GTX 260 probs.. RMA it?

[njj1046]

I bought a Zotac GTX 260 Amp! edition last week (55nm, 216 shaders) from OcUK. It was factory overclocked to 650 core, 1400 shaders and 2100 memory.

For the first few days I only played Wolfenstein Enemy Territory (hardly taxing ) and didn't notice any problems.

Then I installed Grid which came with the card. I had problems with that as soon as I started playing.. graphics would pause for 2 seconds at a time, screen would go dark then light and it would eventually crash.

I played some COD:W@W then. No apparent texture issues with that but it always locked up within 1/2 hour leaving a static image on the screen with funky colours.

Then I played some Half Life Ep2. In certain parts of the game I got texture problems.. some flickering blockyness and other textures that just flickered at random.

I decided to run Furmark to see if it was stable, so I set it at 1920*1200 with 16xMSAA and ran it in stability mode for an hour... no problem The GPU temp maxed out at 79c in that. The card is receiving all the cool air from my 120mm intake fan without any obstructions. Also there were no visible problems with Vantage, although I only ran that once.

I was originally using the 182.08 drivers, so I tried the 182.06 and 181.22 sets (all on a fresh install of Vista 64) but had the same issues with all of them.

Then I installed RivaTuner and underclocked the card to the 260 default clocks. No problems with any of the previously mentioned games

I game at 1920*1200 and usually have 4X AA and 8X AF enabled in most things.

Should I RMA it? Is there anything else I can do to conclusively prove the card is at fault? I don't really want to go to the trouble of RMA'ing the card only to have someone run Furmark/Vantage on it for an hour, decide it's ok and send it back to me.

Edit: This is the first piece of PC hardware I've ever bought that I've had a problem with. Maybe I should have heeded the warnings about buying a factory overclocked card

 

[mod1fied]

What PSU do you have and does it run fine on desktop?

Sounds to me like not enough power - But that wouldn't make sense with the Furmark stability test...

 

[njj1046]

No problems on the desktop, but of course the GTX 260 is very energy efficient and lowers it's clocks down to 300MHz core and 100MHz (200 effective) memory when it's idle. Edit: I used GPU-Z to verify the idle and 3D mode clocks, everything was running as it should.

Power supply is a BeQuiet 750 watt.

 

[mod1fied]

Im not entirely sure what else you could do to check, as you said youself, RMAing to find they check it the same you have and send it back to you, will simply be a waste of time.

I would try digging around for other drivers, versions which you haven't tried etc.

My old 8800GTS 640MB was very fussy about what driver versions worked and didn't.

 

[njj1046]

I've played Grid again tonight. It didn't crash for a change, but I got flickering square artifacts across certain textures. I thought this was an indication of a problem with the memory rather than the GPU itself. Maybe the memory on the card just doesn't like the small factory overclock.

 

[pimper]

it could be a faulty connecter inside the graphics card that when it starts to run hot its loosens the connecter! only guessing here but...... that could be a reason. i had that same problem.

 

[njj1046]

I called OCUK today to get an RMA number to return the card. The guy I spoke to said they usually run Crysis benchmark on super high settings to test a GFX card.

So I installed the Crysis demo and benchmarking tool and ran it with very high settings at 1920*1200 with 16x Antialiasing. I tried it in DX10 and DX9 modes and couldn't see a single artifact

I have many different games installed, but I've only been testing on 3.. they all have completely different game engines: Half Life 2 (Ep 1 & 2), Grid and Call of Duty: World at War.

Running at the factory overclock (650/1400/2100) I get problems with:

Grid: Mainly Checkerboard flickering textures on the car I'm driving, some 1-2 second pauses and the occasional crash.

Half Life 2: Checkerboard flickering textures and other strange flickering on the bottom of the screen.

COD:W@W: Game locks up after 10-20 mins with textures missing on screen or really strange colours.

Using RivaTuner to underclock the card to default 260 speeds (576/1242/2000) I get absolutely no problems with the above games.

I really can't get my head around how it will work fine at the factory overclock with Furmark, Vantage and Crysis benchmark, yet I have to underclock the card to play the above games without any problems

I've doubled checked my CPU overclock with Intel Burn Test and tested my RAM again with Memtest86+.. all fine.

If I send the card back and OCUK only test using Crysis, they're not gonna find a fault. In which case it's not worth sending it back. I'll have to pay to send it back, get charged £10 for them finding no fault and have to pay postage for them to send it back to me.

Honestly I feel like ripping out the card and binning it and saying goodbye to £175.

Has anyone got any more ideas how I can really isolate what the problem is?

