8800 GT high failure rate?

[Bradtechonline]

Seems like these cards are having some failure problems. Is the heating inadequate? What's the fan noise like on these cards?

 

[Syntax Error]

Where have you been hearing this? I've heard of the "bad 8800GTs from BFG", but that ended up being a rumor blown way out of proportion by some whiny kid that happened to get a bad card.

My 8800GT is doing fine, by the way.

 

[Bradtechonline]

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
Where have you been hearing this? I've heard of the "bad 8800GTs from BFG", but that ended up being a rumor blown way out of proportion by some whiny kid that happened to get a bad card.

My 8800GT is doing fine, by the way.

How's the fan noise, and running temps you are getting?

 

[Capt Caveman]

My EVGA 8800GT SSC has been running great. No issues or crashes playing games though it's stock oc'd 700/1000. I use rivatuner to run the stock fan speed to 65% and my temps are 45c idle and 68% at load. EVGA is releasing a new bios to increase the fan speed.

 

[nitromullet]

The 8800GT has "higher then normal RMA rate" written all over it...

-relative low price for a lot of performance
-crappy cooler for even the stock heat output
-web forums with people posting their "monster clocks"

...pretty much the 7900GT all over again. You have a bunch of non-enthusiasts getting hold of these things because of the lower price point. These guys read about the monster clocks that someone like swethan is getting, so they drop one into their machine with a crappy PSU, poor cooling, and proceed to crank up the clocks... Well, you see where this is going to end up.

 

[Syntax Error]

I idle around 54-56 and load around 80-82 in Crysis.

I'm also overclocked to 725 core and 1000 memory.

 

[Wolfstan]

I was also wondering about this. My cooling is good enough, I guess. I've read that increasing the fan speed and slightly decreasing the clocks helps, too.


I'll keep browsing the net for more info on this problem, as I want to get an 8800GT, but if the heating issues are anything like my 7900GT, it would be a deal breaker. :/

 

[WLee40]

I had to use riva tuner to control fan speed. It kept crashing after 5 min of Crysis. Running fan at 80% and now runs @ 71-72 during Crysis with no more crashes. Kind of a pain to have to manually control the fan. Its too loud at 80% all the time (plus wear/tear on fan?). I run it at 50% while not gaming and can't hear the fan. Anybody else have this problem? Thinking of RMAing the card (EVGA superclocked 8800GT).

 

[praesto]

Hey there. I'm running my 8800gt at 739 core / 1782 shaders / 975 memory. The vcore has been bumped by 0,05v, which increased the load temperature by 3 celcius. Currently, with the fan speed at 65%, my 8800gt reaches 70c load max in crysis. My case is quite well-ventilated. Before the overclocking and vcore increase, it would reach 65c at max load.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: WLee40
I had to use riva tuner to control fan speed. It kept crashing after 5 min of Crysis. Running fan at 80% and now runs @ 71-72 during Crysis with no more crashes. Kind of a pain to have to manually control the fan. Its too loud at 80% all the time (plus wear/tear on fan?). I run it at 50% while not gaming and can't hear the fan. Anybody else have this problem? Thinking of RMAing the card (EVGA superclocked 8800GT).

I would download and install the new bios for your 8800GT SC. It was released just last friday and ramps up the fan speed based on temps. See if that fixes your issues before RMA'ing.

 

[Keysplayr]

Man, the vendor that releases an 8800GT that has a dual slot cooler on it would make a mint.

 

[vhx]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Man, the vendor that releases an 8800GT that has a dual slot cooler on it would make a mint.

I doubt there will be. Get a third party cooler if you are that concerned about heat, or wait for a BIOS update.

8800GT's have low failure rates, definitely below 7900GT's.

 

[Syntax Error]

I'm personally looking for a good Zalman VF1000 that won't cost too much, my max budget for that would be $50; that'd probably beat any stock dual slot cooler IMO, considering what a beast that thing is in cooling and performance.

 

[Skott]

The biggest problem with the Gt is the fan issue but its not what I call a failure rate. There is a work around to it and ontop of that a new BIOS is availble that corrects it.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: vhx

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Man, the vendor that releases an 8800GT that has a dual slot cooler on it would make a mint.

I doubt there will be. Get a third party cooler if you are that concerned about heat, or wait for a BIOS update.

8800GT's have low failure rates, definitely below 7900GT's.

I'm not in the market for a new GPU at the moment, but for those who are, I saw a sweet dual orb cooler made entirely of copper and also cools the memory. I try to find it and link to it. I'm not even sure it wasn't for the HD38xx's.

 

[Dudewithoutapet]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
The 8800GT has "higher then normal RMA rate" written all over it...

