Sorry for the late reply but work has had me in a tale spin as of late.
Anyway:
Blade Runner, I would be more then willing to provide you with the damaged ATI 9500PRO but I had the good fortune of getting it replaced from ATI without question.
Ati are located just East of my location in the Toronto region and I informed them that the card was not operating very well
, they provided me with several options:
1)On-line registration process that entails a credit card number and a $230 holding fee; this would provide a 2 day shipping of a replacement.
I do not like giving out my credit card number, especially in this case
2)Ship the card out for service; two week process.
absolutely not since the damage is very obvious; from scratches on the shim as well as some minor scratches on the GPU itself.
3)Drive to there location and exchange the card for an immediate replacement!
YES YES YES
All is well now but I havn't attempted to place the Danger Den block on. At this point, I do not want to remove the shim and will modify the block itself.
By the way, I've upgraded the bios on the card and it's now successfully overclocked at 340/310 with the factory HSF. Now just to figure out a logical location for the temperature prob.