BFG RMA question

[thevet]

RMA'd my card today,did it all through email,took me about 30 mins from start to finish...this is what bfg said

We ask that you package the card in a normal shipping box, you won't need to send in the original box or any of the accessory that came with it. However,you will need to include inside the box with the card a note card or piece of paper with your name, shipping address, and the RMA #, just in case the shipping label is covered during transit. We do ask that you send the package with a trackable and insured carrier such as FedEx or UPS, if you choose to use any other carrier we ask that you obtain a tracking # and insure the card. On all sides of the box we ask that you write "Defective, warranty replacement". You will be sending the package to:

BFG Tech
ATTN: RMA***********
Unit 16 Withey Dyffryn Court
Dyffryn Business Park
Ystrad Mynach, Hengoed
Wales
United Kingdom
CF82 7RJ

Upon receiving your card there will be a processing period of 24-48 hours and that will be followed by approximately 5-7 business days for you to receive your replacement card.



Thank you,
Jenny C
BFG Support

so far so good i did register my card at bfg the day i got it so maybe thats why they were quicker for me than some other people....

 

[Crosswire]

I have got a night mare with BFG. I have been trying to RMA my BFG 280 GTX since last week, The card keeps powering it self down ( red light comes on ) .

I had the same problem with the BFG 9800 GTX+ and returned it to OC, but they sent it back saying they could find no problem, I ended up throwing it in the bin as the card was abviously broken.
But I then foolishly went and bought another BFG 9800 GTX+ from another company. Now I find I am having problems with this new card in the form of BSOD and corrupt display. I will never buy another BFG product ever.
At least my new mail order company will refund me so that I may buy some other make of card, I will most likely go back to buying Gigabyte as they have always been good cards for me in the past.

 

[Dark Earth]

I had the same problem with the BFG 9800 GTX+ and returned it to OC, but they sent it back saying they could find no problem, I ended up throwing it in the bin as the card was abviously broken.
But I then foolishly went and bought another BFG 9800 GTX+ from another company. Now I find I am having problems with this new card in the form of BSOD and corrupt display. I will never buy another BFG product ever.
At least my new mail order company will refund me so that I may buy some other make of card, I will most likely go back to buying Gigabyte as they have always been good cards for me in the past.

You should have tryed RMA it to BFG as they would have done test to see if the card had a faulty power connector. I have to RMA mine now as I still have a problem with the card powering it self down. I dont think I will have a problem here tho as I will be asking Jeff to help me sort it out. Plus if u had OC look at it I would have ask them to leave it running for 36 hours cos if its the same problem I have with my 280 it dose not do it all the time so it mite of looked like a fully working card to OC. When I RMA mine to BFG I will be asking them to make sure they test the power connectors or push a little on the wires as when I do that the card shuts down right away. I dont even need to make the wire move so I know somthing is worg somwhere on the card. As this is now the second 2x6 pin - 1x8 pin adaptor that Jeff sent me. I have also now tryed it on my cousin system who has a 1000 watt PSU with an 8 pin sli conector on the PSU so I did not have to use the adaptor and it still did the same thing. He had it in his system for 2 hours before the card powered down its very ramdom as it can do it every 10 mins or work for over 24 hours so there is somthing defo wong on it somwhere.

 

[mrix]

re:

I had the same problem with the BFG 9800 GTX+ and returned it to OC, but they sent it back saying they could find no problem, I ended up throwing it in the bin as the card was abviously broken.

Yea as the other guy said, you should have sent it back to BFG, if you didnt get any joy with overclockers, i guess they would have run more thorough checks etc. I should not give up on BFG just because of Overclockers, if you had given BFG a chance I am sure they would have helped you out as there after sales seems to have improved far better in my book anyway.
cheers
mrix

 

[Crosswire]

Okay, anyone having problems with corrupt graphics and BSOD with their BFG 9800 GTX+ go into your bios and disable peg and the problem should disappear.

 

[jrodga2k5]

Just got my BFG GTX 280 OC and I am having problems Artifacting in GTA IV and Crysis!

Think I'm going to drop BFG an email and see what they say!

