So my 4870 fan just stopped working.

[matt110]

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?mo...=8&l3=726&l4=0

One of these. Seems to be a common problem. I only bought it about a month ago, and will be taking it back to the place I purchased it, along with the receipt. I wouldn't buy one of these if I were you. There's plenty of reports where the fan has failed.

Hopefully it will just be replaced on the spot. Anyway, what aftermarket fan do you suggest I purchase once I get the card back? Because I wont be using this stock fan again, it sucks.

[toraton]

Originally Posted by matt110

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?mo...=8&l3=726&l4=0

One of these. Seems to be a common problem. I only bought it about a month ago, and will be taking it back to the place I purchased it, along with the receipt. I wouldn't buy one of these if I were you. There's plenty of reports where the fan has failed.

Hopefully it will just be replaced on the spot. Anyway, what aftermarket fan do you suggest I purchase once I get the card back? Because I wont be using this stock fan again, it sucks.

I have had that card for about six months now, though mine is made by VisionTek. No problems yet.

Zalman is a popular brand.

[matt110]

Yeah, it seems to just be the Asus model that is having problems.

I was thinking of going with a Zalman VF900 Cooler as an aftermarket option. Does anyone have one of these?

[NamelessNom4d]

While the newest ATI cards are beast... I still don't trust the build quality. My friends that have had ATI cards have all had problems with theirs, and my nVidia 7600GT's are still running as smoothly as when I installed them.

Go nVidia lol.

[hazmat]

Originally Posted by matt110

I was thinking of going with a Zalman VF900 Cooler as an aftermarket option. Does anyone have one of these?

I have one of their older VGA coolers on a nVidia 6800. Its the half-flower type where only the middle fins are copper and the rest are aluminium, but its still one of the better coolers on the market, and kills stock cooling.

On a side note, the fan on my 4850 has gone 0 rpm a couple times due to some driver glitch. Manually setting the fan with ATi Tray Tools fixed it.

Originally Posted by Slice_760

While the newest ATI cards are beast... I still don't trust the build quality. My friends that have had ATI cards have all had problems with theirs, and my nVidia 7600GT's are still running as smoothly as when I installed them.

Go nVidia lol.

And i gotta call BS on the post above, build quality is dependant on the BOARD manufacturer which is hit or miss on both sides of the aisle. Of course everyone forgets that last year nVidia was having massive returns and not even owning up to the existance of the problem with their BGA packaging.

[NamelessNom4d]

Originally Posted by hazmat

And i gotta call BS on the post above, build quality is dependant on the BOARD manufacturer which is hit or miss on both sides of the aisle. Of course everyone forgets that last year nVidia was having massive returns and not even owning up to the existance of the problem with their BGA packaging.

Just speaking from personal experience, I know there are some shitty board manufacturers out there, but my friends with ATI cards have all had issues and I have yet to have any problems with my 7600GT's, and they're almost 2 1/2 years old. Like I said though, just personal experiences have showed me that... I'm sure any actual difference in quality is negligible.

What can I say? I'm an nVidia loyalist... ironically I'm all for AMD CPU's. Maybe the newer ATI stuff is better since it's owned by AMD now.

[hazmat]

Originally Posted by Slice_760

What can I say? I'm an nVidia loyalist...

Which is why you have 0 credibility. You didnt even come in here to answer the OPs questions. Face it, you showed up here to diss that guys video card and no reason else. And you cant speak for your friends because "they had problems" means to me that an idiot was troubleshooting the problem.

Originally Posted by Slice_760

Maybe the newer ATI stuff is better since it's owned by AMD now.

The 9800 vs the FX series was no contest. And thats 7 years ago. Both sides swap the crown.

[NamelessNom4d]

Originally Posted by hazmat

Which is why you have 0 credibility. You didnt even come in here to answer the OPs questions. Face it, you showed up here to diss that guys video card and no reason else. And you cant speak for your friends because "they had problems" means to me that an idiot was troubleshooting the problem.

The 9800 vs the FX series was no contest. And thats 7 years ago. Both sides swap the crown.

Wow... way to get all defensive jeez. I didn't say the 4870 was a bad card. I just said I don't trust ATI because of some problems my friends had. The idiot troubleshooting his problem hasn't even let me see the problem... so chances are all he needs to do is clean out the fan and heatsink from the card. The friend in question is also still running only an ATI x800... so he might as well just upgrade anyway.