 

[njj1046]

I ditched trying to get the Crysis benchmark to get the card to artifact, so I just played the first level of the Crysis demo.

In 10 minutes of play I saw artifacts 3 times: the whole top of the screen flickered with green squares once and the textures on the rocks were flickered with green squares a couple of times.

I'll RMA it and write a note to go with it explaining what games I had problems with and the fact that it wouldn't artifact with Furmark or the Crysis benchmark and hope the person testing it notices the fault.

 

[HeX]

Had the same kinda problems with mine, except not quite as obvious as yours, I was getting chequer board textures only every now and again and only for split seconds but it was blatantly not 100% stable.

Was getting lots of artifacts in ATi tool tests and OCCT GPU tests.

RMA'd it the other day and sent a big note with it explaining the tests i'd done and the games I was having problems with, so hopefully they read that and don't just bung a crysis loop on and not see anything... i'll be rather miffed if they do tbh as like you I find certain engines cause artifacts more than others.

 

[njj1046]

Hope you have luck with your RMA HeX

I'll write a note like yourself explaining which games made the card artifact the most. Grid does it all the time, while in other games it's less noticeable.

Like you said, I hope they don't just run a Crysis benchmark loop and decide it's ok

 

[Chong Warrior]

Nearly all problems I've seen with 260's are pre overclocked models... it's a joke they charge a premium for some as it's very obvious they aren't cherry picked, as would think they are.

Bought a pre overclocked model myself but only because it was cheaper than the standard card of same make! (just proves a point?)

My problems are solved by lowering the shader clock speed a little, just 40mhz is enough down to 1310mhz. A lot of problems I've seen mention have been solved by lowering the pre overlocked shader speed.

The reference cooler doesn't do a good enough job here I feel.

 

[Greebo]

Nearly all problems I've seen with 260's are pre overclocked models... it's a joke they charge a premium for some as it's very obvious they aren't cherry picked, as would think they are.

Bought a pre overclocked model myself but only because it was cheaper than the standard card of same make! (just proves a point?)

My problems are solved by lowering the shader clock speed a little, just 40mhz is enough down to 1310mhz. A lot of problems I've seen mention have been solved by lowering the pre overlocked shader speed.

The reference cooler doesn't do a good enough job here I feel.

I disagree. They are just non cherry picked bad cards. I have an EVGA GTX260 216 55nm superclocked. It will run at 780/1572 with 55% fan and never hit 70C on the stock cooler.

Having to drop the shaders to 1310 to have stability is appauling. If I leave my fan at 40% I can only reach 1543 on the shaders so heat is indeed a factor.

Just rma it and hope for a better card next time.

 

[njj1046]

Nearly all problems I've seen with 260's are pre overclocked models... it's a joke they charge a premium for some as it's very obvious they aren't cherry picked, as would think they are.

Very true. This will be the first and last time I buy a factory overclocked card. It just isn't worth the hassle.

It's shameful that the manufacturers releasing these cards don't fully test them at the overclocked speeds, resulting in loads of cards having to be RMA'd

 

[Greebo]

Very true. This will be the first and last time I buy a factory overclocked card. It just isn't worth the hassle.

It's shameful that the manufacturers releasing these cards don't fully test them at the overclocked speeds, resulting in loads of cards having to be RMA'd

Always being the case especially with easily overclocked cards. They can just up the clocks and ship them out at a premium and if they get a few percent returned they are still quids in.

Only EVGA AFIK actually cherry picks and tests the cards before badging them as the overclocked versions.

 

[Chong Warrior]

I disagree. They are just non cherry picked bad cards...

You say you disagree and then repeat what I said..?

 

[Chong Warrior]

Very true. This will be the first and last time I buy a factory overclocked card. It just isn't worth the hassle.

It's shameful that the manufacturers releasing these cards don't fully test them at the overclocked speeds, resulting in loads of cards having to be RMA'd

Overclocking is a shady area and why I don't think it's wise to pay more for an overclocked card. Case cooling for example will have a fairly big effect on how cool your card will run and thus how fast it can go under stress.

My card is preclocked to 625/1350/1000 and will run all games except Company of Heroes at that speed and well above. For this game I can only run 675/1310/1200 This leads me to think this game taxes the shaders heavily as other games like FarCry 2 they go over 1350mhz.

Is it worth going through an RMA hassle just for 40mhz on one game? I don't think it is but as I said it's a grey area.

At the end of the day the card runs faster than stock speed and it was cheaper than the stock clocked card of same brand.

 

[Greebo]

You say you disagree and then repeat what I said..?

Sorry I meant to say there are good firms out there and bad ones.