 

[Dark Earth]

Temps

Just got my BFG GTX 280 OC and I am having problems Artifacting in GTA IV and Crysis!

I would check the temps of your 280 as I know my frist one that died ran to hot. If your card is running over 105c u have a faulty GPU. Most common temps are 85c under load but as I said my frist card ran over 105c the highest I saw it go before it fail was 115c. This card was replaced by OC as the display fail on it ( black screen, windows still booted ) . Also I know with GTA 4 the textures do disappear afther a few hours of play. As they did on my m8s 9600 GT same as they do on my 280.

I am having problem with my second 280 aswell this one I want to RMA to bfg as it likes to power it self down.

 

[numptyboy]

I had some issues lately with my BFG 280gtx. The problems for me were seemingly randomn shutdowns, bsods and power-on failures.
I diagnosed my ram sticks, found one to be defective and replaced it. This seemed to prevent some errors but problems were still occurring.
Most noticable was the way it would be stable for a day or so then the next day it wouldn't power on properly and when it finally did, a bsod would be forth-coming.
Sometimes the power warning on the back of the card would be red instead of green.
It got me thinking that not only did i have a memory stick problem but i had some sort of power issue that seemed to be exaggerated by heat.

After fiddling about with my cables and such i found out that under full load conditions(under lots of heat) the power connectors were losing connection to the connectors on my 280gtx(im figuring that the heat would move the pins about in the connectors and they would lose connection for a split second).

What i did to solve this issue was jam a small piece plastic between the 6 and 8pin power connectors so that they always have some some pressure pushing the contacts inside against each other.
I havent had a bsod or power-on failure for weeks. My pc is running for hours with no problems now.
I now really want to replace my connectors soon with something better.

I also had some issues with heat - i ended up replacing the gpu gunk and bought new thermal pads for the vram and other chips. I also sorted out my airflow and made sure the front intakes wre getting cool air. Since then my temps are around 60 -80 under full load. Before, furmark would raise it to 105 c within 60secs. I didnt want to be without my card for that long and you may just want to stick with the rma path, but i would pay serious attention to the airflow - apparently the air comes in the holes in the front of the card not the big round fan hole on the top(or bottom if you looking at it installed).



Just thought id share my experiences with this hardware.

 

[Dark Earth]

What i did to solve this issue was jam a small piece plastic between the 6 and 8pin power connectors so that they always have some some pressure pushing the contacts inside against each other

Could u post a pic of what u did as i have the same problem and i was going to rma my card. But if u fixed yours like that I should be able to fix mine in the same way.

Plz explain in detail what u have done numptyboy.

Thanks
Dark Earth

 

[jrodga2k5]

Well it was right at the start of GTAIV and the same with Far Cry 2 which I tested later on! Contacted BFG and its on the way back to them now! Hoping for a swift turnaround but who knows!

Temps were decent...like 60 idle, 80 load!

Was most definately the ram as underclocking it solved the problem but I didnt want to do that and run the ram lower than it should!

 

[Dark Earth]

Temps were decent...like 60 idle, 80 load!

The idle temp seems a little hot as mine is 40-45C idle 60-85C uder load, But your load temp is about right. This dose not matter tho if u already are getting a replacement card. GL with your new one as these 280s are a pain in the back side lol. My m8 is on his fouth card now.

 

[numptyboy]

Could u post a pic of what u did as i have the same problem and i was going to rma my card. But if u fixed yours like that I should be able to fix mine in the same way.

Plz explain in detail what u have done numptyboy.

Thanks
Dark Earth

Where the 2 connectors(the 6 and 8 pin) plug into your board there will be a space around 3mm between them both(just between both the plugs you can see - no internal modification required). Find a small piece of plastic(or anthing you like - just not flammable or metal incase it falls out and causes mischief) around 4-5mm in the required dimension. Push this piece inbetween the connectors. Be careful - dont force it - as you dont want to damage anything on the pcb. The idea is that with both connectors pushed to one side they will be in constant contact with the pins coming from your vid card and heat wont allow the materials to expand and casue a dodgy connection(at least i think this is what was happening to me)

To make sure this is the problem - the next time your pc boots successfully you should open the case and wiggle the connectors/cables lightly - it will crash or bsod instantly if you have the same issue as me.

