[LeeDye]

Purchased 2 GTX275OCX cards, have a 780i 3 way SLI board, q6600 o/c to 3800 stable. 4gb corsair memory. Prior cards were/are 8800GTS 512mb SLI and the entire setup was Lexus reliable.

Problem is the GTX275 cards continually crash under 3D apps/games.
Stock clocks for this factory overclocked card are 709/1242/1566.

I can only run each at 690/1242/1542. Raise the core above that and it crashes with major artifacts. SLI or not. One card in system or both, no difference.

I even backed the entire system off of o/c and yet the problem still remains.

Drivers removed properly, Drive Sweep, etc several times to no avail.

Any ideas?? Appears that BFG is putting out products that are not living up to their claims. Both cards are the same.

Heat is not an issue either. Open case in a very cool A/C controlled environment.

Could I have received 2 bad cards? Too coincidental I think. Called BFG, on hold for over 1hr and I hung up.

System specs
Q6600 3800mhz/ testing at stock speeds
Watercooled
4gb Corsair
Enermax 1000w
Dell 30 LCD
Lian LI case
BluRay burner
780i board tri sli

 

[bluebunny]

i love my BFG GTX 295 for me no problems from day one
maybe you just got two lemons??
EDIT: forgot to add that Since BFG has a lifetime warranty you should just RMA the cards if they really are that awful for you

 

[LeeDye]

Has nothing to do with the cards being awful for me, it is about them running the way they should be. And RMA, forget about it, I can just return these to Dell if need be.

Just trying to figure out if there is anything I have missed.
I'm upgrading the motherboard/cpu/memory next month and but would like to get the video card side of things licked. Will be going with a tri setup once I get these two figured out, but then, as you say, could be two bad cards.

 

[bluebunny]

cant really think of anything else besides if the cards are too hot
can you share what your load and idle temps are?

 

[Zap]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeeDye Appears that BFG is putting out products that are not living up to their claims.

BFG warranty covers the advertised clock speeds and if the cards don't work at that speed, we'll make it right. When you were on hold, did you actually talk to someone that put you on hold or did nobody pick up at all? When was that?

 

[LeeDye]

Thank you for the reply and I do really appreciate the concern. While on hold all I received was the intermittent hold message for about 10 minutes or so and then nothing. I left it there for almost an hour. Now this was at midnight Sunday, I thought BFG had 7/24/365 service. Perhaps I got in at a bad time.

I believe I figured it out. The fans do not seem to ramp up at all during gameplay or perhaps not enough. They stay at 40% per RivaTuner which I used to clock the gpu down.

Few minutes later: OK, so I was able to complete a 3dMark06 cycle with fans at 100% and one card at 700 core. Was not able to do this before.

Going to take it up to 709, run a few times, then the other card.

So I am having flashbacks to the early 8800GT cards (which is why I stopped being an early adopter) which also did not ramp up their fans and caused lockups. Honestly, this should not even be an issue these days. All it does is create much frustration on the end user and I really do not have time to spend hours diagnosing troubled cards. With 7 computers in the home and each getting upgraded at least once a year I would say I'm at the upper end of the consumer scale.

I was going to purchase at least a few more of these if these worked out...Jury is still out.

Is there a BIOS update that will ramp up the fans properly?

EDIT: Was able to complete a 3dmark06 cycle with fan at 100%. Going to back it down to 70% where the noise is more tolerable though I have certainly had louder cards in the past.

However.......Problem still exist in that this is not something I should have to do. Plus- my plan was to go tri setup and in a closed case that really would be interesting. Currently my case is wide open.

The limited view I have under the heatsink shows the thermal pads are compressed. Cannot see if the GPU itself has a nice contact or not.

 

[LeeDye]

Both cards run fine in SLI with fans at 100% with the open case. Not sure about 90%, not that it makes a difference now as things are loud with two cards at such a fan speed.
Very unfortunate.

What is equally frustrating is having to call Dell Business tomorrow and returning these cards. Dell is always hit and miss with the intelligence level of their folks. Generally a miss.

 

[LeeDye]

Got off the phone with tech support.
Response time was pretty quick,nice job.

Went through the basics and the final determination is that both cards are defective. Anyhow I decided against the RMA as it is just a pain. I will just go out and purchase some other cards and return these for full credit.

He did mention though that he was not fond of the 275 cards and that they were more problematic than the 280/290 series. He seemed very genuine so perhaps I will try out a couple of 285's and if content pick up a couple more of them.

Thanks anyhow.

 

[zotn_dre]

glad it's solved.

I also am owner of a geforce 275 GTX (XFX) . My card got to 92°C with stock cooling without any overclocking and all settings default.

For me this seemed too hot and I changed the auto fan settings with Rivatuner following this guide. Now my card under load gets max. 81 °C. And even then the fan is only at 70%.

Seems to me like the fan is not well configured by default....

 

[krameriffic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zotn_dré glad it's solved. I also am owner of a geforce 275 GTX (XFX) . My card got to 92°C with stock cooling without any overclocking and all settings default. For me this seemed too hot and I changed the auto fan settings with Rivatuner following this guide. Now my card under load gets max. 81 °C. And even then the fan is only at 70%. Seems to me like the fan is not well configured by default....

The fan is configured to not ramp up heavily until the card hits 92C. In my experience, playing through Assassin's Creed, Crysis and Warhead, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Oblivion and a large amount of TF2 and L4D, I didn't see the card hit this temperature once. The only game I see it rise to 92C in is STALKER: Clear Sky (and Furmark of course, but thankfully we don't play Furmark).

The fan doesn't jump above about 55% which is tolerable while gaming and even that only happens in the more graphically intensive games I listed above. The stock profile is actually one of the best I've encountered in a reference GPU cooler. My 4890 fan was audible while idling and extremely loud even in TF2. The temperature was slightly lower under load, but thankfully the 1200's airflow means that the temperature matters little for my other hardware.

 

[Koaka]

My 260 216gtx crashed at stock speeds aswell. The culprit was the power saver mode which would downclock to 2d modes at desktop. But it would downclock to 2d while gaming and slow the game to a crawl or crash it. You can force 3d mode 24/7 that is what I did and haven't looked back i'm crash free now.

 

[Zap]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeeDye this was at midnight Sunday, I thought BFG had 7/24/365 service. Perhaps I got in at a bad time.

The tech support phone lines are always supposed to be answered. it could be Midnight, Sunday and Christmas all at the same time and someone is supposed to answer it. One of two possibilities - either it really was just a bad time (there can be times when nobody is calling in, and times when all lines are busy) or someone was slacking off.

I'll mention it to the guy who oversees support just so he's aware of it. That way if this is a trend (as in other people have complained) then he can lay some smackdown on them.

Thanks for the feedback, and glad you got a quick response the second try.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeeDye I believe I figured it out. The fans do not seem to ramp up at all during gameplay or perhaps not enough. They stay at 40% per RivaTuner which I used to clock the gpu down. ... Is there a BIOS update that will ramp up the fans properly?

There is no BIOS update because the fans are supposed to ramp up, I think starting around 70-75ºC. If they do not, that usually means there is some software which had set a manual fan speed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeeDye my plan was to go tri setup and in a closed case that really would be interesting.

Ooh, that's gonna be tricky with highly overclocked models, no matter which brand.