I would advise to everyone do NOT use Bter.com
I deposited 350 Extremecoins yesterday and they do not show up in my wallet. Will try to get them back and won't use that piece of crap exchange ever again.

I saw it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP8Js8d8w6s
(@ 3 minutes)

I bought it new. I already contacted the customer service two days ago. I told them the fan was making a loud noise/rattling. Now I have to fill in a form and sent it back to them with motivation + graphics card. I will not mention the wood. Just the rattling fan.

Hello

I recently started mining scrypt coins. The first couple of weeks I used an ATI Radeon 5770, but I decided to buy an ATI Radeon 7950 Sapphire 3GB with boost (11196-19-20G).

I had some problems using the 7950:
1) Cgminer was up and running, showing no problems with temperature and hardware errors at all. So I went to get a drink. When I came back the PC was turned off.
It was windows 8.1 that put the pc to sleep (I think. Because the pc booted in 1 sec to the desktop). I disabled the sleep option right away.

2) Cgminer up and running again. No problems at all. I left and when I came back... turned off again.

3) I found a nice config file here on this forum that I decided to use. The config was recommended for the 7950 Sapphire.
I was now getting higher khash: ~610 khash, GPU temperature 72 degrees. I left cgminer running for 20 hours straight. It appeared stable, no problems with temperature and hardware errors at all.

4) The GPU fan was rattling (since I started using the card, but the noise was not always there. It appeared between 2400-2750 RPM), making a loud noise. Probably because the GPU card was bending downwards? I found out the rattling disappeared as soon as I raised the card with my fingers. I actually put a piece of wood under it (the wood did only lift the card SLIGHTLY. Hardly no pressure at all. It lifted the card like 0.5 millimeters)

5) Cgminer up and running with a nice piece of wood lifting the 7950 slightly. Everything seemed okay for like 1 hour, so I left to get a drink. When I came back.... PC turned off and a huge burning smell .

6) I booted the pc (after I disconnected it from the power/wall) and the burning smell came back immediately.

7) Switched the 7950 with the old 5770 and everything up and running again. The 7950 is dead

Other problems I experienced from the beginning:
-Sometimes when I start cgminer the display drivers crashes immediately. But It worked when I tried it again (sometimes I had to reboot the pc first)


What I would like to know is this:
-Was it just bad luck? (Can I continue mining with the same hardware/config when I get a new 7950?)
-Did the piece of wood damage the card?
-Can the card be damaged as a result of a wrong power supply (do I need a bigger power supply?)
-Is mining dangerous for the hardware? (Even with good/low temperatures?)

Below my pc specs:
Software:
-Windows 8.1 X64
-CGMiner 3.7.2
-Latest graphics drivers (catalyst 13.12)

Hardware:
-CPU: Intel Core i5 750 @ 2.67 GHz (4 CPUs)
-Graphics card: ATI Radeon 7950 Sapphire 3GB with boost (11196-19-20G)
-Mainboard: Asus P7P55D
-Memory: GeiL 4 GB DDR3 1333 MHz
-HDD: 500GB
-Power supply: 620 Watt

Config CGMiner 3.7.2:
"intensity" : "19",
"vectors" : "1",
"worksize" : "256",
"kernel" : "scrypt",
"lookup-gap" : "2",
"thread-concurrency" : "24000",
"shaders" : "1792",
"gpu-engine" : "1025",
"auto-fan" : true,
"gpu-memclock" : "1375",
"gpu-powertune" : "20",
"gpu-vddc" : "1.250",
"temp-cutoff" : "90",
"temp-overheat" : "85",
"temp-target" : "75",
"expiry" : "120",
"gpu-threads" : "1",
"queue" : "1",
"scan-time" : "30",
"scrypt" : true,
"kernel-path" : "/usr/local/bin

Picture of wood lifting graphics card: