Gigabyte 6800GT (GV-N68T256DH) fan on top & heatpipe

[PC911mickster]

Originally posted by: Chudilo
They just released a bios upgrade. See if that helps.
You can update the BIOS by using the update feature of the Vtuner

Where did you find a new BIOS? The only new one at any of the Gigabyte websites in the 6800 family is for the 128 mb version of the GT.

 

[MornNB]

I have this problem, it idles at 74C and runs at 108C, with stablity but that is too high. Where is this bios you are talking about.

 

[Icepick]

Wow, that idle temp is three degrees higher than mine! I didn't end up RMA'ing it to Gigabyte for testing. Gigabyte informed me that they would either fix the card I sent them and return it to me or send me a refurbished card. This would take up to 30 days. Since I was still within the 30 day return period with zipzoomfly and I didn't want to be without a computer, I RMA'd the defective card to them for a refund and ate the 15% restocking fee. Then I went to Best Buy the same day and picked up a BFG 6800GT instead.

 

[Chudilo]

click the Check for updates Menu option from Vtuner.

 

[AJeightFive]

hmmm so the verdict is that this card is great, unless you get stuck with a defective board? I'm considering buying one is all.

 

[Chudilo]

Tom's finally reviewed this card. They did not add anything to what I 've already said in this discussion . However just for your reference here is the Link to the review.

I was hoping they would test the effectivness of the heatpipe. and provide a diagram of the heat patterns of this very intricate heatsink. They did nothing of the kind. Thus the review is basically useless if you've read my posts completely. Is Tom's going to crap like the rest of the hardware sites?

 

[killersilver]

Hello... i got a Gigabyte 6800 GT (DH version). Its giving me a headache. Here are my specs:

ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe
P4 2.8E
512 MB RAM OCZ Platinum Edition DDR400
Gigabyte 6800 GT (GV-N68T256DH)
HDD Hitachi 80GB SATA
Allied 450W P. Supply

I will post 3dmark05 results using different drivers.

Detonator 61.77 .... 3886
Omega 1.6177 ...... 3775
Detonator 66.93..... 4486
Forceware 71.20..... 4209

I tried with Doom 3 and Farcry.... im thinking about the bottleneck is not on the video card, its on the HDD. I cant play Doom 3 on High Quality (neither on Ultra Quality) because it freezes when going into a new zone and when looking at some places i didnt look before. Far cry does the same thing. When that happens the HDD LED is not even blinking, its solid. (Far cry Version 1.3) (Doom 3 Version 1.1)

i have read so many reviews with specs lower than mine that run Doom 3 on High Quality 30-60 fps. Whats happening? Do you have any idea). I defragged my HDD before doing the tests.

 

[Ajwhipple]

I'm having problems with my new Gigabyte card too. I have the 6800 GT DH model and it either crashes to desktop or I get a blue screen reporting "IRQ Less or Not Equal".

I've tried reinstalling XP with fresh drivers and removing my sound card (it was sharing IRQ 16). My temps seem fine. I don't have a utility that reports temp during a game, but whenever I check the temp after a crash, it's never more than 60 degrees C.

I have the latest drivers from Nvidia (66.93) and my BIOS is 3.11.00.02.00, according to SiSofware Sandra.

Fast writes is on, I haven't tried that yet, but everything seems to point to some sort of driver conflict. Everything works fine as long as I'm not gaming, but I built this system for gaming, so this is very frustrating.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Athlon 3000+ Winchester
ABIT AV8
Crucial Ballisitx 2x512 MB
Gigabyte GeForce 6800 GT 256 MB
WD Raptor 74 GB SATA
Seagate Barracuda 120 GB SATA
Pioneer 108 DVR
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Gamer
Antec TruePower 550
Coolermaster CM Stacker

 

[Ajwhipple]

As an update to my previous message, I installed my son's old GeFroce 2 w/ 64 MB of video memory and played an unterrupted, if slow and choppy game of Doom 3. No crashes, no blue screens.

Does this mean I have a bad video card, or something else.

