Nope, had a 6800GT running for 2 days flawlessly in it. I posted a nice long post on EVGA's boards about it this morning. At this point I'd take a refund or they could just send me a 7950GX2 in exchange for my 2 7900GT's. They would still be making money off me for that trade.
this is my first post in these forums but i think this may help.
First of all here are my specs.
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4200.
MoBo: ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe.
Video: MSI Nx7900gt.
RAM: 1Gb Smartvision (512x2).
Hdd: Wd Caviar 250Gb SATA x2.(500Gb).
CD/DVD: Lite-on dual layer dvdrw.
Audio: On board.
PSU: Thermaltake purepower 600wts.
Case: Thermatake. Tsunami, with 2 120mm fan and 1 90mm fan.
I was having the same issues most of you guys were having, the deep freeze hang, could not play fear, nor sin episodes… as time passed, neither of the 3dmark would run… so I decided to RMA the card, but then $solid$ necro advised that I should check the psu, and he was right after swapping the TT for a MSI turbostream 450wts I started to ran some test, I they went well!!! Even deep freeze ram flawlessly, afther 3 hour of continued bench’s and gaming I decided to ran fear.. and yes it did….. I must say that at this point I had unplugged the all the case fan, on hdd and the optical drive so I had only 1 hdd, the ezplug and the pcie connected…that is when it hit me,,, maybe the tt psu was not damaged, it may had to do with the way I had plugged the connectors form my PSU.
So I re installed the tt, and proceeded thu plug it like this.
1 line of molex connectors used only for the ezplug.
1 line of molex connectors used only for the case Fans.
1 line of molex connectors used for the optical and the zalman vf700cu.
1 line of SATA connectors for the 2 HDD.
I made sure the PCie connector was plugged all the way. Same for the 12v and the 24pin.
Booted my rig, and it worked!!! This config has been running stable and glitchless for one week now, yesterday I started to oc the vid (Core:550 Mem:850) and these are my scores.
what could be the bottleneck be with these cards? the cooling? the voltage? could the mobo not have the ability to supply that much power? or is it the internal circuitry that melts or sumthing
Thanks leonardo and Sledgehammer70 I would just hate for somebody to RMA their card just to have the same issue on the new one... so before send it away, give my advice a try....
what could be the bottleneck be with these cards? the cooling? the voltage? could the mobo not have the ability to supply that much power? or is it the internal circuitry that melts or sumthing
OK, theres 2 parts of these cards that are giving people problems.
1.) The RAM over-voltage protection circuitry is not stout enough to handle the voltage running through it. Infact, it gets so hot that it will burn your finger if you touch it. This was the first problem that thousands were experiencing. Card manufacturers had the company in China revamp the OV controller with a beefier IC and that worked for a few people.
2.) The GDDR3 Ram made by Samsung is not able to handle those high clock speeds of 15-1800. When you go back and look at the 7800GTX, 1300's are about the best your gonna get out of one (1323 being the sweet spot for my current cards, but to get the core to 550 I had to down them to 1200) and that RAM isn't much different then the RAM they put in the 7900 GT/GTX.
The people getting the good cards have outweighed the bad cards, however there has never been this many bad graphics cards reported before. Thats why we haven't heard any kind of reason why there's been so many failures. EVGA/XFX/BFG have been telling people to get new PSU's with those people only coming back and saying that it didn't help. Me being one of them. Yes, I've always kept my vid cards on their own dedicated line on the PSU. Infact, it's suggested by card makers that if your running G70 and G71's in SLI you need keep them on their own lines with no other devices drawing amps off those lines.
I think there have been alot of good solutions presented that have fixed many peoples cards, but I also feel that there has been alot of irresponsibility on Nvidia and card manufacturers sides that could have been avoided had they done further testing.
I wouldn't blame nVidia, they're not the ones racheting up the clock speeds. Blame the vid card MFG's that are running their cards at these crazy fast clocks.
Yeah, nVidia could take them to task over this but what're they going to do? Stop selling GPUs to these guys? That's cutting off their nose despite their faces since they rely on parts sales to survive.
Actually, you have to blame both companies man. Nvidia pushes these chips out, and sure they say "They are stable at our base speeds." but then they are running advertisments that advocate OCing as well as provide you the tools and means to do it.
If they were really interested in the cards stability, they would tell the distros to NOT overclock no matter what.
nVidia talks about overclocking like AMD and Intel do, it's an enthusiast thing and very much YMMV. Now there are boutique PC builders that are building AMD and Intel rigs clocked to the bleeding edge but should that be blamed on the chip makers? No. Same goes for nVidia. If BFG or eVGA or XFX choose to push these chips to the bleeding edge that's their choice just like if you choose to buy them that's your choice. nVidia has already said that the companies selling these cards clocked like this are doing so at their peril meaning that nVidia is not covering the chips.