 

[jrodga2k5]

The idle temp seems a little hot as mine is 40-45C idle 60-85C uder load, But your load temp is about right. This dose not matter tho if u already are getting a replacement card. GL with your new one as these 280s are a pain in the back side lol. My m8 is on his fouth card now.

Im sure their tests will flag up the problems i was having....it lasted around a minute before i noticed it so they shouldnt have much testing to do!

Are they usually good at turnarounds? I would hope to get it back this week but I suspect I wont....if it gets delivered tomorrow.

 

[Dark Earth]

To make sure this is the problem - the next time your pc boots successfully you should open the case and wiggle the connectors/cables lightly - it will crash or bsod instantly if you have the same issue as me

Yes its the same problem as i had to do that to get the card to power back up once it powered down. I even had a adaptor sent to me by BFG incase mine was faulty but it still did the same thing. So im hoping this will fix mine aswell since the card dose not have temp or texture problems i did not want to RMA it incase I got a bad one back. ATM i have my side panel off as this has seemed to fix the problem but I lost all airflow in my case. So i will be trying your little fix and hope it the last time i have any problems with my card .

 

[numptyboy]

Yes its the same problem as i had to do that to get the card to power back up once it powered down. I even had a adaptor sent to me by BFG incase mine was faulty but it still did the same thing. So im hoping this will fix mine aswell since the card dose not have temp or texture problems i did not want to RMA it incase I got a bad one back. ATM i have my side panel off as this has seemed to fix the problem but I lost all airflow in my case. So i will be trying your little fix and hope it the last time i have any problems with my card .

They must be using crappy connectors or the pins coming from the pcb are too small and have too loose a fitting inside the connectors(its the only 2 things i can think of) - i managed to borrow a spare 6pin connector from work and that didnt seem to help. I havent managed to get a replacement 8pin yet but i would very much like to try and get some really good quality replacements.
If you can think of a supplier that does this kind of thing let me know.

 

[Dark Earth]

I havent managed to get a replacement 8pin yet but i would very much like to try and get some really good quality replacements.
If you can think of a supplier that does this kind of thing let me know.

I got Jeff.Kozlowski from BFG to send me a spare one but I still had the same problem of the card powering down. So it must be like u say the pins on the PCB are to small and do not make a good enouth connection to the adaptors.
I have 2 of the 2x6 pin - 1x8 pin adaptors atm and both still do the same thing, Im just hoping when I get a new PSU it will have a better fitting 8 and 6 pin connectors on it.

 

[Dark Earth]

Originally Posted by jrodga2k5
Are they usually good at turnarounds? I would hope to get it back this week but I suspect I wont....if it gets delivered tomorrow.

I have no idea myself how good the turnarounds are as i have not RMA a card yet, but my m8 has had his replacements at diffrent times. from 5-12 days.

 

[numptyboy]

Dark Earth - let me know if my suggestion helped - if you find a more elegant solution let me know. cheers


Ive thought of another idea - you could take a flat headed screw driver(ground it first to be safe) and make a kink on the pins that come from the card. Put the screw driver 2/3rds the way in the hole bend the target pin slightly, then bend the other way slightly further up and finally, slightly further up, bend it straight.

so it looks something like this:

l l l l
\ \ \\
/ / //
l l l l

I will attempt this the next time i do some maintenance as i'm about to undertake my next project - water cooling this damn hairdryer, as i'm fed up of the noise under full load.

 

[Dark Earth]

Originally Posted by numptyboy
Dark Earth - let me know if my suggestion helped - if you find a more elegant solution let me know. cheers

I will let u know if putting a price of plastic in helps me, but im not willing to bend the pins incase I do need to RMA my card. As bending the pins is manual damage and will void the warranty on the card.

 

[Crosswire]

Well it was right at the start of GTAIV and the same with Far Cry 2 which I tested later on! Contacted BFG and its on the way back to them now! Hoping for a swift turnaround but who knows!

Temps were decent...like 60 idle, 80 load!

Was most definately the ram as underclocking it solved the problem but I didnt want to do that and run the ram lower than it should!

Could you tell me how you go about underclocking on of these cards please?