No fault found - test again, please.

[slickric21]

i think its BFG cards that allow you to remove the heatsink, at least then you can take the heatsinks off and check the paste etc fitment and such, maybe even take it down the water cooling route?

I thought you could do this with all the Cards - Just unscrew the back. Or did yo mean do it without invalidating your warranty ?

I know XFX allow you to do that but only if your in the states

Paradox:

Take a look at my thread here on driverheaven http://www.driverheaven.net/nvidia-g...problem-2.html
In particular the posts by "Zardon" as he really knows his stuff. I will probably go for a custom cooler if I have no joy with my replacement (if I get one !!).

[parad0x]

Thanks slickric.

I've heard about the fan settings before and just now I've decided to try locking the fan upto 100%.
The artifacting persists, and the temperature maxed out at about 90C while playing Far Cry. I've created a video which you can get here:
http://lavaburn.untergrund.net/files...yartifacts.avi

The video doesn't show it very well at all compared to real life (it's much more obvious and happens more often than the camera can capture). Look very carefully for the flashing "spikes" of black/white light shooting out from the centre of the screen, and also a couple of flickers coming out from the sky around the top of the screen (look towards the top-right near the end of the video).

What's slightly strange is that while this card is locking up like the last one, the last one never had any of these artifacts.

[Philipp]

parad0x

Really sorry to hear of the problems you are having again

PM me your invoice number or RMA number.

Ill get it sorted ASAP.

Best Regards

[slickric21]

Looks like this card is even worse than the first then........

Could be anything from the GDDR3 being a poor batch, to too much/little thermal paste on the chips.
I know today is a little warmer temperature wise around the country - but I've assumed all along you've got your cooling under control as a person who bulids a system like your knows the what there doing.

Thats what was so frustrating about my problem. I've gone to extreme lengths to cool my system with my card idling at 53-57'c and loading no higer than 84'c (untill it froze then who knows what the temp was)

The point is these cards should be fine at these sort of temps - certainly 90'c under load isn't extreme high yes but not so the card should pack up, I have an XFX support ticket which has clearly stated that to me.

My feeling is that you should get it RMA'd ASAP Paradox, its even worse than the first one you had.

Then you will have to go for something else I think. Pain because when you built your system (like me) you wanted the best you could get. The Ultra is 10% + faster than a standard GTX in some cases, with the oc'd versions even higher still - that could be the difference in playable framerates in the lastest titles ?

Good luck, I know you are also learning the virtues of patience with these bl**dy OC'd Ultras like myself.

[parad0x]

I think this card will be much easier for Scan to test. The artifacts on Far Cry appear so easily, you won't even have to run it for more than 20 minutes.

slickric: This was the notion for me wanting to buy the top-spec EVGA, as best as possible, money no object.

Thanks for replying Phillipp, you've got my numbers in your inbox.

[parad0x]

Well, the card should be arriving with you sometime today, it's been on a van since 10:30 this morning according to the track and trace.

I hope it arrives timely enough for you guys to do your stuff and find the fault before the end of the day...!

[Philipp]

Cards currently being tested now however isnt showing a sign of failing

Just installing far cry on the bench

Regards

[parad0x]

Once the graphics card warms up you should start to see the flickering light artifacts. Be sure to look carefully as they can be hard to spot, it's not blatant but they're there. It needs to be watched while doing a playtest, ideally.

You'll have an easier time looking for the artifacts than waiting for it to crash, I'm pretty sure. Please also try in a closed case if you don't have any luck reproducing the fault on a testbed.

[parad0x]

So I get the no fault found email again.

This is starting to do my head in now. Reading slickric's thread, where his card was also tested NFF, I take it that it was tested on a similar setup with a 1280x1024 resolution and so on. I also don't agree that this will expose the problems like a higher resolution will.

Can someone please, like before, detail what was done to test my card. Did you look for the artfacts? I'll repeat again that theyre hard to see. Has anyone seen the video and acknowledged what they're looking for?

Seriously, I'm in no mood to be told there's nothing wrong with it, especially if the specs I'm using can't be parallelled closely enough. I don't send things back because they are working properly.

Put it in a case - please. I don't care about the temperature in the room, or what people say about airflow - it goes into a case because that's where people use them in real life.

If you have any - ANY - means to go higher than 1280x1024, PLEASE do.

