ATI AIW 8500DV - FAN

[J.Clarke]

Hi,

I bought 2 new ATI AIW 8500DV cards last year on Ebay. Within 3 months
the first card's fan became noisy and I got it exchanged from seller.
Now the second card's fan is also getting noisy, but seller has gone
out of business.

I found out that ATI does not sell these fans as spares, and that RMA
means sending in the whole card, and paying $50 once warrenty is
over!!! A lot of money for a simple fan. Given the cronic failure of
these fans (I searched and found many postings reporting ATI fan
failures) I would like to put myself in a position where I have such
fans as spares as apart from the fan issue the ATI AIW 8500DV is a
great card that does all I need very well .

I wonder if anyone could recommend a supplier who has a fan that can
be fitted to the ATI AIW 8500DV. I have looked at replacing the fans
with Zalman passive fans, but the heatsink on the ATI AIW 8500DV is
bonded to graphic chip and does not come off without huge risk of
damgage, and of course there are no fixing wholes on card that could
cope with the weight of the Zalman heatsinks.

The risk of damage is not "huge". Many people have reported removing
that HSF without any trouble at all. Some report that it helps to
freeze it first to make the adhesive brittle and others that warming it
with a hair dryer to soften it helps, but many have just popped it off
at room temperature. I've seen no reports at all of damage to the
chip--any damage was to other components when the person attempting the
removal applied leverage in the wrong place.

As for coping with the weight, get some Arctic Silver epoxy and bond it
on and the weight won't be a problem. You won't get it off again unless
you mix in some of the nonadhesive thermal paste to weaken the bond.

 

[jesop]

Hi,

I bought 2 new ATI AIW 8500DV cards last year on Ebay. Within 3 months the
first card's fan became noisy and I got it exchanged from seller. Now the
second card's fan is also getting noisy, but seller has gone out of
business.

I found out that ATI does not sell these fans as spares, and that RMA means
sending in the whole card, and paying $50 once warrenty is over!!! A lot of
money for a simple fan. Given the cronic failure of these fans (I searched
and found many postings reporting ATI fan failures) I would like to put
myself in a position where I have such fans as spares as apart from the fan
issue the ATI AIW 8500DV is a great card that does all I need very well .

I wonder if anyone could recommend a supplier who has a fan that can be
fitted to the ATI AIW 8500DV. I have looked at replacing the fans with
Zalman passive fans, but the heatsink on the ATI AIW 8500DV is bonded to
graphic chip and does not come off without huge risk of damgage, and of
course there are no fixing wholes on card that could cope with the weight of
the Zalman heatsinks.

Thanks a lot for any help. I live in UK.

 

[Mokka]

Hi.
I put mine in a freezer (8500 AIW) for an hour or so. Popped out the old
heatsink and fan with a wide and thin screwdriver.
Then I cleaned the gpu, put some thermal grease (silver arctic etc..) and a
drop of superglue to every corner of the new heatsink.
If you use superglue, then it is quite easy to get the sink off....
No noise and cooler AIW

Jari

Then you just haveto clean the gpu.