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EVGA GTX260 oddness...

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Soldato
Joined
20 Jun 2004
Posts
12,024
Location
Huddersfield, UK
About a month ago I picked up an EVGA GTX260-216 55nm SSC.

Since I've had it every now and again I've seen an artifact or a flash of a chequer board texture.

At first I wrote it off as a driver glitch as non of my games were crashing/locking up, and I played the entire of FEAR2 without a problem.

However it has started to happen in more and more games, but each time it is only a very quick flash and then its gone and might not happen again for 30mins or an hour at a time.

It is really random and only for a split second, certain games tend to cause it to happen more often (Left 4 Dead often makes the chequerboard texture flash up the most).

After seeing this I decided to do some testing, just to put my mind at ease and fired up ATi Tool and started off the artifact test, within 30 seconds I was seeing huge swathes of yellow artifacts flashing up left right and centre. The odd thing is ATi tool wasn't registering them as 'errors' so the timer kept ticking up, however it was obviously not doing what it was supposed to as all my previous stable cards never had a single yellow dot until they were pushed too far. This card is giving a 3rd of the testing window of yellow dots at its supposedly stock settings...

Yet I can loop games/3d mark and even Furmark and it won't crash or lockup, and unless you happen to be looking at the screen when the artifact pops up you'd never know it was there.

From what I can see the card seems to be on the very edge of stability and every now and again falls off.

Do you think I should RMA it? I've put the request in to OCUK, but I'm just worried they'll bung it in fire up 3dmark and it'll loop fine and they won't notice the random artifacting :(

Soooooooooooooo annoying :(
 
hmm certainly is a little odd. RMA for peace of mind just dont be stunned if they test and find nothing wrong with it. Just post them information on how to get the card to fault (little list of apps where your getting the problems)

Im assuming you have tried new/old drivers or even a pain in the butt reinstall of the os?
 
I didnt know this but apparently the 216 55nm has a cutdown heatsink relative to the 192 65nm as above shots show, so it runs hotter than it's 65nm counterpart which might cause unforeseen issues due to heat.

I'd RMA it.


2.jpg
 
Yeah, i've just got my RMA request back so it'll be sent in tomorrow.

I don't think my problem is heat related, it seems more that it just can't handle the clocks it is set to.

Well I'll send it back and bung a detailed explanation in there and hopefully they will find the same as me and get it replaced.

I hate RMA'ing stuff. Bah :(
 
I had the same problem with an EVGA 8800GT SSC back during the 8800GT mania period which couldn't handle the factory overclock. The advice I got was to underclock it, which kind of defeated the purpose of shelling out for it in the first place...I had to RMA that too.
 
just to add to the thread

my EVGA rma for my old 7900gt was really quick, becuase of this, every nvidia card i've bought since has been an EVGA

i picked up a gtx260 ssc too last week, so far, no issues :)
 
awesome let us know what performence boost you get. Im toying with the idea of getting another 280 .... just cant find any at a decent price at the moment.
 
LoadsaMoney said:
Yeah they skimped on the cooler etc... to keep the costs down, making the 55nm hotter etc... than the 65nm, so a wase of time. :p
Click to expand...

Err how cool does the 65nm run then?

My EVGA SCC GTX260 216 55nm never goes above 59C at 40% fan at stock.

Even at 780/1572/1150 it never goes above 70C.

I didn't think the 65nm ran that cool?
 
Oh and to answer the OP, RMA. Mine doesn't show up yellow dots until I go past 780 core or 1572 shaders.
 
Musty Pie said:
awesome let us know what performence boost you get. Im toying with the idea of getting another 280 .... just cant find any at a decent price at the moment.
Click to expand...

Will do. Ive seen a couple of 280s go for 180ish in the MM so worth keeping an eye out for one esp with the 4890 on the horizon, peeps are bound to be selling their 280s cheap.
 
After more testing it does seem to be a heat issue, soon as the card breaks 73C the artifacting starts, a little at first turning into more and more.

Running a 10min OCCT GPU test it reached 83C and had 18 Errors (and 5 mins of that test is startup/cooldown, so 5min stress test to get 18 errors).

My case is well ventilated and has good airflow, hell I ran two overclocked 4850's in here up until a month or so ago with no problems whatsoever, so it is most certainly the card that is at fault.

Ah well, back it goes. :(
 
Well OCUK returned the card to me saying its fine :rolleyes:

Put it back in and bam, exactly the same as before, chequer board in L4D, artifacts in ATi tool, and OCCT gets errors. :mad:

They tested it by looping Crysis, 3Dmark and Furmark, all of which it can do no fuss, you won't notice the errors unless you are sat there looking at it, which is what I said in the letter I sent with it, and they never even tried OCCT or ATi Tool.

Not happy to say the least, the card blatantly isn't OK, and I know for a fact it isn't my rig as i've had many other GPU's in there (recently 2 x 4850's in crossfire) and i've not had a single problem, not to mention its 8hrs+ prime stable and it does the same thing at stock.

Don't know what to do now, might try a direct RMA to EVGA. Point is I shouldn't have to. :mad:

I mean, does this look 'OK' to you:

artifacts.gif


2009-03-31-20h37-GPU1.png
 
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Interestingly, that GPu-Z screenshot shows it as 65nm. So does GPU-Z on my system, with my card, which is supposedly 55nm.

Tbh mate I'd just sell the card on eBay and forget about it. I've had hardware in the past that hasn't worked well in my system, and I've tried it in mate's PCs and it has been fine. Sometimes it's just down to the overall configuration I guess.
 
GPU-Z can't tell the difference between 55nm and 65nm.

I've just clocked the card down from SSC to SC and run the same tests and it is fine.

So it is deffo not my system, it is the card, it is simply clocked higher than it can handle.

I'll think about what to do over the easter hols, either just live with it at SC speed even though i've paid for a SSC, or try for RMA with EVGA.

:(
 
Ah I see - yeah, I don't think you're the first person to have that problem. I've heard of others with pre-overclocked cards clocking them back to stock and sorting their problems.

I think the q/c on these cards is a bit dodgy tbh.
 
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