Dead Geforce 8800?
Hi
It appears that my bad luck isn't going away.
Now my Geforce 8800 GTX is dead, or that is what I believe.
I just cleaned the heat sink a month ago.
Whenever the GFX is doing anything other than idling on the desktop, small blue squares appear everywhere.
Often when it happens the driver "reboots" and has stopped responding.
Other times the machine crashes to a BSOD.
Is there anything I can do?
Unfortunately I cannot test it in another machine, I do not have other machines with PCI-Express and such a beefy PSU.
I have tried reinstalling both drivers and Windows 7 RC, nothing helps.
Is there anything I can do?
I have tried re seating the card and cables that hasn't made a difference.
Quite sad if my approx. $1000 GFX is dead.
:sad2: (The price of an early adopter 
)
Well at least it was a great ride and it died before games really pushed it past it's limits, it could still do almost everything with a good frame rate.
Another unfortunate fact, a new Geforce 295 GTX costs $730 not exactly an expense I had anticipated.
It appears that my bad luck isn't going away.
Now my Geforce 8800 GTX is dead, or that is what I believe.
I just cleaned the heat sink a month ago.
Whenever the GFX is doing anything other than idling on the desktop, small blue squares appear everywhere.
Often when it happens the driver "reboots" and has stopped responding.
Other times the machine crashes to a BSOD.
Is there anything I can do?
Unfortunately I cannot test it in another machine, I do not have other machines with PCI-Express and such a beefy PSU.
I have tried reinstalling both drivers and Windows 7 RC, nothing helps.
Is there anything I can do?
I have tried re seating the card and cables that hasn't made a difference.
Quite sad if my approx. $1000 GFX is dead.
:sad2: (The price of an early adopter )Well at least it was a great ride and it died before games really pushed it past it's limits, it could still do almost everything with a good frame rate.
Another unfortunate fact, a new Geforce 295 GTX costs $730 not exactly an expense I had anticipated.
0
Comments
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=606658
Good luck.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39045/135/
It is probably the failure of solder joints connecting the GPU chip to the substrate. The oven-baking solution in the link Thrax gave above might actually work by reflowing the solder ball and reconnecting the two ends. But excessive heat can damage other components as well.
I am not telling you to try but please post the result if you do it
The card is out of warranty anyway.
I have a GFX that doesn't work, worst thing that could happen is that I have a GFX that doesn't work.
But I don't know when I will be able to bake it, I need to pull it apart first.
And I have no thermal tape to replace the tape that is on the memory.
That should be good, that fits with the other success stories and also the guide that has been linked to.
But what about spices, should I use salt and pepper or a spicier chili flavor?
The 8800 has been notorious for premature failure. Not that surprising considering what an amazing leap it was when it came out. Its fair to say the 8800 was ahead of its time. Thermal failures have been common.
Depending upon what make it is, you might be surprised at how customer service deals with you. Honestly, Nvidia put out hundreds of millions in warranty, even if your outside of the limit, if you talk to someone understanding of the 8800's history, they might see fit to help you replace it with a current 9800 card.
I would call them. Heck if they give you flack, I have been known to talk customer service agents into seeing things my way, let me know, I'd call and raise a rukus for you.
The 8800 was fundamentally flawed in design, beyond warranty or not, it was a sub par design. They should compensate you with an equivalent replacement. At least something they have in refurb.
8 minutes at 200 C, it is cooling off right now I wonder if it will work or not?
The 8800 was ahead of its time and a quality part.
The early 90nm chips boards had issues. Its really the major reason for the process improvements and renaming the 9xxx line vs. creating entirely new chips.
I think this might be one of the early 90nm boards. Frankly either its not pushed too hard, or I am surprised it has lasted this long.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/12/nvidia-g92-and-g94-gpus-failing-too/
It seems to be working.
I will need to pull the GFX out again later, and apply more thermal paste.
The temperature is rising a bit too fast when stressing the GPU.
But no checkerbox pattern or small blue squares.
BTW: Furmark reports a wrong temp, it is roughly 7 degrees higher than what Rivatuner reports.
The 8800 GTX is based on the G80 design, I have never seen it mentioned in articles regarding problems with the other chips.
When the graphics card is under thermal load in the system, its printed circuit board may expand and contract as it rapidly heats and cools back down. With that, you may get a micro crack somewhere in the pcb, probably in a small soldered connection, current wont flow, and your suddenly SOL.