The friend that really turned me off ATI had an x1600 Pro, which worked fine up until he replaced it. The heatsink quality didn't seem too good... it had a lot of dust caked inside of it, but it still worked. Now this guy used to be an ATI fan. His brother built him his computer, with for some reason an nVidia north bridge and that ATI card... anyway, he replaced the x1600 Pro with a 3870X2 which was brand new at the time. It ran great for a year, until recently he replaced it with an nVidia 9800GT. He originally got 2 9800GT's to run in SLI, but he couldn't use one of them because the 3870X2 fried one of his PCI-E slots!. The reason he replaced it was because the fucker stopped working one day. He thought just the card overheated itself, but actually it messed up the whole PCI-E slot.

He told me he's not going back to ATI...

I don't know if things would have been different if I had been the owner of the cards, since I have more computer knowledge than either of those friends, but still I haven't had any anomalies with my nVidia cards.

Anyway, I'm not here to dis ATI. I'm just saying I know people who've had personal bad luck with them. I heard lots of good things about the 4000 series, I actually tried to persuade my friend to get a 4850 instead of a 9800GT, but he didn't want another ATI card.

[hazmat]

Originally Posted by Slice_760

Wow... way to get all defensive jeez.

Yeah, well a guy comes along asking for advice on his video card fan and you say "go nvidia lol" .... plainly disrespectful. All you did was confirm that ati cards can have problems, which by the OP, is already apparant. That kinda shit can go somewhere else. Dont pretend like your intentions were any different, you had nothing to add to this thread that would help the OP.

[NamelessNom4d]

Originally Posted by hazmat

"go nvidia lol" .... plainly disrespectful.

Isn't this Zoklet? Always thought that kinda thing was expected on these forums.

Anyway, as to not be a total dick: Good luck in finding a replacement fan OP! Be sure to let us know how that works out... I might need to know whats good sometime in the future.

[toraton]

Originally Posted by matt110

Yeah, it seems to just be the Asus model that is having problems.

I was thinking of going with a Zalman VF900 Cooler as an aftermarket option. Does anyone have one of these?

Anyone have an answer for his question? No more off-topic posts or else I'm gonna get ya.

[matt110]

Originally Posted by hazmat

I have one of their older VGA coolers on a nVidia 6800. Its the half-flower type where only the middle fins are copper and the rest are aluminium, but its still one of the better coolers on the market, and kills stock cooling.

On a side note, the fan on my 4850 has gone 0 rpm a couple times due to some driver glitch. Manually setting the fan with ATi Tray Tools fixed it.

Ah yep. You have the vf700. It's the model previous. They had a version with all copper pins, or your version where there are mainly aluminum fins with a few copper ones. I bought a vf900 today. Full circle, all copper. Comes with heat spreaders for the memory chips too, which is a welcome addition, as at stock the memory chips were just sitting there exposed, and would get quite hot.

My friend also bought one, as he has the same card as I and wanted to prevent the same thing occurring to him. It was a breeze to fit. Completely tool-less, which is really handy when dealing with something delicate as you're trying to fit a heatsink.

Also my issue with the EAH4870 wasn't driver based. It's a common problem.

[hazmat]

Originally Posted by matt110

I bought a vf900 today. Full circle, all copper. Comes with heat spreaders for the memory chips too, which is a welcome addition, as at stock the memory chips were just sitting there exposed, and would get quite hot.

My friend also bought one, as he has the same card as I and wanted to prevent the same thing occurring to him. It was a breeze to fit. Completely tool-less, which is really handy when dealing with something delicate as you're trying to fit a heatsink.

Also my issue with the EAH4870 wasn't driver based. It's a common problem.

Nice, thats the one id get if my HIS 4850 didnt have the exhaust-out-the-back type cooler. Thats crazy they got the installation tool-less, all my other Zalman stuff you have to use an almost excessive amount of force to screw them down. The plus side was once attached, they sure arent going anywhere.

Were you able to plug the fan to your card? Id imagine that its possible the the board has bad fan power circuitry which led to the problems, so it might be a good idea to let your PSU handle the new fan.

[matt110]

Originally Posted by hazmat

Were you able to plug the fan to your card? Id imagine that its possible the the board has bad fan power circuitry which led to the problems, so it might be a good idea to let your PSU handle the new fan.

Yeah the VF900 is standard 3 pin, so it plugs into the motherboard.

An interesting update though. I was expecting to receive the exact same card back, and therefore bought the VF900. Instead the store replaced it with an EAH4870 Dark Knight edition.

http://au.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=...24&modelmenu=1

It has a different heatsink that looks great and works wonders so far, so I don't need to replace it.