Thanks

 

[PC911mickster]

I've made some discoveries about the heat issues and crashes I was getting.
Seems that certain nvidia drivers AND the highest resolution were the problems Of course I had all the quality settings maxxed out all the way plus 1600X1200. When I installed the 70.41 or higher drivers, the isthues ceased and all is well. Far Cry at 1280X1024 is just as good and HL2 at that same resolution is great. I'm getting 132 fps in the CS stress test
I will be changing the cooling at some point but right now, I'm a happy camper. I'll start with that Vantec pci slot cooler aimed up at the fanless side where the GPU is located.


*** Another discovery is that the Gigabyte proggie NEEDS to be turned off! That sucka appears to be the cause of my crashes.

 

[killersilver]

I was thinking about that Vantec fan kit too. It seems like a good choice because its fits on the fanless side. I just recovered my system from a BIG Windows Crash, it gave me a blue screen after i rebooted and then never started again. I had to format my HDD and install it again, no repair possible or even a overwriting installation. Im wondering if this was because all of the drivers changes i made when testing the video card. :s

 

[PC911mickster]

killersilver and Ajwhipple...
I'm not trying to insult your intelligence but are you uninstalling the old drivers before installing new ones? Have you checked for new chipset drivers and BIOS updates?
I'm suspicious of that Allied 450 killersilver. The amperage on that psu's 12V rail is really anemic. Your 3D Mark05 numbers aren't too bad. Mine was 4772 but I've got an Athlon64 and 1 GB PC3200.

I'm running fine with the Gigabyte program off and any nvidia drivers over 70.XX

 

[killersilver]

Yes i uninstall drivers before changing them. I also use detonator RIP to be sure.

My ASUS Probe reads this 12V values:

11.855
11.916
11.977

With intervals of 1 sec.

I also ran the update checker on gigabyte utility and it updated it. Im using latest software of everything.

 

[Ajwhipple]

Originally posted by: PC911mickster
killersilver and Ajwhipple...
I'm not trying to insult your intelligence but are you uninstalling the old drivers before installing new ones? Have you checked for new chipset drivers and BIOS updates?
I'm suspicious of that Allied 450 killersilver. The amperage on that psu's 12V rail is really anemic. Your 3D Mark05 numbers aren't too bad. Mine was 4772 but I've got an Athlon64 and 1 GB PC3200.

I'm running fine with the Gigabyte program off and any nvidia drivers over 70.XX

What intelligence?

Seriously, this is my first build, so it's very possible that I've overlooked something simple.

That said, yes, I uninstalled the old drivers first. I even tried reinstalling Win XP, then installing only the most recent drivers available from the manufacturer's website. I'm still having problems. I uninstalled the drivers using the Win XP Device Manager. Is there a better way?

And as an update, I installed the 6800 GT in my kid's old computer and it ran fine for hours worth of gaming. I'm starting to think this is a conflict between the video card and something else in the system. Damned if I can figure it out.

 

[Chudilo]

I finally got around to running the 3dMArk '05 on this thing.
Everything is on Auto using the Vtuner2. and on a Clean install of XP.
I had to redo my windows installation because I scred up my boot sector while installing Mandrake 10.1(my fault completely)

Anyway the Score came out to be 4530

Some of those tests brought the card to it's knees (1-4 fps)
I don't get it .. I thought it was supposed to be a one step from the top of the line card...
It's extemely cold out now .. I can easily overclock it to ultra speeds ....but I don't think that would bring the frame rate to anywhere near 30fs

 

[Icepick]

Chudilo, I always get 1-4 fps on 3dmark05 during the final two "CPU" tests with a BFG 6800GT. I think those low frame rates may be normal. The score you attained (4530) seems to be comparable with what others are getting with the 6800GT.

 

[Kindjal]

I get somewhere between 4800-4900 in 3dMark05 with the same card. I'm using the stock frequencies of 367/1.05. Some of the 7x.xx Forceware drivers seem to give better benchmarking performance. However, I've found that Far Cry did not like the 7x.xx drivers and reverted back to 66.93. I also get very low frame rates in the last '05 tests - normal as others have said.

 

[zakee00]

wow i was thinking about getting that card, im sure glad i didnt! those temps are HORRIBLE! i have an evga 6800gt agp8x, clocked at 410/1.08 and i idle at 58C! im positive i never go above 70C gaming.
my system:
amd 64 3000+ winnie @ 3800+ (2.43GHz)
msi k8n neo2
evga 6800GT
4 case fans
2 psu fans
stock amd cooling
i would talk to gigabyte about that...diffenately

 

[djsmiley2k]

I have a strange feeling either the Vtuner is bugged or it can't read the temps properly sometimes.

