XFX 8800 ULTRA XXX Problem

[slickric21]

Hey guys just like to give you the heads up and a warning on the above product.

On Tuesday my XFX 8800 ultra xxx arrived and i was well pleased to see it was a new one with the bumped up clock of 685mhz !!! ,

However my inital excitment was soon dashed when I found that all games i play - namley BF2, bf2142 and R6:vegas both freeze everytime after a few minutes play.
Driver testing followed and several reformats, i tried 158.22, 158.27, 160.02, 160.03 drivers and have been troubleshooting all the driver settings on each for the last 4 days. Several times i thought i'd cracked it (disable vync, delete customs resolutons, disable AA/AF etc etc- only for my hopes to be dashed.

In the end I think I finally found the common denominator === the clock speed.

If I down clock the card to 675mhz (its inital release specs) then I seem to get no freezing at all - I can confirm this has been the case for the last several hours of gameplay, so fingers crossed.

It appears to me the XFX have just pushed this card to far with the extra 10mhz.
I hope i'm wrong - but that seems to be what i've found.

p.s It isn't a cooling issue - i'm on top of that situation

[GoNz0]

it wouldnt be the 1st time XFX have pulled that stunt..

[Blitzen]

However my inital excitment was soon dashed when I found that all games i play - namley BF2, bf2142 and R6:vegas both freeze everytime after a few minutes play

Alot of clocked 8800's do this.
Mine did and so have a few others that have posted here.

Make, model, manufacturer, reseller ....... makes no difference.

This is one of quite a few i have read: http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=110912

[slickric21]

ahh i see,

I posted over on driverheaven about my experience, some suggested that it is my temps,

I added another fan in the bottom corner of my case to blow directly onto the GFx card - my idles have lowered to 65ish,

see if this makes a difference, but I'm convinced its a driver issue though because on a couple of occasions when my game froze I got a little warning from the nvdia driver support service saying words to the effect "nv4_disp.dll" has screwed up - thats the driver.

I'll continue to lower my clocks everytime with ntune - and see what happens - i've opened a ticket with XFX aswell

[slickric21]

Well i'm at my wits end with this one still.

I opened a support ticket with xfx last thursday - and still no reply from them. I'm getting to the point when I just want to send this card back and get rid of it £490 for 7 days of stress.

I've taken advice on another forum and installed an extra fan blowing across the transistors of this card.
This has lowered the idle temps of the card to lower 60s and load never above 74c now (measured with ntune & rivatuner)
My cpu temps is around 33 - 37 idle/load and my case temps are always lower 30s - measured by abut guru.

still this card will always freeze at stock clocks (685/1674/2300)in all the following games in order of worst effected
1. bf2/bF sf
2. colinmcrae dirt
3.r6 vegas

Bf2/Bf sf -Needs the clock lowering to 670/2200 to get any sort of stability - usually 30 mins or so of play,an hour if lucky
Dirt - cant even access the graphics options unless the clock is lowered to <675 - then plays fine
R6:vegas - <657 is ok and play fine for hours.

My testing has indicated to me that it isn't temps being the problem as I can run the stabilty test in ntune for 3+ hours at stock with no problems - with the temp of the card never going >74.c.
However as soon as I play the above games, forget it.

Any ideas on what I should do now ? How does the returns RMA system work (i've had this card 7 days from weds 27th)

[Clunk]

What are the rest of your system specs?

[slickric21]

XP Corp SP2
Amd x2 4800+
Abit KN8 Ultra
2gb Corsair XMS
150gb Raptor
X-fi fatality
OCZ 700w PSU
samsung Dvd rom
nec dvd+rw

Thats the basics. I think I've got relatively good cooling going on. I've got and "EZ cool" case (aluminum with thousands of small holes for vent) with x2 fans front bottom, 2x side fans (aimed at cpu and gfx card), 1x rear exhaust fan, 1x top exhaust fan + the OCZ Psu acts as an exhaust also - so I think I've got pretty good airflow in there.

[Blitzen]

The freezing issues are VERY common in BF"/BF2142 and a few others.

Its strange but its a driver issue i think that conflicts with certain games.

An RMA would be out of the question though as technically the cards are fine. Its more compatibility.

[slickric21]

Blitzen I noticed that in your above post you state "yours did" in relation to freezing, impling your issue has been fixed - is that the case ? If so how did you sort it.