As to the tools for overclocking, the last time I looked you have to apply a patch to your registry to make coolbits work. The drivers have no clockspeed adjustment in them whatsoever stock so that's an end user choice that has been made. When you adjust the clock speeds from stock there's even an end user agreement stating that you're doing something that will void your warranty by adjusting these clockspeeds and you have to agree to that before it will proceed. Again that's a choice being made by the end user.
nVidia isn't going to go holding the hands of every card MFG out there when the marketing dept decides to hell with the rated speeds. They're in the business of selling chips and tossing out mandates is only going to hurt their business because the card MFGs are not bound to only make nVidia cards. Yes they should be a little more stringent in warning people about the dangers of buying these doctored cards but the end result is the same, it's a choice being made by the end user or the PC builder. Personally I wouldn't buy one of those overcooked cards because I prefer to do my own overclocking and I'll make damned sure that the overclock I go with is 100% stable. I know better than to expect a wild overclock to be 100% repeatable which is what those cards are trying to sell.
0
LeonardoWake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, AlaskaIcrontian
Had BFG OC 7900GTX, Lasted a few Days, Few Runs of 3D mark 06 Deepfreeze Killed it, LUNA Nvidia Demo Had Pretty Spikes everywhere, Flashing Desktop.
Replacement Stock Leadtek 7900GTX, Lasted a few Days, Same Story.
Dropping the clocks sometimes improves performance, which suggests to me they are running beyond their limits. Even dropping clocks tends to be a short lived solution. Some have even run at half clocks, and still artifacts. Time Nvidia admitted there is a serious problem, I think.
Cant blame the manufacturers, as all are reference designs, possibly built by same factory, with the manufacturers tweaking the BIOS and possibly making minor cooling adjustments. Cant knock BFG support though, 24/7 Email support, often replying within the hour. Did lie and tell us they wasnt aware any particular issues, but Nvidia probably has them sworn to secrecy. Take it eVGA's wonder fix doesnt work then?
Nvidia's Forum told us that we were Noobs, and then promptly backed up after being presented with the evidence and many many pages of disgruntled purchasers. They actually edited their posts whilst we were writing our second one!
Deepfreeze 3D Mark 06 Multiple Runs should Kill it.
3D Mark 05 HDR tests work too.
Run ATI tool and tell it to scan for artifacts, most depressing!!!!
Then Run Luna for pretty Spikes.
Next card is ATI I think, lost all faith in Nvidia.:banghead:
Nah, it is just the 7900GT's that are bad, and it is because the manufactures are screwing with the clock frequencies, that are reving them way too high.
If I were you, I would go down to the 7800, or get a 7900GX2, as they dont have the problems, but are really expensive, but still, two cards on one pcb.
Comments
First of all here are my specs.
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4200.
MoBo: ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe.
Video: MSI Nx7900gt.
RAM: 1Gb Smartvision (512x2).
Hdd: Wd Caviar 250Gb SATA x2.(500Gb).
CD/DVD: Lite-on dual layer dvdrw.
Audio: On board.
PSU: Thermaltake purepower 600wts.
Case: Thermatake. Tsunami, with 2 120mm fan and 1 90mm fan.
I was having the same issues most of you guys were having, the deep freeze hang, could not play fear, nor sin episodes… as time passed, neither of the 3dmark would run… so I decided to RMA the card, but then $solid$ necro advised that I should check the psu, and he was right after swapping the TT for a MSI turbostream 450wts I started to ran some test, I they went well!!! Even deep freeze ram flawlessly, afther 3 hour of continued bench’s and gaming I decided to ran fear.. and yes it did….. I must say that at this point I had unplugged the all the case fan, on hdd and the optical drive so I had only 1 hdd, the ezplug and the pcie connected…that is when it hit me,,, maybe the tt psu was not damaged, it may had to do with the way I had plugged the connectors form my PSU.
So I re installed the tt, and proceeded thu plug it like this.
1 line of molex connectors used only for the ezplug.
1 line of molex connectors used only for the case Fans.
1 line of molex connectors used for the optical and the zalman vf700cu.
1 line of SATA connectors for the 2 HDD.
I made sure the PCie connector was plugged all the way. Same for the 12v and the 24pin.
Booted my rig, and it worked!!! This config has been running stable and glitchless for one week now, yesterday I started to oc the vid (Core:550 Mem:850) and these are my scores.
