4 Hour Old 280 Just Died!?

V_R · 8 Jan 2009 at 20:11

Jim_Morrison said:
InFlicT vr LMAO at you more more money than sense

AgB

lol, who let you in??

Well the 8800GTX is back in and the pc fired up first time. all is well.... Gonna ask for a refund i think.

BTW, didn't notice it last night but there is a green light on the cards top, which is red now.. I'd say thats conclusive.

V_R · 9 Jan 2009 at 00:06

Gerard said:
They do in wales,

boyo

So why was i told it would have to go back to the States?

Mind you the guy on the phone did try and tell me it was my RAM at first and not the card so....

spoonjaffa · 9 Jan 2009 at 00:30

breaking after playing gta4!! my 8800gtx did a similar thing, RMA'ed and got a 260 in return which i though also broke after a few days of playin GTA4.
To cut a long story short it seems my CMOS was reseting itself somehow!?! But only after playing GTA4?!! crazy i know. It would seem to reset mobo voltages and my CPU oc values, no problem usually but the way the bios was set up means the memory timings werent resetting also. So when i come to do a cold boot the bad memory settings meant no display and gfx fan staying on max.. making it seem like it died after a previously fine game session!?
So 1 of 3 things must have happened, my bios on my mobo is breaking, or the 1 year old battery in it is loosing charge... or long shot is GTA4 is messing up my settings somehow.

V_R · 9 Jan 2009 at 10:54

Do you think OC would swap the BFG for one of the POV cards they still have in stock and credit me the difference?

RoEy · 9 Jan 2009 at 11:08

V_R said:
Well it played fine, the card died when i was on the net, Ironically i was replying to the 280 thread saying how impressed i was!! lol

Sorry to hear about your card mate but the above made me howl with laughter.

RoEy

Corasik · 9 Jan 2009 at 11:10

C64 said:
Erm I take it you have been able to test the hx620 in another pc then or using another graphics card ? as to me it sounds like the psu may have gone pop.

Unlikely as Corsair PSU's combine their 12v rails, the HX620 can supply 50 amps 12v without breaking a sweat (it combines the 18amp/12v rails on demand up to a maximum of 50amps).

Max power draw for a 280GTX is 236 watts, and its not drawing that very often, the average will be lower even when gaming. It needs just over 19amps/12v at full load. Not even a challenge for the HX620.

Nvidia play it safe when quoting system power requirements, as they dont want people turning around complaining when their $20 budget 500W psu's blow up.

V_R · 9 Jan 2009 at 12:08

So to refund or replace that is the question?

Im edging towards the replacement, even if it does take a bit of time.

The price is good and i may not get a better one.

What you guys think? Replace or Refund?

Gerard · 9 Jan 2009 at 12:31

V_R said:
So why was i told it would have to go back to the States?

Mind you the guy on the phone did try and tell me it was my RAM at first and not the card so....

If i were you id contact bfg direct and get info for their uk offices. Last i read they do have a place in wales that deals with rma. Unless its recently closed.

bledd · 9 Jan 2009 at 12:40

Gerard said:
They do in wales,

boyo

we just keep throwing coal at them, then return the fault as "user error butt"

Jim_Morrison · 9 Jan 2009 at 19:29

Just get a refund and save a bit for a 285 or 295 you can't expect BFG to keep sending you cards just so you can cook them

sneakypenguin · 9 Jan 2009 at 22:53

Gerard said:
If i were you id contact bfg direct and get info for their uk offices. Last i read they do have a place in wales that deals with rma. Unless its recently closed.

It's probably a stock problem. There's a guy on here somewhere who works for bfg and if they don't have that card in stock in wales they have to ship from uncle sam

alex24 · 9 Jan 2009 at 23:19

spoonjaffa said:
breaking after playing gta4!! my 8800gtx did a similar thing, RMA'ed and got a 260 in return which i though also broke after a few days of playin GTA4.
To cut a long story short it seems my CMOS was reseting itself somehow!?! But only after playing GTA4?!! crazy i know. It would seem to reset mobo voltages and my CPU oc values, no problem usually but the way the bios was set up means the memory timings werent resetting also. So when i come to do a cold boot the bad memory settings meant no display and gfx fan staying on max.. making it seem like it died after a previously fine game session!?
So 1 of 3 things must have happened, my bios on my mobo is breaking, or the 1 year old battery in it is loosing charge... or long shot is GTA4 is messing up my settings somehow.

After reading this, and experiencing the full gfx fan and no display problem (now changed gfx card tho), I checked my OC and memory timings and they were all default again! Seems like the BIOS has reset. This has only happened since I started playing GTA4. However, it could be new nvidia drivers, as i've changed them a lot recently, or a windows update? I can't believe it could be GTA unless someone has a decent theory on how this could happen?

Thinking about it, I had a random black screen in GTA4 that required a hard power off, and thats when I had the booting problem.

