Intermittently faulty Gigabyte Radion x800xl (Passive)

[Kilawen]

Hi,

I purchased a Gigabyte Radion X800XL ( passive cooling ) two weeks ago from Scan which appears to be faulty. Unfortunately, I am not sure what to do at this stage because the fault is very intermittent. My case is well ventilated with an 80mm fan at the back of the case and the 120mm fan on the psu both sucking air out of the case. The cpu and motherboard temperatures level off to about 38 and 33 degrees C respectively when the system is under heavy load. When the graphics are 2d only (i.e. xp desktop ) the GPU temperature levels off to about 50 degrees C and the passive heatsink is very warm to the touch. The fun starts when I run a 3d application or game ( e.g. Celestia on demo mode full screen ); the temperature of the GPU increases to about 70 degrees C and the copper heatsink is almost unbearably hot to touch. I am certain the fault is in the graphics card because I have replaced it with an ATI x300 and the system is now totally stable. I should add that nothing is overclocked or has ever been.
The system only crashes ( BSD – Blue Screen of Death, requiring a cold restart ) when running a 3d application. If the crashes were more predictable it would be a straightforward case of returning the card for a replacement/repair, the snag is that the system will sometimes run flawlessly for maybe half an hour before it crashes. I am worried that if I return the card, it will be tested in the Scan labs, found not to be faulty and returned with me having to pay all expenses. This happened to me a few years ago when I returned an intermittently faulty memory module.
Any advice on what I should do would be gratefully received.

Many Thanks.

[Kilawen]

"Bump"


Anyone any ideas on what to do??


Thanks,

[dodgybob]

In quite a few threads I've seen people have said not to worry about the gpu hitting 70C. To be on the safe side to see that it's not purely over heating perhaps try having the side panel off the case and a fan blowing on to it.

Apart from that perhaps when you RMAed it you could try and explain the situation in full so that they might leave it running with 3d apps for quite a while to replicate the faults.

[DavidM]

It's always worth giving full details of the circumstances the problem arises, as it does make testing a lot easier,

I'll ask Phil to speak to you further on this one on Monday.

[davidstone28]

These cards run fine up to about 90C-100C, so your 70C shouldn't be a problem - thats completely normal.

I'd definitely rule out driver conflicts first. For example, with some 3D games they lock up if you have alot of programs running the in background eg. AV, etc etc.

Also clean out the old NV drivers, install new one (dont install over the old ones etc).

[Kilawen]

These cards run fine up to about 90C-100C, so your 70C shouldn't be a problem - thats completely normal.

I'd definitely rule out driver conflicts first. For example, with some 3D games they lock up if you have alot of programs running the in background eg. AV, etc etc.

Also clean out the old NV drivers, install new one (dont install over the old ones etc).

Thanks for the advice. Greatly appreciated.

Firstly, there is no possiblity of a driver conflict because the latest Catalyst 5.10's were installed on a new machine, ie a totally new hard drive, which prior to winxp being installed, was partitioned and formatted by me. The latest direct x 9.0c drivers were also installed at this time. As soon as it became obvious that the x800xl was playing up in 3d, I uninstalled the Catalyst 5.10's and tried older drivers that came bundled with the card, with the same result. Also I did ensure that nothing was running in the background by going into task manager checking that cpu was idling at 99% and zero for everything else ( I routinely do this before starting a game or simulation ). I have since been running my machine with an ATI x300 card for over a week with at least 12 hours running in 3d with absolutely no problems whatever ( ok so things are a bit slow and jerky at times but that is to be expected with a cheap card! ).

Many thanks for your help.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

I have one of these, it runs fine at painfully high temperatures. It also needs a fair bit of power through the PCI-e bus
Try using atitool and testing it at clock rates below default. If that helps it could be a power supply or heat problem.

[megatron]

I read a user review of a passive gigabyte graphics card which explained exactly the same problems.

Its worth noting that the theoretical limits of what temperature the gpu can withstand are not the same temperatures that it will operate flawlessly at.

[Kilawen]

I have one of these, it runs fine at painfully high temperatures. It also needs a fair bit of power through the PCI-e bus
Try using atitool and testing it at clock rates below default. If that helps it could be a power supply or heat problem.

I tried underclocking it using the supplied utility (don't remember what it is called now ). I reduced the memory and GPU core speeds as far as the utility would allow ( running about 2/3 of its normal speed ). I observed a slight reduction in temperature but the system still crashed in 3d apps.

[davidstone28]

If you're sure its temperatures, there is an easy way of reducing them. See my posts in the thread here:-

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=58890

You could rule out heat as a problem by running a fan across it and seeing whether you still get a problem. Kustompcs sell the Zalman brackets and a Nexus 80mm fan for about £15.

I have a passive Gigabyte 6800 (overlocked by 25%) though I run a fan over it.. The only problems I had in relation to heat without the fan was when I tried running my pc without any case fans and looping 3dmark. Temps hit 100C and the PC locked up, though it could quite possibly have been the Northbirdge (passive) overheating rather than graphics card.

[Kilawen]

From what I have read from a number of sources, the sort of temperatures I am seeing (about 70 to 80 deg C under load according to 'Everest') are quite normal and healthy for this type of GPU. Given that my Northbridge and CPU temps ( 33 and 38 tops under sustained heavy load ), I think it very unlikely that I have a cooling problem. I could try an extra fan blowing directly onto the heatsink, but this would rather defeat my original goal of building a powerful but low noise PC!

[Kilawen]

I eventually returned the card hoping that a fault would be found by the Scan technicians. This morning my Visa statement arived and I noticed that a refund had been given! I assume that no fault was found and that the card was just incompatible with my system. Anyway, thanks to Scan for the refund!

All I need now is a card powerfull enough to run my flight sims at 1280*1024 ( not bothered with AA etc ) at a reasonable framerate. The ATI X300 is just not quite up to the task!

Any ideas?

[megatron]

My x800gto 12>16pipes was good value, £119delivered from someone else. I had a look at scan's website but even with free shipping there is nothing comparable. I cant see many of their x800 series cards shifting with 200-300 price tags especially when u can get an x1800xl for roughtly the same.