-relative low price for a lot of performance
-crappy cooler for even the stock heat output
-web forums with people posting their "monster clocks"

...pretty much the 7900GT all over again. You have a bunch of non-enthusiasts getting hold of these things because of the lower price point. These guys read about the monster clocks that someone like swethan is getting, so they drop one into their machine with a crappy PSU, poor cooling, and proceed to crank up the clocks... Well, you see where this is going to end up.

QFT, I was about to say the same thing.

 

[CrystalBay]

I agree with KP2k3, provided the cost is nominal..

 

[Raider1284]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: vhx

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Man, the vendor that releases an 8800GT that has a dual slot cooler on it would make a mint.

I doubt there will be. Get a third party cooler if you are that concerned about heat, or wait for a BIOS update.

8800GT's have low failure rates, definitely below 7900GT's.

I'm not in the market for a new GPU at the moment, but for those who are, I saw a sweet dual orb cooler made entirely of copper and also cools the memory. I try to find it and link to it. I'm not even sure it wasn't for the HD38xx's.

Your probally thinking of the DuOrb by thermaltake. I have the duorb on my 8800gt and it keeps my 750/1825/950 overclock at 37C/55C. Def a recommended cooler in my opinion. My only complaint would be the ramsinks aren't very sticky so you got to be careful to put them on correctly.

On a side note going from stock 650/1625/950 to my overclocked speeds only resulted in a 5fps increase in crysis. Running everything on high minus shaders and shadows at 1920x1080. Was getting 39-40fps at stock speeds, getting 44-45 at overclocked speeds.

 

[ManWithNoName]

For the record my EVGA SC 8800GT is working just fine with or without fan adjustments and the Core overclocked to 700Mhz. After applying the new BIOS my card idles at 56-57c and maxxes under load at 82c with fan at 45%. I have an average case with no more than average cooling. Using Rivatuner with fan set at 65% my card idles at 50c and maxes in the low 70s. I'm letting the new BIOS handle things right now and have encountered no overheating issues whatsoever. As far as fan noise goes, at 45%-50% it's not an issue at all for me. At 65% it becomes more noticeable, but still not horrible in my opinion.

 

[Ryl3x]

Originally posted by: Bradtechonline
Seems like these cards are having some failure problems. Is the heating inadequate? What's the fan noise like on these cards?

My ati card overheated....it appears that ATI cards are having heating issues.

 

[Throckmorton]

With a BIOS bug that limits fan speed to 30% why would they NOT fail? How do you let something out of the factory with a bug like that?

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: vhx

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Man, the vendor that releases an 8800GT that has a dual slot cooler on it would make a mint.

I doubt there will be. Get a third party cooler if you are that concerned about heat, or wait for a BIOS update.

8800GT's have low failure rates, definitely below 7900GT's.

do you mean "below 7900gt's failure rate a month after launch", or something more recent? The longer 8800gt is out the more failures will occur, I think that nitromullet is right. most people around here will be ok b/c they'll do their homework and not push the card beyond its limits, but that weak fan combined with the major fan control issues is certainly going to spell trouble.

 

[JustaGeek]

Has anyone here experienced failure requiring the RMA...?

I do not recall any posts about the broken 8800GT or 3800 series.

If the cards were prone to failure, I am sure we would know about it...

 

[Demoth]

No company is going to intentionally damage their image, not to mention set themselves up for numerous, and costly, future RMAs. None of the major card companies will call 'limited warrranty' if two years down the road people's cards are burning out while running at default settings. To refuse to RMA would forever damage the customer base for that company. Look at how even now, EVGA is bending over backwards to replace huge loads of 7900 GTs with faulty mem problems showing up 2 years later. In some cases they are sending 7950GTX as replacements.

I'd be shocked to see the 8800GT to fare any worse then the 7900GT.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: JustaGeek
Has anyone here experienced failure requiring the RMA...?

I do not recall any posts about the broken 8800GT or 3800 series.

If the cards were prone to failure, I am sure we would know about it...

READ THIS:

http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/default.aspx#318

@DEMOTH: sadly, you are incorrect. MOST companies would tell customers to jump in a lake. EVGA has a well-earned reputation for taking care of their customers and would almost certainly fix any issues that arise due to manufacturing defects (or any others for that matter). This issue is why VT has such a huge advantage over their amd-based breathren; they're the ONLY "lifetime" warranty amd reseller. Sure it's that BS "lifetime of the card's useful life" crap warranty, but they still throw it out there. EVGA has the exact same warranty and I have still to this day never heard anybody post anywhere that they had an evga fail after 4 years and had warranty service refused. They might have gotten stuck with a modern equivalent card, but EVGA still went the extra mile for their customer. VT doesn't have anything like the customer base that EVGA has, but I haven't heard any complaints about their warranty, either.