[help]watercooling my PC - overheating VRAM

[toniglandyl]

So, I've finally made the step and went to watercool my computer !
the budget was quite restricted, so I've only got one rad. Tried to get good parts, thou. I don't want to be changing them if ever I need to upgrade.

pics of my PC before and after.

thanks to my missus for helping me out !

now I have a slight "problem" regarding my graphics card, which stripped down looks like this. I didn't find full waterblock for my 8800GT, so I'm off with a chip cooler and took some little heatsinks (walman ZM-RHS1) to dissipate the heat.

you see the black bar ? it's taped to the VRAM with thermal pads. Didn't dare remove it, as it dissipates the heat. I've tried turning on my PC, but the graphics card immediately overheats (I can't even get in the BIOS). and eventually I hear a long beep with 3 short beeps (VRAM problem).
the little heatsinks I have ordered should arrive today, but should I place them over the bar (making VRAM-thermal pad-black bar-thermal pad-heatsink) or should I take off the black bar (I suppose cutting the thermal pad with a knife) to put the heatsinks directly on the VRAM chips ?

 

[BillyBadAss]

I'm a bit late to this, but I would take off the black bar and remove all of the adhesive left behind until the chips are clean with rubbing alcohol. Then apply the new heat sinks.

I'm guessing you have already did something. How is it working out?

 

[toniglandyl]

hi BBA
it's working great.
the problem was that I set my GPU waterblock thinking my GPU had an integrated heeatsink (like CPUs), but my GPU doesn't have one. My waterblock wasn't touching the GPU !
PC runs like a charm, I think I'll keep my hardware for at least another year. Dat 8800GT is unstoppable !