My brother was just playing on quake3 for about... 1/2 hour and came out, vtuner was running constant and it was reading off 79c, then a second later it was 70c, then 69c. This is amazing as the update rate is 5seconds yet i changed at least 3 times in this period!!

Anyone know of any other program i can use to monitor the tempreture, and if i DONT run the Vtuner does the fan auto adjust its speed.

(I also have the problem of each time i exit the vtuner it defaults?).

Cheers all.

 

[killersilver]

Ok im having problems with Vtuner II too.

Once i was trying to overclock my card a running 3dmark05 with the Vtuner window visible and it always read the same temps even when it was clocked at 400/1100. Thats weird.

Sometimes the auto speed function stops working and i noticed it when i turned it on and then opened the main window again and it was not on.

It also resets to defaults everytime i close it.

I already checked for update and it doesnt find any newer versions.

 

[PC911mickster]

I'm tellin' you guys...turn OFF V-Tuner!
See how things operate without that POS proggie. I haven't crashed since unchecking it in MSCONFIG
I'm happy with the card now.
HL2 is really sweet with this card

 

[Salamandar]

OK I recieved this card today and to be honest with you, the heat pipe is better than the BFG dual Fan HSF.
Temps are 52 Idle and 66 after playing games like Americas Army for more than hour.
Running rthdribl for 30 min. made the temps go as high as 78.
I didn't not overclock the card because I have a slow CPU and that's pulling me back.
Over all I have to say that this is a very very very awesome card, though some of you have problem with the heat pipe I don't.

P.S. The latest ver. of V tuner 2 is working Ace with me too.

 

[cnateghi]

I have this card for over a month now,

i havent' overclocked it because i think it runs great as it is.

I have used VTUner in the beginning, to try overclock and set the fan to auto, since then i haven't opened VTuner any more.

The only problem i had is that the card is slightly longer than a normal AGP card, and i had to re-arrange my harddisks to be able to fit it in (the end of the card sits in between 2 HD's ;-))

i never hear the fan; i have 3 other casefans and it doesn't make more noise than them.

the light on the fan is very cool if you have a see-through case, otherwise it's pretty useless..

i have some temperature measurement program for my motherboard (Intel). before i had a Geforce 4 (yes, it was definately time to upgrade) and when i play games such as doom etc. the temp. prog reported overheating problems regularly. Also with other games.

With this card i haven't had a single overheating problem since then.

1 think i would really like to know though:

can you use this card's hardware to do conversions from DivX to MPEG (DVD) format ??
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

thnx,

Chris.

 

[cnateghi]

Oh Yes, Temperatures:

When Idle, VTuner 2 Plus reports a GPU Temp of 71 degrees Celcius!!!

After playing a heavy 3d-game like doom 3, generals or battlefield, VTuner reports a GPU Temp of +/- 80 degrees Celcius..

First, How can the idle temperature be so high, and the max. worload temp be so low?

I have 4 additinal cooling fans in my case (excluding CPU fan) :

1 fan is on the side of the case, directly over the Gigabyte card, blowing air into the case with a dust filter.
1 is at the back, sucking air out of the case.
1 is in the front, at the bottom, sucking air into the case with a dust filter.
1 is in the front, at the middle levelled with the HD's, sucking air into the case with a dust filter.

Second I have noticed that, after playing a game, the temperature in VTuner2+ stays at this value 80 (approx) and does not change for some time. I think this is definately not true, as the temp. should be cooling down after i'm not using my grafix any longer.

I think VTuner2+ is buggy and not a reliable program to monitor your GFX card.

Other GFX-card monitoring Software?

I noticed on the NVIDIA site there is a Control Centre Utility that can monitor your card as well, but the 6800GT is not supported.

Is there another program i can use to monitor my GPU temperature, other than VTUner ????

Please let me know, i need to check if VTuner reports properly, because if so i need to do somethign about my temps..

 

[cnateghi]

is anyone reading these postings at all??

looks like this thread is abandoned....

anyone?