ATI 9800Pro - Tidgey cooling fan a problem?

Is it just me that seems to have problems with the fan on this Graphics card? TWICE I have had games crash only to find out that the FAN had FAILED :cry
I removed it, cleaned it, greased and oiled it, replaced it and all seemed fine - then it did it again !!, that awfull sound of a peddle and pop scooter grinding in your case and 'PING' off goes the graphics with a nice unexpected restart rolleyes .. so .. now I have a much bigger, old CPU cooler fan totally dwarfing the heatsink on the GPU and all seems cool again . Just wondered if its only me thats had this problem??
oh also a note on safety , never try to 'flick start' a dodgey fan while the PC is on. my finger wandered too close to my A(Killer)ASA CPU fan; took a lovely chunk of skin off it thus resulting in A) blood in the system, and B) a lovely crack in the fan blades bodged back together with plastic glue
needless to say all my fans now have those spider web gaurds on them now LOL

 

Damn, I never thought these fans were that powerful! And "blood in the system." Good stuff, my man. I'm a little like you with the MacGyver computer solving method. I don't always have the spare $ to get everything. Other times I hate waiting so I will devise something. I have already modded the hell out of my case, but that is fun for me too I guess.

 

He he, cheers mate I didnt think they could hurt you either, it wasnt till I took it out (the CPU monster) to mend it that I noticed the blades on the fan ( a green lighty up 8cm AKASA monster ) that they have visciously molded or otherwise carved these fan blades with a REALLY sharp edge to them, I cant see the point in that which is why it must have just caught me at the right angle at its full speed to cause injury ! lol But modding is cool and like you say its down to $ and time, but all worth it in the end. The GPU seems to be a happy chappy now its got a wazzo fan covering its heatsink entirely instead of just sitting in the middle of it flicking dusty air from left to right lol

 

I have an ATI All-in-wonder 9800 pro - the dinky little fan that came with it was pretty much useless. Whenever I tried to run a game with even moderate graphics, the thing would overheat almost instantly . . . artifacts would appear and get so bad that if I let it go, the screen would turn to snow . . .

I ended up buying a Zalman GPU cooler which solved the problem . . . that and I ended up cutting a piece out of the heatsink that came with the card to use on its theater chip - which itself got so hot you couldn't touch it. The whole experience has sort of soured me on Radeon products. The card performs flawlessly now, graphics are great - I've yet to find a game it has trouble with - but, damn it. a person should not have to buy extra stuff to make a brand new pricey piece of hardware actually work . . .

 

Well said. I like ATI and I got X800GTO that I unlocked to 16 pipes (12 out of box) and OC'd. I, of course, have to buy a Zalman as well. Even at stock, it runs hot because the stock HSF is so inadequate. I think they use what is barely adequate, but this is no different that processors' heatsinks. Most of those are garbage too. I don't see it as a cost problem either. I mean, how much could a better design cost (I don't even think they need more metal or materials most of the time, just a better design)?

 

Couldn't agree more! Why sell a product thats already expensive and give it an inadequate cooling system? Its like buying a car only for the sales man to say "it has a radiator but you may want to considder buying a bigger one if you want to go above 50mph" lol