It was completely dry..

Took a while to clear it up, and I'll try testing it again tomorrow

I'm amazed it didn't turn off automatically long before it got to 124c. That's incredibly hot!

Nice ! Yes all the old vid cards should be checked for dry spooge (AKA: heat sink goop ;p)
Can you run GPU-Z and take a screen shot ? Curious what it says....
added: my Gainward GF2 and GF3 red cards still work perfectly. They were a very reputable company back then.

Gainward was "merged" with Palit during GeForce 6xxx times which resulted in adoption of not so premium components and overall visual cheapness of their cards. Gainward 7800GS+ share identical PCB with Palit GeForce 6800GS AGP.

Horun wrote on 2022-09-15, 03:09:

Nice ! Yes all the old vid cards should be checked for dry spooge (AKA: heat sink goop ;p)
Can you run GPU-Z and take a screen shot ? Curious what it says....
added: my Gainward GF2 and GF3 red cards still work perfectly. They were a very reputable company back then.

There you go 😀

I can interrogate it more once i'm back home after work and have re-assembled it post-pasting.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-09-15, 05:41:

Gainward was "merged" with Palit during GeForce 6xxx times which resulted in adoption of not so premium components and overall visual cheapness of their cards. Gainward 7800GS+ share identical PCB with Palit GeForce 6800GS AGP.

Yup - the only difference seems to be the flimsy Gainward cover that goes over the cooler

the only difference seems to be the flimsy Gainward cover that goes over the cooler

That's a premium option!

I think i'll put my Akasa Vortexx Neo cooler on it. It fits mounting pins-wise, but will need a bit of a trim on a metal plate to sit properly avoiding the caps at the back.

Then there is the question of if it will adequately cover both the GPU die and what I assume to be the bridge chip under the GPU, as whoever designed the underside of the cooler decided it should have a trench milled out around the die contact zone.. that and the chips are in funny positions due to the addition of the bridge chip, so traditional coolers won't fit properly.

What I think i'll do is one of my typical hail-mary one-chance fixes, and I've ordered one of these 1mm 10x10cm sheets https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scratches-Attached-J … /dp/B098RTG29R/
I'll drill some holes so it fits over the mounting pins, then it'll act as a shim between the cooler and the two chip dies. Otherwise both would I think be only partially covered by the raised sections of the Vortexx copper plate.

I have some 1mm thermal pads which will then go on the ram under the cooler bringing the chips into thermal contact with the aluminium cooler plate surrounding the copper, which would be raised 1mm by the shim. I may also pop some in-between the copper cooler plate and the shim in the dipped section

It'll work (probably), and it should be better than the stock cooler. It just may look a little janky and run off molex power instead of the card power connector..

Thoughts on my cunning cooling plan? I must say i'm having more fun than I expected messing around with old graphics cards 😉

@RETROKOMODO - Is it possible you could let me know the values of the Purple caps on the card? I have the Gainward 6800GS and the caps went bad and i removed them with the intention of replacing them, but unfortunatley i lost the original caps and never noted down the Values 😐

Bancho wrote on 2022-09-15, 14:41:

@RETROKOMODO - Is it possible you could let me know the values of the Purple caps on the card? I have the Gainward 6800GS and the caps went bad and i removed them with the intention of replacing them, but unfortunatley i lost the original caps and never noted down the Values 😐

sure - when I get home i'll have a look 😀

Bancho wrote on 2022-09-15, 14:41:

@RETROKOMODO - Is it possible you could let me know the values of the Purple caps on the card? I have the Gainward 6800GS and the caps went bad and i removed them with the intention of replacing them, but unfortunatley i lost the original caps and never noted down the Values 😐

Here they are!

560uF 4V polymer capacitors.

Cheers,

Little update: When I initially benched this card on 3DMark2001 it finished with decent scores, but as previously mentioned idled at 59 and had hit 124 degrees after the benchmark run. As I found it had no paste at all - just silicon to metal - I re-pasted, and now idles at 35 - topping out at 49. I was a tad concerned when initial tests just gave black screens when rendering after re-pasting - but some BIOS defaulting seemed to fix it.
Phew..
Also I've compared 3DM2001 SE scores with my AGP HD 3850 which gets 44485 points, the 7800 GS gets only 37579. That's with an E7600.

Now I know it still works I can move ahead with my silly cooling plan!

Update!

I finally fitted the Akasa Vortexx Neo using my silly copper sandwich plan. All documented for a video of course.. The important thing is - it worked!

Furmark v1.0.0 run at 1080p for 5 mins:

Stock cooler once re-pasted: Idle - 38 * Max Load - 58
Akasa Vortexx Neo sandwich: Idle - 34 * Max Load - 50

And the video is now finally up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD00J1iC5Yk

I had no idea if this was going to work or not, but thankfully it did. Phew. I think next i'm going to be comparing it head to head with my 3850. Or I may investigate the four large Atari ST boxes sitting next to my desk.