6600 Series suffering from bad architecture?

[hundesau]

Hello,

Here in germany there are a lot of people having serious troubles with their 6600gt`s concerning overheating and graphical Errors without no reason. Troubles are reported for like every brand: Leadtek, Galaxy, Aeolus, XFX, Prolink, Albatron. Internet sellers stated that they were having the highest RMA-Rate since along time. a german site "heise.de" reported AOPEN would offer to replace malicious cards at their own expense. Thank You, AOpen, didnt ecpect that, especially since the Aioen forums was closed, but as they said due to changing the servers to asia. There had been alot of questions about this problem in their forum before it would have been closed...call it an accident . SO now my questions for discussion:

Is the problem of overheating and the spontanous errors of the 66gt widely known?

Are there already new revisions of the 66gt? Iam not sure which revisions really exist, i only know about revision A2, including cards built around week 30-40 maybe, i seen some in reviews.

So if anybody knows about this problem, give feedback Guess we all like to know how good or bad the high clocked design of the 6600 series really is and what Nvidia is doing about the low quality, they are offering right now to the midrange users.


greetz and sry for my english, hope i made myself clear .

 

[hundesau]

looks like the problem of overheating and low quality architecture with the 66gt is not a problem for u guys so far - or ur not into the whole business bur rhars ok. good luck woth ur cards, tehre are a lot of people recommending these cards, and obviously they dont know nothing bout there weakness. gl .

 

[stnicralisk]

Originally posted by: hundesau
looks like the problem of overheating and low quality architecture with the 66gt is not a problem for u guys so far - or ur not into the whole business bur rhars ok. good luck woth ur cards, tehre are a lot of people recommending these cards, and obviously they dont know nothing bout there weakness. gl .

Stop using double negatives. You are not not killing the grammar gods.

 

[imported_Computer MAn]

When Anandtech reviewed these cards they said that if you were not careful you could break the thermal paste between the core and heatsink causing high temps. Maybe this is the problem?

 

[Gamingphreek]

There is no architectural problems. It is simply a bad design for the HSF unit.

I highly doubt it is with all of those brands too as Leadtek and MSI use proprietary cooling units and not the stock units.

-Kevin

 

[Voicunebunu]

I had 2 6600gt. The first one, a xfx burned out - the computer would simply not start with it plugged in.
Then i ordered a chaintech that would overheat after a few minutes of playing.
What is happening?

 

[Pnoy02]

AGP or PCIe?

 

[Dethfrumbelo]

Bad cooling solution or maybe not enough power supplied by the slot alone.

 

[hundesau]

in chronological order:

- my grammar and spelling sux, thx u reminded me of that
- braking thermal paste...well i doubt this is the reason since the paste would have to be of very low quality, besides what does the avergae user do with his card b4 putting it inside his comp...like a lil touching all the parts and bending it like a credit card? not sure but doubt its the reason.
- the HSF design, this could be a problem indeed, if u have a very highclocked chip and give it just the average eg stupid lil stock cooler...mayb this cant work. i was always wondering that they sell these cards for 200+ and all they give u for cooling are small and noisy and crappy fans.
- Voicunebunu, thats exactly what happened to me: got 2 66gt`s. the first one would run but cause terrible graphical errors. obviously damaged in a way that i didnt know. the second one was overheating from the first day. send them back and got a 6800, which i dont really like cuz i want a small card.
- case cooling cant be the reason, and it cant be power supply too. well maybe it can, if they cards own fan and cooling is too bad, but how can they sell cards that will overheat as long as u dont keep ur case open like a reviewer or a lazy dude.

Aopen said in a statement that they were talkin to Nvidia about the current problems and that they were RMAing all bad cards and give u new card of a newer REVISION. Question is: What revision is this and what did they change exactly. Maybe just another bullshit statement trying to make the users keep their smile but iam not sure. At least worth to keep an eye on the strange things goin on with the 66gt`s and their heat problems. Maybe Nvidia just selling a low quality Revision right now and the better revisions are coming soon. i will sell the 6800 they gave me and try another 6600gt...after all it could have been bad luck. :=)

 

[RajunCajun]

This problems is not isolated to Europe. I've read several web site forums where this is a serious issue, but I've seen nothing from the general public websites related to this problem.

Several topics in the Dell Dimension Video forums find many instances where cards are overheating. In my case the new Leadtek 6600GT PCIe I installed in my new Dell 4700 worked great in 2D, but caused the PC to black out and restart within 5-10 minutes playing heavy 3D games (Far Cry, Doom3). Then the 3D screensaver started showing artifacts, and 3D games artifacted the entire screen. Called Customer Service and the person I spoke to stated immediately that the card was overheating, but couldn't give me any cure except an RMA. So yes, there are problems out there and I think the major web sites (like Anandtech) should investigate further.

From my readings people are doing "shade tree" things to get them to run. One could only get his to run right while leaving the side panel off! Others take the side panel off and have a fan blowing on the card and everything is fine! I've ordered a Vantec PCI dual cooling fan that I'll put right under the video card to cool it off (when the new one comes in).

This IS troubling. NVidia and its partners need to work on this before there is a backlash.

Dennis

 

[Cvolt]

This problem is defiantly a heat issue. Anandtech hit it on the head when they expressed concern about the board design which only utilizes two mounting holes in the board for the heat sink/fan unit.

Quote: "When all is said and done, we have to put a good part of the responsibility for the HSF mounting issues on NVIDIA. They do come up with the reference board design, and they end up placing the mounting holes for the cooling solutions on these boards."