Possible 3 Bad MSI 6950's from RMA?

J

JJ91284

Gawd
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Mar 28, 2007
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I bought 3 new MSI 6950 Twin Frozer II/OC back in June 2011. I unlocked only the shaders with all 3 cards and they were great cards while the fans lasted. I had 1 fan fail on every card within 5 months and the other fans were struggling as well. I don't know what kind of fans they used but I was astonished in how fast the bearings/whatever type of fan they used failed. I ended up leaving my main chassis open and just had a big fan blowing on them whenever I gamed to keep the temps below 82C.

I shipped all 3 cards to MSI on 12/19/2011 and I just received the cards back on 1/11/12. All 3 cards were in separate boxes and looked to be shipped well.

Now the Problems
I unistalled my 2 6870's which I were using in place of trifire until I received my RMA'd Cards. I uninstalled my AMD drivers and installed a single 6950. Upon driver reinstallation everything looks good and seems to function fine in windows. I then Shutdown and reinstall the 2nd card for crossfire. Upon booting up and getting into windows it starts artifacting within 20 seconds. I then decide to shutdown and remove the last card I just installed and rebooted again. Now the original card is artifacting. So thinking that their is a driver issue I uninstall driver, restart, reinstall driver, restart. Upon starting up it artifacts again in windows. I remove the last card installed and boot back up in windows again and the original card is now artifacting. I'm thinking maybe theirs a bios corruption issue on a card so I end up flashing it with my original 6950 bios on my previous card that I RMA'd. The bios issue didn't fix or change anything. The only thing I notice is obviously the full shaders are unlocked.

So now I'm thinking what the hell is going on. I take another rig and just decide to do a quick windows 7 install on my MSI h61 board. This would eliminate any potential issues with driver corruption or faulty hardware. The card under any video load or even microsoft windows 7 experience index test causes the driver to crash. I then remove this card and decide to try the 3rd MSI 6950 card and run that in the H61 setup and see if it works fine. This 3rd card I just removed from the MSI RMA's box and installed it for the first time in my rig. Go figure the 3rd card installed by itself is artifacting as well and this was tried in my X58 rig as well as the new installed H61 setup. I didn't touch the bios on this card or crossfire it either so I'm totally stumped at the moment.

I've tried 2 different psu's of mine both being Corsairs AX1200 and my Corsair AX850. I have 2 more rigs I can dissasemble and try the cards in there but I don't think it will make a difference.

The next thing I'm going to try is an older catalyst driver. I'm currently using catalyst version 11.12.

What are the odds in getting 3 RMA'd cards back from MSI with all of them artifacting? I've been a long fan of MSI and own 1 MSI 560 TI, 3 twin frozr 6950's, MSI H61, MSI H67, MSI P67, and two MSI Z68's. This RMA experience right now is definitely putting my patience to the test.
 
damn that sucks, but it happens.. btw after you rma these cards make sure you install all 3 cards before installing the drivers cuts down on any issues. also since you have the cards check temps and voltages on the cards and see if anything looks out of whack.
 
I've got 1 card working now after flashing the bios with my stock video card bios from 6 months ago or so. MSI sent me somebody's RMA'd product that has been tampered with that obviously cleared there quality control test.

One of the other MSI card won't take the flash, it gets half way through and closes atiwinflash. The interesting thing is the card performs fine under normal tasks but it wont do anything even remotely gpu intensive.

Do you guys thing atiwinflash in DOS as opposed to flashing in windows will have better luck? I'm thinking the one bios chip is locked up or there's something obviously wrong that won't let the card finish flashing. It's weird how you can still navigate windows fine without any driver crashing.
 
It appears that I have all 3 cards working now after flashing through dos with my original bios files from months ago. I tried my modded bios (shaders unlocked) from months ago and it worked on 2 cards. The 3rd card shows the 1536 shaders but constantly crashes the video driver. I'm surprised MSI RMA process didn't thoroughly check out the cards before they sent them out. I'm going to hopefully be able to get them all hooked up in crossfire and maybe trifire later this weekend hopefully. Either I'll go crossfire with my creative xfi titanium or I can go trifire but I have to lose the sound card or I'll lose my tv tuner card. I need a socket 2011 board.

I'll post later on how I fixed this for anyone else that may run into this issue once I'm sure everything is working
 
sounds like to me some dumb ass tried to mod his own bios and flash the cards hoping it would unlock the shaders. when it failed he RMA'd the cards. probably came up with some bs excuse that the cards failed to post at all so they just did the basic post test which worked so they re-boxed them.

lose the tv tuner card, you can get one of those cheap USB ones and they surprisingly do pretty well.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
sounds like to me some dumb ass tried to mod his own bios and flash the cards hoping it would unlock the shaders. when it failed he RMA'd the cards. probably came up with some bs excuse that the cards failed to post at all so they just did the basic post test which worked so they re-boxed them.

lose the tv tuner card, you can get one of those cheap USB ones and they surprisingly do pretty well.
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The cards are screwed up. They seem to perform at stock fine but as soon as you crossfire them it artifacts up the ass. I'll be calling up MSI monday and will be demanding they pay shipping since it cost me $20+ to insure them and get a signature on delivery. Hopefully turn around time will be better than a month. I just put back in my crossfired 6870's and will have to deal with the lack of vram.
 
