Problem with Asus/ATI X1900XT

Hello, long time lurker, first time poster.

This is more of a general question now that I have already ordered a replacement for my X1900XT.

First things first, system specs (if that will help with the diagnosis):

Mobo: ASUS P5WD2 Premium
Video: ASUS X1900XT 512MB
Memory: 4GB (4x1GB) Corsair XMS2
OS: Windows XP SP2

On to the story...

I bought a Reserator V1 and I got the additional water block for the VGA (no RAM cooling though). When I had everything attached and booted the computer, the computer itself turned on (i.e. the fans turned on, front panel LED's came on, etc) and that's it. The computer would just be on and not boot or anything. Also, there were no beeps from the mobo.

Eventually, with a little transplanting between computers, I figured out that the video card was the cause of the problem.


Now, I looked over every square millimeter of the video card and there are NO obvious defects, no cracks, no broken circuits, nothing. I'm just really curious about what caused the card to die like this.

I have two ideas:

1) While attaching the water block, I turned the thumb screws too much and damaged the processing chip.
2) The lack of RAM cooling killed the card.

I think #2 is unlikely because the computer would at least boot first, then die, right? Considering the kind of heat that would kill the chips cannot be generated that quickly and would take at least a couple minutes.

I think #1 is the likely suspect and I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced or know someone who has experienced this. I'm guessing a damaged processing chip would cause my computer to act the way it did?

Although I've already ordered a replacement, I would just like to find an answer to this so I can't repeat the same mistake ever again.


Thanks for reading.