Aquamark 83.129
3dmark03 19.749.
3dmark05 9.374.
3dmark06 5.123.
The temps on the card are Idle 41, load average 47, peak at 49.
These are the games I been running so far with no problems whatsoever, (and an amazing quality compared to my old 6600gt).
-TES Oblivion.
-Tomb rider Legends.
-Hitman: blood money.
-Rise of legends.
-Sin episodes emergency.
-Fable the lost chapter.
-Ghost Recon 3.
-Splinter cell chaos theory.
In really happy I managed to get my card working. In using Nvidias official latest drivers. And have not flashes the bios from the 7900.
I hope this helps.
Cheers.
Miguel.
Cheers.
Miguel
OK, theres 2 parts of these cards that are giving people problems.
1.) The RAM over-voltage protection circuitry is not stout enough to handle the voltage running through it. Infact, it gets so hot that it will burn your finger if you touch it. This was the first problem that thousands were experiencing. Card manufacturers had the company in China revamp the OV controller with a beefier IC and that worked for a few people.
2.) The GDDR3 Ram made by Samsung is not able to handle those high clock speeds of 15-1800. When you go back and look at the 7800GTX, 1300's are about the best your gonna get out of one (1323 being the sweet spot for my current cards, but to get the core to 550 I had to down them to 1200) and that RAM isn't much different then the RAM they put in the 7900 GT/GTX.
The people getting the good cards have outweighed the bad cards, however there has never been this many bad graphics cards reported before. Thats why we haven't heard any kind of reason why there's been so many failures. EVGA/XFX/BFG have been telling people to get new PSU's with those people only coming back and saying that it didn't help. Me being one of them. Yes, I've always kept my vid cards on their own dedicated line on the PSU. Infact, it's suggested by card makers that if your running G70 and G71's in SLI you need keep them on their own lines with no other devices drawing amps off those lines.
I think there have been alot of good solutions presented that have fixed many peoples cards, but I also feel that there has been alot of irresponsibility on Nvidia and card manufacturers sides that could have been avoided had they done further testing.
Yeah, nVidia could take them to task over this but what're they going to do? Stop selling GPUs to these guys? That's cutting off their nose despite their faces since they rely on parts sales to survive.
If they were really interested in the cards stability, they would tell the distros to NOT overclock no matter what.
Thats my view on it after having to deal with it.
As to the tools for overclocking, the last time I looked you have to apply a patch to your registry to make coolbits work. The drivers have no clockspeed adjustment in them whatsoever stock so that's an end user choice that has been made. When you adjust the clock speeds from stock there's even an end user agreement stating that you're doing something that will void your warranty by adjusting these clockspeeds and you have to agree to that before it will proceed. Again that's a choice being made by the end user.
nVidia isn't going to go holding the hands of every card MFG out there when the marketing dept decides to hell with the rated speeds. They're in the business of selling chips and tossing out mandates is only going to hurt their business because the card MFGs are not bound to only make nVidia cards. Yes they should be a little more stringent in warning people about the dangers of buying these doctored cards but the end result is the same, it's a choice being made by the end user or the PC builder. Personally I wouldn't buy one of those overcooked cards because I prefer to do my own overclocking and I'll make damned sure that the overclock I go with is 100% stable. I know better than to expect a wild overclock to be 100% repeatable which is what those cards are trying to sell.
Replacement Stock Leadtek 7900GTX, Lasted a few Days, Same Story.
Dropping the clocks sometimes improves performance, which suggests to me they are running beyond their limits. Even dropping clocks tends to be a short lived solution. Some have even run at half clocks, and still artifacts. Time Nvidia admitted there is a serious problem, I think.
Cant blame the manufacturers, as all are reference designs, possibly built by same factory, with the manufacturers tweaking the BIOS and possibly making minor cooling adjustments. Cant knock BFG support though, 24/7 Email support, often replying within the hour. Did lie and tell us they wasnt aware any particular issues, but Nvidia probably has them sworn to secrecy. Take it eVGA's wonder fix doesnt work then?
Nvidia's Forum told us that we were Noobs, and then promptly backed up after being presented with the evidence and many many pages of disgruntled purchasers. They actually edited their posts whilst we were writing our second one!
Deepfreeze 3D Mark 06 Multiple Runs should Kill it.
3D Mark 05 HDR tests work too.
Run ATI tool and tell it to scan for artifacts, most depressing!!!!
Then Run Luna for pretty Spikes.
Next card is ATI I think, lost all faith in Nvidia.:banghead:
If I were you, I would go down to the 7800, or get a 7900GX2, as they dont have the problems, but are really expensive, but still, two cards on one pcb.