I had bought a Powercolor 6950 back in November 2011. It ran for about 2 weeks then blew up. Now, only the fan runs. I had to RMA it back to Powercolor... They have had it for like 3 weeks with no answer on replacement yet. I wonder if there is a problem with all 6950's?

Rob in Mesquite Tx.
 
I bought a MSI 6950 Twin Frozr about the same time as you and the tessellation units were bad. It took months to notice(bf3 beta). I set up a RMA and missed the window and never could get another response from them after 5+ attempts. I finally gave up and figured I could live without tessellation. Two months ago, both fans on the heat sink locked up completely. The POS is sitting on top of my case and was replaced by a 580. I honestly liked the ATI card better(eyefinity) but I doubt I'll buy another one of their products regardless of price/performance.
 
I tried calling today but I forgot it was Martin Luther King day so that explains why they never called me back. I'll be calling them tomorrow once I get out of my class tomorrow and I'll let you know how it goes.
 
MYST_2 said:
I bought a MSI 6950 Twin Frozr about the same time as you and the tessellation units were bad. It took months to notice(bf3 beta). I set up a RMA and missed the window and never could get another response from them after 5+ attempts. I finally gave up and figured I could live without tessellation. Two months ago, both fans on the heat sink locked up completely. The POS is sitting on top of my case and was replaced by a 580. I honestly liked the ATI card better(eyefinity) but I doubt I'll buy another one of their products regardless of price/performance.
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just because 1 card fucks up doesn't mean all AMD cards are bad.. blame it on the bullshit RMA crap manufactures are trying to pull now(that includes nvidia manufactures as well).
 
Anyone know a direct number to MSI customer service or know of a rep I can speak too. I called and left a voicemail Monday, Tuesday, and called literally over 15 times and waiting as long as I could until MSI customer service line would cut me off for waiting to long and would ask for a voicemail.

This is some utter BS right now.
 
The Saga Continues.


Today I received my 3 MSI 6950's that MSI had to replace since all 3 cards they originally RMA'D to me were defective. They ended up calling me and letting me know that they were in fact defective.

UPS guy shows up today and I'm all excited and decide go ahead and crossfire instead of trifire right off the bat. I boot up into windows and get some MAD artifacting. It turns out MSI sent me AGAIN 3 defective MSI 6950's and the ironic thing is the model number on the back off all 3 cards were blacked out with marker. This to me indicates they were more than likely defective and sent me defective cards that were actually suppose to be sent to either the service department to get repaired again. I have yet to be able to play BF3 with trifire 6950's instead of crossfired 6870's.

2 Months so far have passed since I've had my 3x MSI Twin frozr 6950's and we'll see if the 3rd time around I get good cards.







I removed the black marker from the card with 99% alcohol to see what the original model number. Kind of curious why they crossed out the model number.

 
wow MSI is really dropping the ball on this one.

Hope you can get it worked out. They should give you 2 7950s as an apology ;p
 
AlicecFrerichs said:
The interesting thing is the card performs fine under normal tasks but it wont do anything even remotely gpu intensive
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When the cards are stressed even remotely, the clock speeds increase. That is the reason while idleing in windows they may appear ok, but under load the video drivers can crash and you get the crazy visual artifacts. An example of this would be my current rig I'm typing on the 6870's in crossfire down clock to 300 Mhz, but as soon as I do anything remotely graphic heavy the gpu core clocks automatically bump up to 900 Mhz.


These 3 new RMA'd cards are so bad they artifact within 5 seconds of booting into windows 7.
 
So MSI received my 3rd RMA 2/21/12 and were signed for according to UPS tracking and I just spoke with Edwin in the service department. Apparently they're just getting around to testing the card. He told me that I should here something back by Friday. Why does it take 5 days to test 3 MSI 6950's. I could diagnose these cards real fast and in a matter of hours. I've been without my cards since the 2nd week of December 2011.

Anyone else think this is getting rediculous being that the first batch they sent me was all defective. The second batch they said they'd test and it turned out that MSI never tested them before they sent them out like they said they would. Hopefully this 3rd batch they send me works ok.
 
That's some crap luck you're having, but I had the same kind of thing with a BFG GTX 280. I RMA'd the card for aritifacts 4 times.....
 
