Lesson Learned.... for now

[EvilFallenAngel]

Thought I had it fixed, need feedback on RMA

First My PC Specs.
AMD939 3700 San Diego
MSI K8N Diamond Plus
MSI 7800 GT
Antec Super Lanboy Dual 120mm fans at 1200RPM
Antec PSU True Power II 550W
Sony CD-ROM 52x....Old I know but still works
Sony Dual Layer DVD/CD RW.... Very Nice
1GB Corsair XMS Dual Channel PC3200 512x2

Initially my problem was that I would play UT2004 and World of Warcraft for an hour or so and my PC would freeze. I would reboot and repeat after 1/2 hr or so. I uninstalled any software that was not needed, no help. I made sure all drivers were updated no luck. I even took it in to my friends shop and we thought we had it when we uninstalled windows framework but the problem reappeared the next day. My buds commented that my fans were kinda week. So I bought 3 Antec Tri Cool fans Blue LED with 3 sentings 1200/1600/2000RPM. I modded my case to include 2 additional fans on side pannel, and I made a whole on top and flipped power supply so that fan would pull/throw out. Temps came down a little but then everything started crashing withing minutes of playing game. Keep in mind that PC for general work, worked great only crashed on video card intensive games. When I was about to give up, I decided to take my expesive video card (to me) took off all the white compound, and unscrewed the heat sink and fan, and found a nice chunk of dust bunnies between fan and heat sink. I cleaned everthing out. I used 91% alcohol to clean everything and used some left over Artic Silver Compound. I was scared a bit here considering this was the first video card I had taken apart.

Outcome:
Everything is running great, have not had one single issue, played Wow and UT2004 for about 6hrs and my CPU was around 40-45C and my system temps were around 40-46C. I just wished I had taken the Video card apart before I reinstalled windows XP. This is my lesson learned.

Now my pc has 4 fans, one fan on back, one in front and 2 on sidepanel 3 intake and 1 exhaust 3 running at 2k RPM and one at 1200RPM. I thought it would be louder but its actually kinda quiet with sidepanel on. Atleast the fans look nice with blue LEDs.... this was an expensive lesson. Fans, plus mats, plus system diagnosis. about 120... just to find out that my videocard needed to be taken apart and cleaned. Due to white cover on heat sink I could not see the dust bunny wall on heat sink...

One question is artic silver good fot my video card?... I used same rule used for CPU...

 

[CMH]

Arctic silver 5 is good for anything that doesn't require adhesives

I'd be using it on my RAM chips if I could.

 

[EvilFallenAngel]

Owned

My PC started to do it again, while playing UT2004 and WOW I will get artifacts all over the screen and then Freeze within 5min or so of playing. I have decided to RMA the video card back to MSI. Do you guys think I voided my warranty by pulling off the fan and heat sink to clean and get all the dust bunnies out and putting Artic Silver 5? I read some other treads where people changed their heat sink and fan to aftermarket and it didnt void their warranty.

I am going to return it, hopefully they wont notice and send me another one. I put reason for defect lockup during windows mode, is this the right reason?

Thanks all for your input.

Meanwhile I just purchansed a MSI 8800GTS 640E, im thinking if they send me a new 7800GT ill just put it in my cousins pc which ill be building next week.