Now, by heating it up to an extreme temp, your going to soften it a little so it hopefully re bonds, and it stays connected because you cool it down nice and slow at room temp rather than quickly with the fan in the system.
Trouble is, I think this is rarely a permanent fix, it works for a while, but the problem will persist because your card is going to heat up and rapidly cool down as part of its design.
One of the leading causes of GPU failure is not circuit-related, but rather long-term temperature fluctuations leading to cracks and fractures in the solder array that mounts an IC to the surface of its PCB. This process is almost inevitable for any product with surface-mounted circuitry, but it takes a long time.
Quickly baking a card to a temperature above the melting point of solder will reflow the solder, allowing the hairline cracks to be sealed by freshly malleable solder material. Once the card cools, you have a solder array with the integrity of a new product. It's a fix that should last for quite a while.
The temperature solder needs to melt is far below the temperature required to harm the board's circuits or plastic.
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=606658
There are threads like this all over the net, featuring people putting their 8800 GTX in an oven. That tells me something.
Congratulations! Please test more and post again. :bigggrin:
There is no way to tell how long it will work though.
But at least it can provide some time while I consider a replacement.
Furmark is doing fine right now and actually the thermal paste lowered the temp as well.
If furmark is indeed providing 100 % load the temp has been lowered by 8-10C, that is impressive.
Thanks and I'll be testing it extensively.
But right now everything is fine.
Thanks to Thrax for pointing to baking method. This is the coolest story of the day for me
The cause of these problems must be the high temperature of the 8800 GTX.
It idles at around 60C and under load it is even worse, that does stress the components.
It is odd to fix the problems with even more heat though.
Similar to the towel trick on the xbox 360. See, the issue is not just the heat, its the constant stress of warming up your PCB then cooling it down rapidly when its no longer under load. Were talking about the board having more than 20 C fluctuations inside of a minute, and what happens like most things that heat up and cool down, it expands a little, it contracts a little, and you do that enough, and quickly enough you get these cracks in a solder joint. So its not the heat from the card load thats doing it, so much as the rapid heating and cooling creating the expansion and contraction on the pcb.
The extreme heat in the oven (or blocked vents on the 360) reflows the solder, and it takes because the pcb cools down at room temp without an assist from a fan.
Its a testament to the 8800 GTS that its a two year old piece of graphics tech, and its still desireable to the point that people will go through those lengths to get a little more out of it.
Just like the 360 towell trick though, its never a permanent solution to the problem, in all likelyhood it will fail again as that thing starts heating up and cooling down during normal use. I still think for the price of a grand, it should last at least a few years. I'd call the vendor and see what they think. Worst case, they tell you to bug off. Best case, they let you RMA it and you get a refurb or something you can feel okay about selling on ebay to recoup the cost of a nice Radeon 4890
I gave it a good workout yesterday before I went to bed, a couple of hours of Left 4 Dead and Far Cry 2, and no problems what so ever.
And Furmark today is doing nicely as well.
But the load temperature in a closed case isn't all that impressive, 80C, but it is lower than before I stripped it apart.
This is good news!
You could get a cheap Accelero S1 and strap a 120mm fan on it. I bet your load temperature will be below 70C after that. I have used that cooler on 2 different cards and the results are phenomenal. My HD4850 was hitting 85C under load at stock speed, 625 MHz. With Accelero S1, voltmodded, overclocked to 850, temperature is always below 65C.
Sunds like a great idea.
But how much room does the Accelero S1 need?
I have two slots available below the GFX, one is presently occupied by the factory dual slot cooling.
EDIT: I can see that it is passive I reckon it will need a fan though to keep the 8800 GTX cool.
People do love the 8800. Your going to spend another $40 or so on a cooler fan and shipping to try and string along an oven baked card, that I bet is in warranty?
Get Asus to serve you on your 1K investment, you should not have to sink more money into it.
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I just checked the Accelero S1 compatibility list. 8800GTX is not listed there. Sorry for the confusion. But being a very popular cooler, you might be able to find a way to fit it on the internet.
Cliff, a good cooler can be used with multiple cards. I have several coolers that I still use on new cards as I upgrade. Zalman VF700, TR Ultra V1, Accelero S1 to name some of them.