Are they having you pay for shipping each time?

I had a similar issue with a BFG 7800 agp card where they shipped me a broken replacement, I complained and they gave me a ups return label so I wouldn't have to pay shipping back again.

I think they are screwing you over, have you tried demanding new sealed cards? If you paid for shipping, you must be out at least $50 sofar...
 
I paid $19 for shipping the first time, but I demanded they pay shipping the 2nd and 3rd time. My cards are also depreciating without me even getting a chance to enjoy them which sucks as well.
 
It's too bad you shipped your original cards away when they were perfectly fine aside from the fans. It's harder to get good silicon and a unlockable silicon at that compared to what is just an el-cheapo fan.

Did you know you can easily repair videocard fans? Just disassemble them and use some high grade silicone oil from a hobby store (use in RC cars and planes) to re-lube the bearings.

If I get three good chips, there's no way in hell I send them away because a dinky fan is failing on me. I either repair or replace the fan with something else.
 
Spare-Flair said:
It's too bad you shipped your original cards away when they were perfectly fine aside from the fans. It's harder to get good silicon and a unlockable silicon at that compared to what is just an el-cheapo fan.

Did you know you can easily repair videocard fans? Just disassemble them and use some high grade silicone oil from a hobby store (use in RC cars and planes) to re-lube the bearings.

If I get three good chips, there's no way in hell I send them away because a dinky fan is failing on me. I either repair or replace the fan with something else.
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I have on another machine crossfired xfx 6850's and had one of the fans starting to fail. XFX was great and they sent me just the heatsink/fan assembly and I was able to swap it right off the card and it was good to go. They didn't even bother having me ship the old heatsink/fan assembly in. I asked MSI if they were willing to do this and they told me no. Each card had 1 fan entirely seized and the other fans were getting harder to spin. I'm familiar with the oil that you speak of since I have numers RC planes and some cars too. The oil may have helped the fans starting to fail, but the other fan blades might have cracked if I tried to force them to turn. MSI doesn't cover broken fan blades so I didn't want to chance it.
 
MSI will pay return shipping if they send you defective products. I had the same issue with my MSI Big Bang X-power, and after 2 RMAs, it was still defective. I never had to ask them to pay return shipping, they did it automatically. Finally, after the 3rd one, they just sent me a BNIB X-power.
 
Well MSI called me this evening and did confirm that all 3 cards from the 2nd RMA were indeed defective. I'll be calling them tomorrow and I'll be seeing what they're going to do for me.
 
Update
Last week friday I received a call saying in fact that the 3 replacement cards they received came up defective. They told me if all the cards were defective again, they'd consider offering me an upgrade if my cards weren't readily available. Today (Monday) I receive a call saying that all 3 cards were not in fact defective. Apparently one of there test rigs are defective and now all 3 cards passed with flying colors. They asked me to supply all my system specs which I'll post below. They told me they'll be shipping replacment cards and see no reason why my system wouldn't be performing properly.

Anyone else here think I'm getting the run around. Edwin (MSI rep) requested my system specs so I went ahead and emailed him them

My Previous Main System that worked with all 6950’s in Trifire from June 2011 to December 2011. The only problem I had was that 1 fan on each card started to seize up so I RMA’d all 3.
Intel 950 OC to 4.0 ghz (mild OC that is run daily 1.38v, I’ve had this to 4.5ghz stable)
Asrock X58 Extreme (socket 1366)
3 MSI 6950’s Twin Frozr OC/II
24 GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 mhz 1.5v
Creative X-FI Titanium HD sound Card
Intel 320m 160gb SSD
Windows 7 64 bit ultimate
4 western digital green 2 tb hard drives
1 LG bluray/HD DVD drive
Corsair AX1200 PSU


What I used to troubleshoot the defective 3 MSI 6950’s that I received.
Stock frequency’s on everything
Only ran 12gb DDR3 and swapped out both sets of memory
Removed Sound Card
Only left SSD plugged in
Also tried my Corsair AX850 PSU.

I also went out and bought a New Intel I3 2100 and a NEW MSI H67
Installed Windows 7 64 bit
Ran 8 gb of memory in it with my Corsair AX850 PSU
Installed OS on a OCZ 60gb SSD and no other drives hooked up
Ran each card by itself since this board can’t crossfire. Each 6950 card still artifacts even when its booted up in windows. This was a FRESH install of windows 7 64 bit with no other drivers on it but the latest AMD drives.

I then went out and borrowed my buddy’s 2 reference MSI 6950’s and they have no problem running in my main gaming rig which is the Intel 950 setup mentioned above. On a side note, I even hooked this up to my server backup PSU which is a APC Smart-UPS SUA2200RM2U which provides very clean power and will even run on battery power in the event the voltage from the outlet is unstable.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842101484

Jeff
 
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