1950pro, Help.

[tenaciousleydead]

Okay so i got my iceq3 1950pro from newegg about 10-15 days ago(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161088)
first thing i did was clean off the included thermal paste and put on some arctic silver 5, i also took the voltage regulator heat sink off and took the thin insulating pad that was on it off and put ac5 on it. after that the heat sink would not touch the regulators, so i sanded down the little nubs that are on the bottom until it fit flush with the regulators. now on occasion i get two flashes of green(tealish) on my screen(whole screen) about every hour. the same green flash happens when i try to change the clock speeds in atitool. Also along with the many people complaining about the desktop rattle i also get that. Also it makes weird noises(kind of like a really fast hdd seeking) when i open atitool 3dview, but it doesn't do it in games.
questions:
1. does it void my warranty to switch thermal transfer pastes?
2. would i have to pay the restocking fee?
3. any ways to correct/fix this or should i just go for a return?

Thank you very much.

 

[emp]

1.) Yes you did.
2.) If they even accept it, then most likely.
3.) You're better off trying to return it.

Now I would like to know, why in the world would you do that? I mean I would understand if maybe the card was running extremely hot or something, but the FIRST thing you did (out of the box) was to tamper with it's integrity, not a smart move by any means, especially if you didn't know if it worked properly to begin with. Now you can't tell if it was a faulty card or if it was you who did the damage.

 

[tenaciousleydead]

i did test it before changed thermal paste, after 2 hours of track mania i got a full computer lockup, the screen turned into gibberish(followed by a slight electronic burning smell), i was getting slight artifacts and the card was running a little hot, i could not decipher if it was my power supply or video. after i put the thermal paste on it fixed the slight artifacts but now i have the two green blinks, also the computer has yet to lock up again, i don't think its a serious problem but was curious about the warranty . yes not very smart but that is the past now i need to look at my options.

 

[tenaciousleydead]

i found even with ati tool the fan speed wasn't getting high enough causing the heat pipe(right next to the ram) to heat up immensely, and the smell was the compound they put on the ram for heat transfer. I'm still at a loss about the green blinking though, ill keep investigating.