FEAR killed my GPU?

75C is no biggy - if under load. Indeed, it's rather on the normal side.

120C, though, is WAY too hot.

If the HSF isn't obviously partially unscrewed or something, I'd RMA that one, too. And make sure to call and ask for a manager to help resolve this issue - no reason you should have to keep paying to send back defective cards,
 
The X1900XTX runs at 90 degrees Celsius with stock cooler, at load.
 
Bo_Fox said:
The X1900XTX runs at 90 degrees Celsius with stock cooler, at load.
Click to expand...

True enough, but 120C is still way hotter than even that. And, thing to remember is, nVidia cards of the current generation run *much* cooler than current-gen ATI cards.
 
Bo_Fox said:
The X1900XTX runs at 90 degrees Celsius with stock cooler, at load.
Click to expand...
Yeah and it crashes at that for me... I'm glad i got the Zalman cooler Cu 900 or something like that... It doesn't raise above 55-60c at load no more. Invest in a better cooler and it's worth every penny.

 
pArTy said:
Every stock heatsink on video cards these days are horrible. After a few years of having a video card like a 6800GT or 9800 pro or some other card you will notice it start to fail from heating.
Click to expand...

I think you should pop off the heatsink every 2 years at the very least, and apply new thermal goop or tape. My roommate's nearly 4 year old 9800 fan started going out the otherday, so I put on an old one I'd removed from another card I had replaced with a passive unit. The original thermal pad left behind some crust on the gpu die that was very difficult to remove, and all dried out; I had to scrub forever to get it all off (more so than two year old cpu or gpu pads I've dealt with before).

Dabbed on a little arctic silver and popped the new HSF on, and temps are much better now.

I'm gonna guess that today's hotter running vid cards should have their thermal goop changed yearly to keep things running well. My 6600gt is probably due...
 
I have a BFG 6800 OC that unlocks and OC's that u can have until you get your card back. I'm in San Antonio though :(
 
^^^
I'm in Houston... Hook me up YO! :cool:

Seriously though, thanks for the feedback guys. I removed the card this morning to take a closer look at it and I noticed that the heatsink is actually missing a screw - it looks like it may have broken off. :eek: So, I just got off the horn with BFG and they're going to RMA another card. Kinda sucks. But on the flip side, BFG is going to send me a new card and a paid postage envelope so I don't have to pay for the shipping the card back to them again.

My cards may have been defective but I have to give BFG tech support some praise.
 
Never mind! Anyway, the X1900XTX normally runs at 90 degrees C under load...

If yours crashed, it must have gone past that.. maybe just a little bit! It could've been up to 95 internally.. at least there was some hot spot on the chip.

I tried a Zalman VF900 on it, and it was much worse than the stock cooling solution... It was horrible! I installed it 3 times making sure the contact was good, and it just turned out that the fan speed was too slow. It should have been at least 3600+ RPM instead of only low-profile, "silent" 2400 RPM!

Here's a link to how the VF900 really does not dissipate enough heat compared to the X1900XTX stock cooler.. (13 degrees C worse!!!)

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/zalman-vf900cu-led_6.html

heck, it's even worse than the VF700 in 3DMark06! Zalman certainly had some guts saying that it's compatible with the X1900XTX when the video card just crashes on mine! I had to return it. No matter how cold the ambient was, it just did not cool it good enough at STOCK speeds and stock voltage!
 
wow... look at the vf700 go. I'm going to have to keep mine for my new crossfire setup...
 
I got my second BFG 6800GTOC RMA last night... The idle temps are a little high 65C but underload during FEAR they get up to 85C which is a hellavalot better than the 120C the last card was hitting.

Big thanks to everyone who offered advice during my dilemma. :)
 
it hapens same thing with my X1800XT watercooled , all seams fine for a few days and for last 5 days when i play fear combat after a minuts i get freezes and artifacts ( only in fear ) , already tryed diferente drivers , but im moment i instal fear the artifacot came back


reagrds
 
Well it looks like this card has gone bad as well... It has all the signs of bad RAM. At first I thought it was the fault of the demos I was trying out since FEAR has yet to crash using the card. Still, I have a number of games that all crash the same way.

I figured it was the card because one time after the game locked up with all kinds of noisey artfacting AND I lost the video signal. So I gave BFG a call... It didn't go well - the tech guy told me that I would have to prove it was the cards fault by installing it in my other PC. IMO it's not cool since it doesn't happen in every game. To me it's pretty obvious that something is wrong with the card.

So I decided to bite the bullet and I went out and bought a PNY 7800GS. My P3 has a PNY geforce4Ti which is still living so I feel that PNY has quality stuff even if they only have a limited warrenty.

The 7800GS has performed like a champ all weekend with lower temps than my 3rd BFG 6800GT. No crashing what-so-ever. I will appease BFG by installing the 6800GT in my other PC and running some intense benchmarks repeatedly until I get the same kind of crash.

The card is bad I know it... :mad:
 
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