This is probably why my frames are the same in GTA4 since installing a GTX280 (albeit with higher settings), as i've lost the CPU OC (i'm probably mostly CPU limited in this game apparently).

Anyone else with this issue then?

Antx777 · 10 Jan 2009 at 00:19

Sorry to hear about your card, must be bad after getting it at the lower price, what with the Euphoria and all.

I have 2 GTX8800's (SLI), and just had some nice smooth games on Cod4/5, Grid, and DIrt. Was going to "upgrade" to a better card spec (GTX280, or GTX295, or ATI 4870X2, But I'm not sure i need to really. One of the main reasons for being interested in the above, is that they are all single card solutions, with plenty more of air-flow in the case, and the option to add aanother Sound card (or other pci card).

~Ant

thegoonden · 10 Jan 2009 at 11:34

Did you try anything radical like reseating it? Or checking it's power cables (mine did the same thing as yours, it was a wonky power adaptor which only worked loose after some heat cycles)? Or what about looking up the meaning of three short and one long beep in your mobo manual? I mean you'll be kinda hacked off if you've no video card for 5 weeks then find out the problem was a stick of RAM you unsettled when installing the card.

Far easier to RMA than wiggle it a bit I suppose.

V_R · 10 Jan 2009 at 12:57

thegoonden said:
Did you try anything radical like reseating it? Or checking it's power cables (mine did the same thing as yours, it was a wonky power adaptor which only worked loose after some heat cycles)? Or what about looking up the meaning of three short and one long beep in your mobo manual? I mean you'll be kinda hacked off if you've no video card for 5 weeks then find out the problem was a stick of RAM you unsettled when installing the card.

Far easier to RMA than wiggle it a bit I suppose.

lol.

Yes i did thanks.

May i suggest that you actually read a thread before replying next time?

V_R said:
Well the 8800GTX is back in and the pc fired up first time. all is well....

BTW, didn't notice it last night but there is a green light on the cards top, which is red now.. I'd say thats conclusive.

thegoonden · 10 Jan 2009 at 21:18

Most humble apologies, I read "most" of it :blush:

Aye, the red light is defo a power input problem. Shortly after I installed mine it did this and it was a bad connection in the 8 pin adaptor, as I mentioned above. I would think that in your case, it's possibly more likely to be this than your PSU, unless you've atually cooked the poor bugger with the 280.....that's really the only way it would've been working fine while under high load, and then fall over when sitting twiddling it's thumbs.

Mind you, as someone said above, perhaps the universe would prefer it if you had a 285/295

alex24 · 11 Jan 2009 at 01:55

alexhull24 said:
After reading this, and experiencing the full gfx fan and no display problem (now changed gfx card tho), I checked my OC and memory timings and they were all default again! Seems like the BIOS has reset. This has only happened since I started playing GTA4. However, it could be new nvidia drivers, as i've changed them a lot recently, or a windows update? I can't believe it could be GTA unless someone has a decent theory on how this could happen?

Thinking about it, I had a random black screen in GTA4 that required a hard power off, and thats when I had the booting problem.

This is probably why my frames are the same in GTA4 since installing a GTX280 (albeit with higher settings), as i've lost the CPU OC (i'm probably mostly CPU limited in this game apparently).

Anyone else with this issue then?

If it's worth anything, i've done some reasearch and it seems like a gigabyte board prob for me. Hope this helps someone, i'm about to try it myself:

From another forum:

Researched the HELL out of this problem, with the love of google and various forums, I eventually came to realise it was a bizarre setting in the BIOS that would never strike any interest in relation to this problem, and is an exclusive issue to GIGABYTE boards only.

Try setting the Legacy USB Storage to 'disabled' ... give your FSB a big increase and I dare say you'll be in for a real treat.

I'll post when I know how it goes (this only happens to me every now and again).

NightSt@lk3r · 11 Jan 2009 at 07:04

alexhull24 said:
I'll post when I know how it goes (this only happens to me every now and again).

Funnily enough my oc had been stable for months but the other day i went into bios and enabled Legacy USB Storage and supprise supprise, pc would no longer boot, had to clear cmos and start over.

alex24 · 11 Jan 2009 at 11:17

OK, so on a cold boot this morning (after disabling usb legacy storage) it's reset the overclock again. I don't know why.

Perhaps the whole CMOS needs a reset, i'll give that a go.

EDIT: Still not working. Looks like its a deeper issue.

Richdog · 11 Jan 2009 at 11:21

V_R said:
So why was i told it would have to go back to the States?

Mind you the guy on the phone did try and tell me it was my RAM at first and not the card so....

The guy you spoke to is obviously one of those tech chimps who knows nothing about hardware, and it's sad that you have to deal with these types of people in an enthusiast hardware shop.

Return it for a full refund under the DSA.