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Gainward BLISS GeForce 7800 GS+ AGP

fuzzball

fuzzball

fuzzball

Associate
Joined
29 Apr 2006
Posts
14
Hi all

I am new to the forum, and this is my first post, thanks for any help i receive.

Anyway, on to this baby!
I received the card yesterday,
I have a problem, in that the card locks up at random times (sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 1 min etc)
and frame rates in games/benchmarks drop suddenly to something like 7-10fps!

I stop the game/benchmark, and check the temperature in forceware panel, and it says -246 degrees! and the led indicator in the panel is in the red. The card is not hot at all when this happens, and cool/warmish air is being exhausted .
I reboot the pc, and then everything is fine again. I check the control panel, and the temperature is back to normal 43 degrees celcius..

This has happened 5 times today, and i am clueless as to what is the problem..
The ambient temperature reads 20degrees, case temperature is 30 degrees, cpu, 24 degrees

I have been able to game and run benchmarks occasionally. and there is no problem,

3D mark Scores-running stock speeds

03-----16206
05-----7184
06-----3973

( I know my cpu is holding me back on the scores, but i bought the card for gaming, and when i have managed to play, the gameplay is great!)

The fact that the card completes the benchmarks sometimes, and can run games sometimes is annoying me to say the least, and i am fed up when it happens now, i instantly know when it happens, and like clockwork the temperature reading will be -246 degrees in the forceware panel! and all i have to do to fix the problem ( for a little while) is reboot!



Help! :(

fuzzball
 
Thanks Mitch007

I have checked for virus/spyware, and it is clean-- i did a clean reinstall of windows two days ago. I have Kaspersky anti virus on the machine, but even when disabled, i get the same problems..

I am running Windows xp pro sp2
All latest drivers for board, inc intels latest chipset software
forceware drivers that came with the card 84.21
software, i dont have much on the pc at the moment-- office 2003, fear, quake
halo, everest home edition

fuzzball
 
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Thanks vegeta,

I had a 6600gt bfg agp before this. I dont think it is a driver issue, as i uninstalled the previous drivers, and used driver cleaner pro in safe mode, which deletes all nvidia registry entries, before installing this card.
I will use that ati tool you suggest, and get back to you, thanks for the help

kli
 
Hi vegeta,
I ran the ati tool for 10 minutes, and there were no errors, and the core temperature went up to 58 degrees, and stayed there!

Is that a good sign?

kli
 
Hi vegeta, thanks, i did press the scan for artifacts button, i just ran the ati tool for 1 hour, and the core temperature stayed at 59 degrees. any ideas?

Hi Mitch, I primed the system the other day before i received this card, for 14 hrs, and there were no errors!

i will run prime 95 for a few hours and let you know if it passed the stress testing

Thanks

kli
 
Thanks for your replies guys..

I do not want to physically remove the cooler, as this will invalidate the warranty, and i have heard that these coolers are stuck to the ram chips!

My cpu temperatures are 24 degrees idle, and never over 40 degrees when under load! Case temperatures are cool, and northbridge is cooled by swiftech copper heatsink with fan

I ran two instances of prime 95 for three hours, and there were no errors .

My psu is has very steady rails, and whilst dual priming, i measured the 12v and 5v rails with a multimeter to make sure, and both rails hardly fluctuate, and always remain above their ratings of 5v and 12v.

The problem remains, and i will let the card settle for a day or two, and if no improvement, it is going back, as i am not happy at all at the moment!

kli
 
I was searching for more info, and i came across this article on the inquirer
http://www.theinquirer.net/images/articles/79agp3.jpg

This is a picture of the core chip on a (gainward 7800gs) with the cooler removed,
and i must say, the amount of thermal paste being used seems too much, and, in my opinion, that much paste, would insulate heat, rather than conduct heat away from the chip via the heatsink (the paste seems to have been pushed to the sides, in order to identify the chip)

A possible explanation regarding overheating core, and it would explain, why coolish/warm air is being exhausted, rather than hot air

What do you think guys?


kli
 
Hi Guys

Thanks for the advice

Vegeta, i will do as you suggest, the reformat, and see how that goes.

Like yourself, i have removed and replaced coolers, on my other vga cards too, and understand that it is quite simple to do, yet i am reluctant to do this, as if it turns out to not be the problem, and the card still behaves the same way, i will have invalidated the warranty --> there goes my RMA and my $$$$ lol

Would Ocuk, understand if i had done it-- i doubt it

Dont get me wrong, i want to, but sounds like i am up **** creek without a paddle at the mo!

Lazy-boy, thanks, i will reformat, and try different drivers
 
Update!

yesterday evening, i only had one slow down on the frame rates and 1 lock up, thing seem to be improving, as it was happening almost every time i played!
we shall see how things progress!

A question-- would a p4 3.2ghz s478 with 1mb l2 cache (prescott) give me better scores than my current northwood which only has 512mb l2 cache

reason i ask is, i have 1 lying around, doing nothing, and i know my board is good for 250mhz fsb-- but saying that i have heard that northwoods are better for gaming, and prescotts better for benchmarks.

what do you think? should i swap it over?
 
Thanks vegeta,
I think i will swap it over on the weekend.

just another thing, looking through my bios, i don't have a setting for agp aperture, and sandra, shows my agp aperture set to 128MB--and i can't change it

My other motherboard has this bios setting, on another pc, (asrock/amd setup/s754 set up) and on it you can select up to 256MB aperture size

Do you think this bios setting could also be playing a part on the low scores, seeing as this card has up to 512MB ram

Thanks for your help!
 
Hi laz y boy

hmm, i think you are right about the heat, i know the prescott runs hotter, but i have good cooling, and the zalman cooler i have works great in throwing the heat out the back of the case--plus, although the prescott gets hot, i heard it does not throttle down until temps get near 70 degrees celcius, and i dont think i would ever get those temps!

what do you think i should do-- keep my northwood 3.0 c @ 3.75 (never goes over 38-40 degrees at load in current ambient room temperature of 20 degrees) or switch to the prescott 3.2, and probably get it up to 3.9-4.0ghz (with a possible increase in temperature up by 15+ degrees,

yet might be a better combo/ better results/fps with this card

dilemna-- :confused: i hate this
 
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