Hmm something's ****ed with my XFX 7800gt. Installed a NV silencer rev3, since it's from AC, i left the preapplied thermal paste on, screwed on the silencer et voila. Decent temps, decent oc, no need to worry.

Last week i got a new hdd, had to remove the 7800 to remove the hddbay, and the card was HOT, i don't mean a bit hot, or hot like a cpu heatsink, but untouchable hot. I rebooted my pc just to check:

84° in windows
110-115* while gaming

Removed it again, unscrewed the silencer, the imprint of the goo was completely ****ed up, it didn't cover 50% of the chip, removed it all, got my own arctic silver, reapplied it et voila....

NOT

Now my gpu temp is 86° in windows, i don't even dare to check gaming temps. The imprint is good, everything is thightened, fits like a charm.

sounds like bad contact to me; recheck mounting

Already did that 2x, with the preapplied paste it was simply BAD, after first time with my own AS5, it was perfect, excellent contact, nice print, and the heatsink was nicely 'gluid' to the core.

In windows 90°, didn't test under load.

Redid the whole thing, used a bit more paste than usual, in windows again 85°, under load 114!!!

BUT, after a while the temps don't get lower, it stays at 114, while the 'core slowdown treshold' is 115, temps don't change a bit. My guess is a ****ed temp sensor.

After blowing hot air with a hairdryer: 114
After blowing cold air with a hairdryer: 114
After reboot: 85

The odd part: when i click on hl2.exe, within 5 seconds the temp goes from 85 to 114. Without any intervals.

hmm i can't edit my own post?

One little remark: The fan now blows cold air out of the case, and the card doesn't get hot at all.

I would consider fitting the VGA card with stock cooler and see what value it gives; if the temp is still out of order an RMA might be the only solution to fix the issue

Can't use the stockcooler anymore, it had thermal pads for the memory, but i removed them because the silencer has it's own (quite big) pads.

memory chips are not the hot part of the 7800gt ;)

Problem solved!

I knew it couldn't be the Silencer, but then i remembered i installed a beta nvidia tweaked driver for H264 encoding. Regular nvidia driver works like charm, 44° idle :)

all that hardware tweaking for nothing:p

Reboot or playing a game = ****ed again

~ 45° idle, after playing a game: 115°

after playing a game, idle in windows: 115°

grmbl, too lazy to remove it again, as long as it works it'll be fine.

your temp sensor is mad

I don't think so:
I don't think a mad temp sensor can heat up this card, only a mad shrimp is capable to do that ;)
It is known that sometimes there's not an optimal contact between an Arctic Silencer and a GPU. Maybe you should try to RMA that cooler?

Had absolutely nothing to do today,
(and for like the next 12 weeks :)

So i tried stockcooling again, with somethings that resembled thermalpads on the memory, i thinks it's from an old p4, replaced stockcooling: 60°

I've always had the feeling that it didn't fit wel, couldn't thighten the screws as much as i liked, but since it was a good fit on the core, and the imprint was nearly perfect i thought it was simply a ****ed sensor. The card didn't get as hot as the first time, however it heated up my whole case.

Had to format anyway, vista sucks, and now the temp stays idle around 50°, goes to 70° when gaming, and gets back down to 50° when idle again.

So i guess the extravagant amount of thermal paste did the trick, big minus for AC in my humble opinion, no one would use that amount of goo on their core or cpu.

Nice review (a little late reading it :/)
Now I think to buy a Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 (Rev. 3), the only problem is, I can't find him in Belgium?
(Tones, comtechnology,...)
Do you guys know a shop (with low shipping costs)

i got mine from

http://www.pc-cooling.de/

in belgium:

http://www.bytesatwork.be/

Hehe, thx :)

Just when I posted, i found www.jaha.be
Seem's cheap, will see what i do. :)
Problem is, if i change the vga cooler, I MUST change my xeon stock coolers (pain in my ***/ears !)... :/