My old stock cooler R9 290 was overheating, so not too long ago I disassembled it to replace the thermal paste. It was dry and crumbling (I applied MX-4). Also the thermal pads on the VRMs and memory were crumbling. But all I did was replace the thermal paste on the die and assembled it back
Then I ran Furmark and it seemed to be OK, less heating and even the VRM sensors showed no over heating
But very soon my motherboard died, and only now after a few months I got the replacement. Now I am getting artifacts and frequently the screen gets stuck, turns black and then turns on again, and AMD software tells me that the driver crashed. I tried to install older drivers, all with same results
Could it be that I damaged some components in the card, enough to make the card work, but with many problems? Is there a way to isolate the issue?
I ordered new thermal pads just in case (haven't arrived yet)
I also wonder if although it's not overheating, it reaches its thermal maximum temp very fast and throttling? So actually Furmark is not enough to test whether the thermal paste replacement was successful. Please advice me how to properly test what's going on
Thanks!