HD 5850 and Zalman aftermarket heatsink

[SunTea]

I’ve purchased a aftermarket heat sink for my video card. After extreme caution was taken to removing stock heat sink/fan and replacing it with the aftermarket it now does not work. My hard ware specs
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 Rev 1.0 bios version F8
GPU: Gigabyte Radeon HD 5850 using the latest catalyst drivers and stock bios
Back up GPU in use now: EVGA nvidia GeForce 8400 GS
CPU: i7-860
PSU: 850w thermaltake (black widow I think)
Aftermarket VGA heatsink: ZALMAN VF3000A

With the 5850 installed I powered on the pc, my monitor stayed black and the light on the monitor was flashing.  There is a debug led on my mobo with 2 numbers. This is what the manual says:
“1. If Early_Init_Onboard_Generator is not defined Onboard clock generator initialization. Disable respective clock resource to empty PCI & DIMM slots
2. Init onboard PWM
3. Init onboard H/W monitor devices”

I at first I thought maybe the fan header on the card’s pcb had to have something connected to it so I replaced the zalman with stock heat sink and plugged stock fan back in to the card but the same thing happened.

My back up 8400 works fine. i have submitted a ticket to gigabyte explaining the problem and acknowledging that I have voided the warrantee and asked if there are any other options left to me.

Any thought’s anyone has on the matter is appreciated.

[Dark Mantis]

The obvious question is did the card boot and work ok before you modified it?

[SunTea]

yes it was working fine

[Dark Mantis]

So basically we are looking at something that has gone wrong since the customisation. Did you use thermal paste on the heatsink when you installed it? Just re-read your original post. I take it the new fan/heatsink has a molex or other connection instead of to the onboard one is that right? Did you observe the rules about static electricity?

[SunTea]

update: i had to order a new video card, this time i went with a different company. nothing ageinst gigabyte.

yes i used themral paste. if any static was discharged (which i doute heavaly) there was nothing more that i could do about it seeing as how i took the nessesary precautions.

[Dark Mantis]

As you say you can only be carefull. Did you find out what the problem was in the end?