Graphics problem - driver or hardware. PLEASE help!

jjm052 · Post by **jjm052** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 5:21 am

Hi guys.

I recently rebuilt my extremely noisy SFF media center 2005 PC (see sig) and considering the components (P4 3.2!) the result is/was stunning. With the fans set to low it is barely audible even in the silence of night!! I'm using the ZM80D-HP on the GPU card.
I have been using Everest and other methods to keep a close eye on temps and everything has been well within the considered safe zones, GPU always under 70C - 127C throttle (also I don't overclock), but when playing HL2 yesterday my PC froze and ever since I've got dots/lines/colouration on my screen, games and other apps won't open - the PC just crashes!! Crash report says its either video drivers or hardware.
I re-installed 3 different nvidia drivers (incl original one) and direct X but no change.
Please don't tell me my card is broken, how can I remedy the situation.
Thanks for your help
James

Shadowknight · Post by **Shadowknight** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 5:31 am

It's possible something happened to keep the cooler from making good contact. However, it sounds like the card is permanently damaged. My 9800 pro was good for 2 years with a Zalman, but I took off the fan and replaced my Evercool case fans with Nexus. The lack of sufficient cooling damaged the card, giving graphical artifacts.

Now, if you're temps were within specs, it sounds like the card damage is from a card failure that doesn't have anything to do with your Zalman, but poor quality control. In this case, it would not be unethical to put the stock cooling back on and RMA it. If the temps had been out of the recommended specs due to your aftermarket cooling, I would say suck it up, but that doesn't sound the case here.

jjm052 · Post by **jjm052** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 5:57 am

Cheers Shadownight,

seems like sound advice. Like I say I checked temps really often as I was concerned about putting a passive heatsink on a 6600GT, I have my 2 nexus case fans on full virtually all the time and this had been doing the job fine since I modified 3 weeks ago.
I was thinking about putting the original fan back and sending it back, which I may well try. I'm in touch with the guy who built my PC so we'll see if I can work that. If no luck with that I'll be getting the Gigabyte passive 6600GT but damn I can't afford it, worse still I'd freak if the problem was still there after!
Wish I knew someone with PCI-E so I could be sure, by testing in another system. However when I run the PC using onboard graphics there doesn't seem to be any probs.
ANYONE out there got any good news for me.....i.e a fix!!

Spod · Post by **Spod** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 7:35 am

The fact that you're now having problems with video even when the video card isn't stressed, and the nature of those problems, does suggest that the video card is damaged. If the problems only showed up under stress, extra cooling might help.

Normally, I might be tempted to blame improper installation of the aftermarket cooler or its thermal goop, leading to overheating or a short circuit. But since you've been careful, and especially since you've been monitoring temps, I reckon that a minor fault in the card, which passed testing at cooler temps, but wasn't able to cope with the higher (but well within spec) temps the passive cooler resulted in.

So it's a fair case for RMA, as the card shouldn't sustain permanent damage when exposed to temperatures of under 70°C. This assumes, of course, theat the ZM80D-HP is officially compatible with the PCIe 6600GT. Low temps are useless if it shorts something.

Edit - there's also the possibility that the GPU was cooled just fine, but the memory overheated. IIRC, the ZM80 series don't directly cool the graphics RAM, so perhaps that's the issue.

scruzbeachbum · Post by **scruzbeachbum** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 7:39 am

Here's the smoking gun:

"However when I run the PC using onboard graphics there doesn't seem to be any probs. "

It seems to me you've isolated the problem to your vid card. Join the club of folks that killed their video card by adding an aftermarket cooler.

Here's a couple of low probability things you can try:
1) uninstall your video driver. Use Driver Cleaner http://www.drivercleaner.net/ to remove the last traces of the old driver(s).

2) Try reseating your card.

jjm052 · Post by **jjm052** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 8:21 am

Thanks guys,

You've confirmed my worst fears, it seems the card is smoked. But like I say I monitored temps using both the GPU monitor and Everest, all was going swimmingly for 3 weeks?
I will try to return the card (with the stock cooler on it

) as I think I didn't burn it out, I never had any artifacts or problems when gaming before, or even in my final session of HL2, it just crashed without warning. I hadn't checked temps for 20-30 mins(as you'd expect) and without warning my system just failed so hopefully Club 3d will sort me a newun? who knows?

Gonna buy a gigabyte 6600gt passive anyway and if I get a replacement card I'll sell it, so as not to have to worry in the future. Surely the gigabyte will behave.......

Cheers again
James

Spod · Post by **Spod** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 8:38 am

The Gigabyte will still need some decent case ventilation, but it ought to work just fine passively, and perhaps the cooler is better suited to a 6600GT than the Zalman was.

jjm052 · Post by **jjm052** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:31 am

Well I would hope that the gigabyte heatpipe would be as good or better seeing as it was designed specifically for that purpose, however as I said the zalman ZM80D-HP was working a treat (with my 2 nexus case fans at 12V).
Just don't want to worry about it, nor void my warranty. Least if the gigabyte fails (I will again regularly check temps) I'll know for sure it wasn't my fault!
I wouldn't let my card go much, if any, over 70C. I know reviewers of the gigabyte card say its fine at 100C. I am a safety consious user, I want my stuff to last.
Thanks to everyone for the input.

James

jjm052 · Post by **jjm052** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 3:39 am

Right, I just noticed Spods edit on his earlier post, and it seems like the untimely demise of my card could, infact, be due to the ram overheating - not the GPU itself.

Edit - there's also the possibility that the GPU was cooled just fine, but the memory overheated. IIRC, the ZM80 series don't directly cool the graphics RAM, so perhaps that's the issue.

A interesting thought spod. The only thing I would say is that the ZM80D-HP does come with ram sinks-which, I chose not to use as the existing ones seemed better/more substantial. Also I did notice that these heatsinks did get hot to the touch, never saw it burning hot tho.
Any of you genius's got any thoughts on that, is it a possible cause or not.
I'm in the process of sending the card back (with original fan back on it), maybe I shouldn't do that, please offer your thoughts.
BTW its a Club 3D 6600gt pci-e card.
Thanks again people.

James

EDIT I see that the Gigabyte passive 6600GT (GV-N66T128VP) doesn't have any ramsinks, nor do other aftermarket passive heatsinks. However apparently Thermalright have taken some cards off the V1 compatiblity table due to insufficient memory cooling?
I'm still a bit nervy about Club 3D saying, "We think you modded this card so F&*$ OFF!" Happily there's quite a bit of dust in the original fan so it shows I used it at least

Spod · Post by **Spod** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:14 pm

If your original RAM heatsinks were better than the ones bundled with the Zalman, and the Zalman still fit over them, you made the right choice not swapping them. The ZM-80 series blocks most airflow from the RAM, so they supplied heatsinks for those cards that had no heatsinks on the ram.

It depends on the type and speed of RAM whether this would actually be an issue. GDDR3, as used in the 6600GT, is supposed to run cooler than the older RAM in use when the ZM-80 was designed. But it'll be running faster in that card, so... all I can say is it's a possible cause of failure.

I'd still RMA it. Graphics cards are supposed to be resilient to high temperatures, your wasn't, so from a common sense perspective, it's faulty. Mention your monitoring of temperature to them, it may help your case.