it happend that I got mine today, mounted it on my X1900XTX, and as I feared it cant cool it properly at stock speeds....

It went to 118c in ATI TOOL and booted my system. How can it be that it rocks for so many, and it can't even cool my system properly...

I figured it would take the cooling paste a few days to smoothen out etc etc... But my temps are insane. I got good airflow and a 120mm blowing right at the GFX

Anybody got some tips?

[selder]

Mmm, strange. I've got a VF900-Cu on my 7900GT and went from 39°C idle / 66°C stressed to 31°C idle / 41°C stressed.

Did you use the Zalman Thermal Grease? I used (a lot) of Arctic Silver ...

[Houdini]

Yes I used the Grease which I got in the package...

Well the x1900xtx and 7900 series ain't the same in heat at all

[LiQU!D]

Those temps are ridiculous, sounds more like a bad mount to me.

[NightCrawler™]

Probably you've got a bad mount.... and do not use excessive amount of TIM.. TIM is only used to provide a smoother contact between the GPU and the heatsink.. adding too much will only insulate.
Also when you mount the cooler strenghten the screws diagonally until you cannot twist them anymore...
1 3
\/
/\
4 2

[Houdini]

The TIM, is from what i can see perfect... in amount and its even...

And believe me the screws are tight... Have removed the cooler again and mounted once more.. Same

[hot_fifty]

nightcrawler did you stresstest in atitooll. it vil get much hotter there.. my x1900 with zalman gets also hot... about 85 degress

[hkcadcam]

I would suggest you guys to replace your cooler to AcceleroX2, My X1900XT max temp@AcceleroX2 at load in 3D mark06 is 66C

[s e t h]

i figure some 900cu have heatpipe problems.
with badly finctioning heatpipes they can not cool effectively.
this may explain the wildly varying results seen

[Sparky]

defective heatpipe would be my guess

[hot_fifty]

try atitool to heat the card up.. then you will see load temp

[heikis]

have you tried touching the fins of vf900? they should be hot.

[tdunks]

try using AS5 i have the vf900 on my 6600gt (i know not same heat range) but it NEVEr goes above 39*C

[Vyel]

VF900s do not work on X1900's!

They work fine on Nvidia cards, but for some reason they don't with the newer ATi's.

[Sparky]

VF900s do not work on X1900's!

They work fine on Nvidia cards, but for some reason they don't with the newer ATi's.

strange thing is I've seen people report using them on the X1900 with great success

[Cooper]

strange thing is I've seen people report using them on the X1900 with great success

And I can tell that`s absolutly correct.

Here`s test by my friend kiwi



I beleive there`s more on the forums.

And here`s how perfect grease layer should look like after deinstall of cooler (pic shows CPU)



Just try to remount and don`t use it with lower rpm

[Ruiz]

Just registered to post here

I got the same problem with vf900. I know we always think the other user is doing something wrong when the results are not what they should be, but i am 100% certain that i did everything right, and still i got a horrible result with my vf900cu (38idle, 95+ load).

Just as an information, i use my case always open, and i have only one fan blowing air out. The vf900 fan was always at 100% (a little noisy at 100% i have to say)

Also i have some theories of why some people have bad results and other have good results. In my case i installed the cooler in my x1900xtx 5-6 times with artic silver or the default thermal grease.. I always got the same results!! But yesterday i tried for the last time before returning it to the store and bang!! max temps topped at 75!! I got really happy and then moved my computer to the other room, plugged it in and .. same old results.(95+)

At this point i got really pissed and started to think about what could possibly change from my room to the other.. The only difference was that in my room i was testing with the case laying down (i dunno how to write in english)... hhmmm in horizontal position but when i moved i put it standing vertical, the normal way. So i realized that when i put it in horizontal position, the heat went from the fins and rise, going out of the case.. When i put it standing the normal way, the heat got stucked and temperatures rise non-stop despite the fact that my case is open. Maybe people that have good results also have some air flowing in the graphics card area, blowing the hot air off.

Here is how the temperatures rise when i put the case standing. You can see a constant 75 until the point where i change the position to vertical:


Also another thing i noticed is that there is a big difference between the two "fins groups". As you can see, this cooler have two groups of fins each with a heat pipe:


One group above and the other in the botton. In my case i noticed that the lower group in much hotter than the upper group.. really burning my fingers!! The upper group is just warm to the touch.. maybe the heatpipe can't split the heat between the two groups of fins due to some defect in the building process or even the construction is faulty. Just a guess

Anyway i'm returning mine and i didn't plan to pick another. Thats a good cooler for gf7000 series but when you have a x1900xt(x) you need a really good air flow in your case (making the cnps useless) or a lot of luck so you dont get a faulty heatpipe.

This is another thread i made talking about that.. but its in a Brazilian forum (portuguese):
http://www.forumpcs.com.br/viewtopic.php?t=166669

[Thrilla]

Lol it's really a pain in the neck when heatpipes stop working and act as insulators.

A way to test them is to put the base of the cooler in boiling water, or hot water, while holding the pipe with your fingers. The pipe should get as hot as the water in less than 4 seconds.

[Cooper]

The only way to make heatpipes stop working is to actually damage them
And one good tip from me to all those Zalman users - you must add another fan to the side of the VGA. Heatpipes are great, but you have to eliminate heat from the fins somehow Hope this helps

[biohead]

30-35°C idle, 58-60°C load. XTX clocks, GPU @ 1.3v

http://members.lycos.nl/simz4ever2/gfxcoolclear.JPG

[Cooper]

30-35°C idle, 58-60°C load. XTX clocks, GPU @ 1.3v

http://members.lycos.nl/simz4ever2/gfxcoolclear.JPG

That`s what I`m talking about.
Nice job biohead

[biohead]

hehe thanks cooper nothing beats some ghettoness, or in my situation, pure ghettoness

oh and good morning.. for me that is

[Ruiz]

Lol it's really a pain in the neck when heatpipes stop working and act as insulators.

A way to test them is to put the base of the cooler in boiling water, or hot water, while holding the pipe with your fingers. The pipe should get as hot as the water in less than 4 seconds.

hhmm Interesting

I did the test not with boiling water but with a frying pan
Both heatpipes and fins get hot at the same time... So i guess my mistery is solved and the stuck heat is the real problem.

biohead noticed that before me

[biohead]

biohead noticed that before me

gotta do something with a bunch of spare fans aye

[CrazyAnt]

but if u put 3 extra fans to blow air to the VGA wahts the point of changing the stock cooler after all?i bet that with the stock cooler and with those 3 fans blowing air onto the VGA u would have almost the same results as with teh vf900.

i was strongly thinking to get this zalman for my 7800gtx ko this week but now that i ve seen some things more and especially the prob taht the zalman has to lead the hot air away from the cooling area (wich results in high temps eventually) im thinking more to get the NVsilencer instead.

bit confused after all must say....