As for being a driver issue - I see where your coming from - but why then can the problem be removed by underclocking the card to some degree ? It just doesn't add up to me. I'm begining to wonder if i've got some dodgy GDDR modules on there

One thing that I am seeing is that tech supoprt for XFX is somewhat lax.

Edit - New driver 162.25 out today i'll have bash with it later see what comes up.

[slickric21]

Well I had a response from XFX............. "try down-clocking the memory not the core"

I had to chuckle of course thats gonna stabilize it !!!!! But I bought it to run at stock speeds, if I wanted to down clock it i'd have saved £££ and got the regular Ultra or even a gtx !!!

Contacted scan and gonna RMA it though as I'll never fully have peace of mind if I don't.£480 was lot of money to spend.

I the mean time I did some moddifications on my case to try to further improve the cooling,
I have added a x 2 more fans aimed directly at the card ( so I now have 3 !!! on it)
There is x2 fixed to the side/bottom corner of case - drawing cool air from outside and blowing directly into the cards fan - one is a thermaltake thunder fan with adjustable control which when cranked up draws a serious amount of air into the case/onto the card.
Also I added 1x fan to blow across the top of the card and out of a pci vent slot.

So all in all I have x3 dedicated fans to the card, add to this x2 front case, 1x side, 1x exhaust top,1 exhaust rear and the large cpu exhaust plus th ez cool case which is perforated and I really can't do any more to cool this case or the card

But still the freezing occurs. Sometimes I can play for 2 hours now, others 2 minutes - there just seems to be no pattern at all. I'm so gutted.

Fingers crossed

[GoNz0]

reply to them and say
"fine i will downclock it, so long as you promise to pay me &#163;5 for every mhz i have to downclock by to get stability"

[MetalRush]

Well Slickric, you're not the only one with these problems...
I don't know how your Dutch is, but look at the details like date, card and games I play:
[Not able to post URL, 'cause of number of postings ]

My store is very cooperative and swapped my XFX twice already (so I am working on my 3rd card atm!). Same problems on all cards!
It IS temperature related. Try setting your fanspeed (with RivaTuner) to 90% of its speed. You will be able to game 'till you drop. I found that installing extra fans, is not enough (prolly due to the housing of the stock-cooler).
I also had my other 2 cards tested by the store where I bought it. They tested with 3dMark2006 and ATi-Tool. They also run smoothly at home, but gaming stresses the card(s) more.

The sad part is that my XFX-support-person only suggested to check my voltage settings (on memory and cpu), that was it

Now I've read your story and experience, I'm thinking to swap the card for another brand... no more XFX for me...ever

[slickric21]

Interesting info metalrush.

I returned the card to Scan and they tested it for me (briefly) - but are returning it - no fault found.

I phoned up scan - and they told me it was tested on 3dmark for 30 minutes, then on lost planet. However the thing is they tested it on an open case !!!!!!!

Well its no brainer that it didn't freeze then if their test machine is an open case - My issue is this card cannot cool itself in normal conditions, nowhere did xfx or scan when they sold me this card state "oh you may need to take the side of the case off to keep it stable".
I have done everything else reasonable to cool this card.

I wasn't as lucky as you with my choice of supplier I guess.

I realised that there is no point in arguing with them, as they clearly didn't seem willing to test this card for a resonable time, under reasonble conditions. I'll just down clock this card, bite my lip and never shop with them again for an item of this value.

As for XFX support - well that is clearly a joke as you said. I had a 2nd response from them - words to the effect of "disable your AV product and start up items - and try again".
Well hardly earth shattering advice, for any gamer/enthusiast who would buy such a card would know about these very basic things.

Yup XFX will be given a wide berth in future

[GoNz0]

well its never worked right for you , and you posted up within 7 days of having it ?

i would go for a refund as its not fit for the purpose, ie not fit to be placed in a case unless its got 300cfm of air being forced over it

[slickric21]

Within 1 day of receiving it m8 !!!

I'm just so disheartened with it all now.

I've just ordered 7 new fans from scan including x3 120mm to replace the 80mm ones already dedicated to cooling it (with limited effect up to now).

All these fans are higher quality Akasa ones to replace the value akasa ones I already have.

I don't now what else to do TBH, i'll try rivatuner to set the card to 100&#37; on games, but I just shouldn't have to do all this...........

[GoNz0]

scan should be sending this to XFX if they cant find fault.

point of view made it very clear that suppliers do not have the equipment to test things like video cards.