Re-Seated 7950 Heatsink, Now freezes when mining...

[nuggets4all]

I've been running my 3x7950's for a few months with no problems. Tonight, I had one of the cards out while I was working inside my case and decided to pull the heatsink off and apply some AS5. I've re-seated dozens of heatsinks without any problem, but not this time! Now, whenever I fire up cgminer, the temp monitor jumps to 500C on the re-seated card and then the system freezes and needs a hard reset. Any ideas about what I've done to the card? Tips for fixing it?

[nuggets4all]

Bump?

[vm1990]

well theres a few possibility

1. the heatsink didnt resit correctly
2. the AS5 is touching something and creating a small short... i never use AS5 or any conductive paste for this very reason it can cause alot of problems if it goes wrong i suggest MX 5 its no conductive and almost as effective
3. a bad batch of AS5

what i would do if i where you is take the card out and use a non conductive thermal paste then build the card back up making sure to check the heatsink is seated perfectly before tightening the screws and then slowly stressing the card up in stages instead of jumping straight in at 100% with mining

[Hippie Tech]

Is is a Sapphire ? Dual -X by any chance ?

I had the same happen after I installed the Dual-X cooler that came with my 7870XT. Turns out it was the memory's thermal pads as they must have expanded during the 2-3 months on the shelf.

Remove the thermal pad and the hsf will sit flush.

gl

[AmDD]

I've had the same issue with a 7950. Looking for a solution as well....