VF900 on X1900XTX

RangerXLT8 · Apr 6, 2006

HousERaT said:
My personal opinion is that people who've purchased these heatsinks should be writing Zalman and telling them of the experience..... and for those websites that have lied about the performance of the heatsinks, they should be held accountable. I know if this was me, I'd be writing internet articles which document my experience and I'd dare Zalman to complain about it. It doesn't appear that there are any objective reviews for this heatsink using any new highend cards.

hahaha my Dynatron BH-610 pees on Zalman VF900!

On the otherhand, these card will run good even at high temperatures(100c). Hell, gpu temps gets up to around 100c before the stock fan control ramps up fanspeed.

SKiNNiEH · Apr 7, 2006

Hey hey... Zalman responded

Greatly apologizing for the delay in response and it wasnt a standard email either. Still, they suggest i tighten the each nipple one rotation at a time and if it doesnt work RMA it, but i already replaced it with the store with same results.

So not a reply that solves any problems, but overall i'm glad with the human response and not one of those daft standard responses. Just wanted to share that with you all.

HousERaT · Apr 7, 2006

Zalman will have to do some extra special PR to live this one down.

DeathBooger · Apr 7, 2006

Okay, I just installed a VF900-CU last night and had the exact opposite conclusion from what the original poster had. My stock load was 80C (variable fan, 665/790 clock), VF900 was 71C, using 3DMark06 as a benchmark. I'm going to pull the VF900 cooler tonight and make sure there is adequate thermal paste in there just to be certain that it can't go any lower.

One note I will make. I am getting multiple VPU Recovers now when attempting to do any automatic overclock, both with ATI Tool and ATI Overdrive, I haven't found the problem yet. It seems to be random, but I can manually set the same overclock as I had with the stock cooler and it is stable. Games are stable, played Day of Defeat: Source for over an hour after the installation with the same settings I had with the stock cooler with no issues.

HousERaT · Apr 7, 2006

DeathBooger said:
Okay, I just installed a VF900-CU last night and had the exact opposite conclusion from what the original poster had. My stock load was 80C (variable fan, 665/790 clock), VF900 was 71C, using 3DMark06 as a benchmark. I'm going to pull the VF900 cooler tonight and make sure there is adequate thermal paste in there just to be certain that it can't go any lower.

One note I will make. I am getting multiple VPU Recovers now when attempting to do any automatic overclock, both with ATI Tool and ATI Overdrive, I haven't found the problem yet. It seems to be random, but I can manually set the same overclock as I had with the stock cooler and it is stable. Games are stable, played Day of Defeat: Source for over an hour after the installation with the same settings I had with the stock cooler with no issues.

I'm guessing this is on a X1900XTX? You can turn off the vpu recovery. It usually does more harm than good anyway.

DeathBooger · Apr 7, 2006

HousERaT said:
I'm guessing this is on a X1900XTX? You can turn off the vpu recovery. It usually does more harm than good anyway.

Sorry, it is a X1900XT, not the XTX.

About the VPU Recover. I've never had problems with it before. It's strange because when running ATI Tool to auto overclock, it would crash during the early stages, when the GPU clocks were only 550MHz and the temps were only around 55C. Samething happened with ATI Overdrive, the GPU would only be at 65C and VPU Recover would kick in as if everything crashed.

SKiNNiEH · Apr 7, 2006

Just out of curiosity, you are testing with a 1.425 voltage on the core? What are your vRegulator temps during these tests?

g0dM@n · Apr 7, 2006

DeathBooger said:
Sorry, it is a X1900XT, not the XTX.

About the VPU Recover. I've never had problems with it before. It's strange because when running ATI Tool to auto overclock, it would crash during the early stages, when the GPU clocks were only 550MHz and the temps were only around 55C. Samething happened with ATI Overdrive, the GPU would only be at 65C and VPU Recover would kick in as if everything crashed.

HR has to me that ATI Tool auto max tests don't work yet with X1900 cards.

Also, I think you'll have to manually raise the vcore in ATI Tool in order to OC beyond the 550-625mhz range b/c it's defaulted to 2D voltages (1.175v)... I made the mistake of trying to OC to 700mhz gpu without changing the vcore and my system locked up.

