I think you are really lucky! Well, at least outsourcing has one benefit!

I have an ATI 9600 on the way from Dell, should be here Monday. If I read your post correctly, you did not mod the 9600 graphics card for your 8500 and you have no heat/shutdown problems. I purchased all the supplies for the mod, but your letter is causing me to consider trying the card without the mod first. If I may ask what are your fangui settings and Rage 3D tweaks. I would much prefer not doing the mod if it is not necessart, I don't want risk screwing up the card or my computer. Any further information would be appreciated. Have you had any problems since your post? Thanks.

I just have the fan settings set to the "Game Profile".  That tends to make the fan run all the time when running a game, but I don't care.  I don't know that when it get hotter around the computer that it won't shut down I'm just saying that so far it hasn't.

I will make a mod for the hole system.  I looked at the way Dell has set-up the colling and I think there is room for improvement.

My Rage 3d setting are to hard to list/remember!  Sorry.

Small Business Parts Division at 800-917-3355 2,2,3,3.  Use part number F3515.

I think it was $229.00.

 

where did you get the card and how much did you pay for it? i cant find one anywhere

Hmm... Small Business Parts Division, and they shipped it no questions asked? If not, what'd you have to tell them?

The guy that answered the phone could not spell phone!.  I gave him the part number, I told him what it was, he asked for my customer number number and I said I didn't have one.  He asked for my name and billing address, asked how I wanted to pay and how I wanted it shipped.  The next day the part arrived.  It was very easy.

BTW, today I did a mod on the card to help with the cooling, although it has not been a problem yet.  I added much more area to the heatsink.  Also added heatsink to video card ram.  It's real simple.  Anybody who can change the oil in there car could mod their computer.

It now runs cooler than my M9.

Congrats, although I would suggest doing the mod on bay-wolf's site for any future people installing this, it is a 15 minute procedure that ensures that the heat will not be an issue, the hardest part is getting all the pieces, I was worried when I first installed mine but from start to finish of reading the instructions, then reading them 9 more times to make sure (paranoid ) and doing the mod and then replacing the card, it took about an hour and no headache, I hope your comp works with it tosull but I would suggest modding if you get heat problems and for anybody else who's going to do this later.

can anyone tell me where i can get the heat conducting paste (artic silver or something similar)? also, i live in ireland, and to buy a new ati radeon m10 it would be newrly €400. do you know can i order from dell usa where its a lot cheaper?if not, is there anywhere i can get the card becides dell?

Thanks for your response. I did remove the NVidia drivers before the installation in Add/Remove programs. I still think the card is defective.