Advice on a graphics card RMA

[Lucifa]

On friday my pc had green dots all over the screen in windows, and green lines in any 3d application.
The green dots even appeared during boot/bios so I know it wasn't a driver issue.
The card has never been overclocked.
I left the PC off for a few hours just in case it was overheating (as the PC had been left on all day), but it still had the problem later on, and saturday morning.

So I phoned up Scan for an RMA number saturday morning and the guy on the phone confirmed what my google searches said - it was likely a problem with the card's RAM and I should return it.

However on Sunday the card was fine, no green dots anywhere and I was able to watch some video on it and play a good few hours of COD4 which would have tested the card.

So my problem is: do I return it?
I don't want to waste both my time and Scan's by returning a card that may be only intermittantly having a problem, after all it may work fine once Scan test it.
I'm not sure what the procedure is either if Scan can't find a problem: do they simply return it and I have to accept what is a faulty card but only fails occasionly, or will they accept it in good faith that it's faulty?

In the meantime I have ordered a replacement card anyway, I have 2 computer events in the next few weeks, the first of which is in 5 days time and I can't afford for the card to die on me while I'm there so I'm hedging my bets as it were

Some advice would be good, thankyou.

Oh I forgot to mention: it's a 320mb BFG 8800GTS.

[Mick@SCAN]

Lucifa,

I think it was me that you spoke to on Saturday, it might be worth running the card on 3DMARK2006 at the highest resolution your monitor will support with all detail settings turned up to max, ensure AA and AS filtering are set to the highest possible settings and see if you get any problems. Pay attention to the shader model 3 tests and try and spot any signs of corruption.

Another good test to run is Crysis, bump everything to max to see if you get any dots/corruption.

I hope this helps.

[Lucifa]

Hi mick, I called up about 10.35 and got through about 10.50 if that was you?

I do have Crysis and a benchmarking tool to go with it so I'll give the timedemo some runs over the next few days.
I'll give 3dmark a go as well.

Thanks.

[Mick@SCAN]

No worries, let us know how the testing goes. If you find that the fault does occur please raise a query here or give us a call on the usual number.

Cheers,

[Lucifa]

I've still got the original RMA number you supplied me with after the call, so I can use that right?
I think it expires on the 21st though.

[Mick@SCAN]

I've still got the original RMA number you supplied me with after the call, so I can use that right?
I think it expires on the 21st though.

That will be fine, just let us know which program shows the fault when you return the card so we can advise the test engineers .

Cheers,