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RMA - No fault found - advice?

avrc

avrc

avrc

Associate
Joined
7 May 2007
Posts
975
Location
Cannock
Hi Guys,

I RMA'd my Sparkle 460 GTX 1GB this week after a week of problems with it - every game I tried crashed with graphical errors either to the desktop or froze the system anywhere from 5 mins to an hour of game play. I found running the fan on max prevented the crashes but still produced graphical errors now and again.

I tried the usual - various driver and a fresh windows install. I swapped it out for my old 260 GTX and that runs with no problems.

Overclockers have emailed me to say they can't find a fault so I now have to pay £10, shipping and VAT on top to get it back.

Now, the card was an xmas gift so I'm not out of pocket at this point. But, I can't see the point in paying for the card back when it doesn't work for me.

I also emailed Sparkle but all they can say is that they've never heard of this fault before. That was it!

So, do I just right this off and leave it with Overclockers as it hasn't cost me anything or is there something else I can do? The card cost my father £141.99.
 
Aurhinius said:
could be an over heating card you could see that in rivatuner.

Best to phone ocuk and ask them to test it further explaining your issue.
Click to expand...

would be nice if the cards had a trip switch that triggered when overheated, so the next time the drive loads it can pop up and say " I crashed because I was too hot".. considering the cards know how hot they are its only got to write a bit to nvram at (or jsut before) the critical temp
 
I thought over heating too but the recorded temperature never went above 58C. I'm running memtest now although I'm not sure how memory could cause this when the 460 is used but not when the 260 is used?

I should also say that Windows Reliability history would list each crash as "video hardware error" and I also had the popup saying that the display driver had stopped responding and recovered.
 
L0rdMike said:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18228137

Seems its the normal level of customer service they provide.
Click to expand...

My MSI Radeon 5850 1GB Twin Frozr II caused the machine to fail POST a number of times and when the machine did start up it blank screened simply by installing a program or allowing a program to run... and more to the point when you started a game or benchmark it would instantly blank screen again requiring a power cycle and then you could never be sure it would POST again.

Tried it in two machines with different RAM, CPU, Motherboard, Hard Drive and PSU and had the same outcome, and tried a 6970 in my machine which worked perfectly....

If they try to tell ME that there is no fault found on the card I will be more then a little bit annoyed! I can understand it when people complain about temps or noise which are minor things which may not even be considered a fault but what I had was a major fault!
 
Last edited:
Ok I'm running memtest as suggested (no-one suggested this before I RMA'd mind) and I've got this:

DSCF0159800x475.jpg


Would that cause those graphical problems? If so, why doesn't it do it with my 260?
 
Yes it may well do, my ballistix did a lot before it failed completey^

Perhaps they are not bad but maybe different settings or voltages are needed
 
Yes i would say call ocuk. Whenever i rma something i post a couple of links to pics/ vids so they can check them out if it is really necessary. I did some screenshots of my high temps as proof. I have a similar problem with my card hopefully ocuk will find the fault. But do contact them
 
If it does turn out to be the card at fault I would imagine that when ocuk tested the card they didn't put it into a case but instead tested it on an unenclosed test bed (don't know for certain if this is how ocuk do it but it is done this way by others) which would obviously give the card better ventilation and therefore maybe run cool enough not to show up the problems you are experiencing.
 
Not sure if in a case would matter to be honest as I have a HAF 932 which has excellent cooling.

Re the memory, it ran 3 passes and failed on the same thing 3 times so I've double checked the memory voltage and timing and it matches corsair specs but this stuff is actually 1333 but runs at 1600 so I've set it to 1333 and am re-runing memtest to see if it still errors.
 
ok, re-running the memtest with ram at 1333 and it's gone through pass one with no errors.

I shall bite the bullet tomorrow and phone OCUK to see exactly how much I'm paying to get the card back and then will test again with the RAM at this speed.
 
I'm not sure if faulty ram causes graphical errors, rather they are more known for BSOD and system hangs. In any case, be as detailed as you are with us, when you deal with your retailer (in this case OCUK).
 
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