5970 cuts out

[skildner]

I know I may be a little out of my league, but if I could get this thing to work it would save me from having to buy a new video card. I got a Sapphire Radeon 5970 with a water block cooling unit on it. I was told that it had the "cold bug", but was run as the secondary card in crossfire and had no problems. I removed the water block and put the stock cooler back on. The computer starts up and I get the bios screen, but after a few seconds I hear the video card fan go on real high and the picture cuts out. I tried re-applying the thermal paste, but that didn't seem to do anything. I know the thing must work because I am getting an image. How do I get it stay on? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanx

 

[BadBigBen]

obviously something is overheating, and the card is powering down to prevent damage...

the other indication is that the stock cooler is going on high rpms...

take off the cooler, but note the places that it is making contact with chips, you will need to reapply thermal paste on all points of contact, as the stock cooler does not just cool the GPU but certain other electronic parts on the board, e.g.. RAM or the power stabilizer circuit...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[kjv1611]

What happens if you go back to the water block? You said it was working fine before with that.

 

[kjv1611]

Also, I'd suggest (in case you aren't doing this already) cleaning the points of contact off before re-applying the new thermal paste. Also, make sure you're using the right/best kind of paste for a graphics card.