DeathBooger · Apr 7, 2006

SKiNNiEH said:
Just out of curiosity, you are testing with a 1.425 voltage on the core? What are your vRegulator temps during these tests?

I didn't touch the voltage, I didn't manually adjust anything. I was getting VPU Recovers through ATI Overdrive in Catalyst Control Center. I downloaded ATI Tool just to make sure it wasn't application specific and got the same problem. If I remember correctly vRegulator was in-line with the GPU temps. I can double check tonight.

HousERaT · Apr 7, 2006

DeathBooger said:
Sorry, it is a X1900XT, not the XTX.

About the VPU Recover. I've never had problems with it before. It's strange because when running ATI Tool to auto overclock, it would crash during the early stages, when the GPU clocks were only 550MHz and the temps were only around 55C. Samething happened with ATI Overdrive, the GPU would only be at 65C and VPU Recover would kick in as if everything crashed.

could be a driver issue or a heat issue. Do you have good case cooling? and do you have the fan set on high or above the default setting?

DeathBooger · Apr 7, 2006

HousERaT said:
could be a driver issue or a heat issue. Do you have good case cooling? and do you have the fan set on high or above the default setting?

Don't think it's a cooling issue. I'd buy the driver issue, the Catalyst 6.3's have hung on me before when running the Overdrive tool, just never had the VPU Recover pop up before. I might go back to the 6.2's, I never had any problem with them.

My only other thought is that if it is a cooling issue, the temperature is spiking pretty fast and cooling down again before I can notice, but spiking enough to crash the GPU. Could be a bad heatsink seating, or could just need a re-tightening of the VF900 cooler.

DeathBooger · Apr 7, 2006

I added a signature so you guys don't have to guess what I have anymore.

Like I said, I don't think it's cooling that's the problem, unless it's the VF900, my Shark case has a giant hole on the side of it and 2 120mm fans running full speed.

g0dM@n · Apr 7, 2006

DeathBooger said:
Could be a bad heatsink seating, or could just need a re-tightening of the VF900 cooler.

Tighten down each side very little by little... you may have done it already, but why don't you record your idle/load temps right now with same room temp, and then remount SLOWLY and see if there is ANY change at all...

DeathBooger · Apr 7, 2006

g0dM@n said:
Tighten down each side very little by little... you may have done it already, but why don't you record your idle/load temps right now with same room temp, and then remount SLOWLY and see if there is ANY change at all...

I plan on doing exactly that as soon I'm off work in 4 hours. I'll report back if nothing blows up.

Another thing I wanted to add is that this new Zalman cooler didn't affect my temps for the CPU or chipset or anything else for that matter. In case people were wondering about that. The hot air from the VF900 rises above the card and is pushed out by my CPNS9500 and case exhaust fan almost immediately. So if your case has decent air circulation you should be fine.

g0dM@n · Apr 7, 2006

DeathBooger said:
I plan on doing exactly that as soon I'm off work in 4 hours. I'll report back if nothing blows up.

LOL... always looking forward to play time after work, eh? Ditto.

DeathBooger · Apr 7, 2006

g0dM@n said:
LOL... always looking forward to play time after work, eh? Ditto.

Today is almost as bad as yesterday when I knew I was stuck here while the FedEx guy dropped off the box.

g0dM@n · Apr 7, 2006

DeathBooger said:
Today is almost as bad as yesterday when I knew I was stuck here while the FedEx guy dropped off the box.

I don't undersatnd... what do you do... stock stuff?

DeathBooger · Apr 7, 2006

haha, no. I was talking about having to wait to tinker with my toys while at work. The VF900 was delivered yesterday and it felt like it took forever to get home and play with it.

RangerXLT8 · Apr 7, 2006

Deathbooger: I want to note that my test was done with the Stock aTI fan @100%. I'm sorry but the Zalman VF900 does not cool better then stock X1900 cooler@100%. Actually I found that the stock cooler
@ %75 was on par with the VF900 high speed.

Unless your manually setting fan speed to %100 via ATITool, the stock fan does not go above 50-60% untill the gpu temp is in the range of 100C.

DeathBooger · Apr 7, 2006

I'm not doubting your findings, just letting people know my experience. I'm about to take it apart right now.

VF900 on X1900XTX

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