Set the quality slider in the nVidia control panel to the far right; i.e. maximum. Run a couple passes of 3Dmark over it to get it heated up. Once it's warmed up, crank Far Cry up, set all of its settings to max, especially anti-aliasing, whack it all up to the top, and have someone sit down and play for a while. Run around through the beach levels with your eyes peeled on the screen and look for flickering artifacts.

I know you have time constraints and you're probably annoyed with me by now, but if you don't find this problem, you're sending me back a £470 brick. Coupled with the £30 charge or whatever it is for your time. Then another £20 or whatever it costs to send the card to EVGA - then another month of waiting, I can imagine.

Please spare me this. This is turning out like a hellish nightmare. I would have imagined that given all these reports of faulty overclocked 8800s you would begin to acknowledge the nature of these problems and understand that normal quick testing procedures can make it very difficult to expose the problems.

[Philipp]

parad0x

Im currently testing slickric's card on a 22inch panel and ill test yours on the same. However slickric's card isn’t failing just been running lost planet dx10 1680*1050 with everything on full was coming out at a constant 19FPS and nothing. Its now looping 3Dmark06.....

Ill test your card parad0x at 1680*1050, although I saw your card running Farcry yesterday problem free.

[parad0x]

Thankyou Philipp, that's good to hear as that's the same resolution my panel is.

I don't think looping a FarCry demo is what you want to be doing for my card, as I'm certain you'll have an easier time looking for the artifacts than trying to make it crash.

Certainly loop 3Dmark a couple of times on mine to warm it up, but play FarCry afterwards as if you were playing the game. If you've seen my video, do what I did, look at the foliage of the beach levels and run side to side. The artifacts appear nearly all the time in the beach levels of Far Cry but scenes involving hills and trees seem to aggravate them. I can't stress how carefully you need to look.

Again, max settings esp. anti-aliasing.

Cheers.

[Philipp]

parad0x

Is hasn’t failed I’m really lost to what else we can try.

Done as you said far cry everything on full and I mean every thing running through the beach level and nothing it’s just not failing

Using a 22inch 1680*1050 Res.

Have you heard anything back from EVGA ?

Regards

[parad0x]

Hi Philipp

Really appreciate your efforts.

I havent heard back from EVGA yet but I think I'll attempt to phone them.
Philipp - do you have a phone number that someone could use to directly speak to you, seeing as you have handled my case? It's just in case I can get someone from EVGA to speak to you. Or an email address?

If so could you PM me?
Thanks mate.

[slickric21]

Paradox, whats your full system specs ?

I'm wondering if there is a common denominator between our setups ie A piece of hardware that is causing our freeze-ups ? (and the countless others who've posted on these forums - and others with the same issue )

As Scan don't seem to be able to replicate the faults, not through lack of trying thou as Phillipp has shown today (and yesterday,and last week and......)

mine are in my profile, plus an x-fi fatality sound card. (bearing in mind I had these freezes with my first system aswell =x2 4800+,Abit kn8 ultra NF4,2gb corsair xms,ocz 700w, 2x 10k "raptors")

Maybe its one avenue to explore if we get no joy.

[parad0x]

Hi, mate.

The main parts are:
Asus Striker Extreme
Core2 Quad Extreme QX6800
Zalman ZM600HP (600W power supply, SLI certified etc)
OCZ Reaper PC2-9200 (only running at 800MHz though)

Looks like we are the same motherboard and similar memory, though I'm not convinced its any of the other hardware at all.

I'm still trying to get EVGA to help, I have the attention of a moderator over at their boards bu no responses from their support teams yet. I've told Scan to just keep my card for now until I can see if EVGA will speak to them.

[slickric21]

Yeah nothing there really,

The same MOBO, but I had a problem on my other system based on NF4.
I just wondered if you had WD 10k raptors harddrives, cos I read somwhere that vista users were having freezing issues with them and 8800 cards.

I'm trying to get my card back from Scan, as i've little faith in XFX support and what they can offer.
My support ticket takes between 5-10 days for a response, when I phone I get someone who knows as much about computers as my Gran and reads responses from a laminated sheet. The XFX support forums are based in the USA and although the moderator there appears to be helpful, very little has ever been achieived - there just no coordination between them and XFX European support.
I've been lead down many a blind alley and chased several wild geese

Lets hope you get a result with eVGA