8800GT crash/lockup issue

[spitz10]

HUUUUGE update for anyone still around:

I finally took my card out and discovered that indeed, the screws on the back of the card were loose. Tightened em up and voila, load temps in CS:S now dont get any higher than 50. Thanks DarkRogue and everyone else who helped me out with this.

Guess I wont need to send in for the RMA now. Also, although I dont regret my decision for buying this card, ECS customer service has been TERRRRRRRRRIBLE so far. I called this morning to get my RMA number, and it goes to an ANSWERING MACHINE, saying to leave your number so they can call you back when they get around to it. Needess to say, it has been about 5 hours now, and no response.

 

[JK949]

Easy answer. Heat, heat and more heat. I have 2 stock GT's in sli. They run HOT, period.
If you can't get a refund then look into spot cooling with something like the Antec model that
mounts to your motherboard. They are only $19 to $24 and highly flexible.
It will increase the noise factor but allow you to go on gaming.

 

[DarkRogue]

Originally posted by: spitz10
HUUUUGE update for anyone still around:

I finally took my card out and discovered that indeed, the screws on the back of the card were loose. Tightened em up and voila, load temps in CS:S now dont get any higher than 50. Thanks DarkRogue and everyone else who helped me out with this.

Guess I wont need to send in for the RMA now. Also, although I dont regret my decision for buying this card, ECS customer service has been TERRRRRRRRRIBLE so far. I called this morning to get my RMA number, and it goes to an ANSWERING MACHINE, saying to leave your number so they can call you back when they get around to it. Needess to say, it has been about 5 hours now, and no response.

Glad it worked out, those were suspiciously high temps with an amazing heatsink. It's pretty silly/stupid of ECS to sell something like that (Hello, QC?) At least nothing was broken, other people have bought the ECS card only to find out bits of plastic mounting from the Accelero had broken off in the shipping package.

As for ECS customer service, that's pretty bad, although most companies are generally terrible to begin with. Newegg's CS is years ahead of everyone else's. I think I can one-up that though. Couple years ago a friend had an issue with his PC, so he called the company up and got placed on hold. So he held...and held... and held..

2 hours later, he decided to call back... got the machine telling him to call back during Office Hours.. this was on a Friday evening. Poor guy would've been on hold the entire weekend if he didn't call back lol.

 

[spitz10]

Just thought I would wrap this whole thread up with one last update:

Last few days of playing games has given absolutely no errors, plus I am now overclocked to 710/990 (havent even tried pushing it any further, that was just an arbitrary bump). Card seems rock solid and of course essentially silent, even with the turbo module. Temps at load reach a MAXIMUM of 52 degress, and hover right at 50 most of the time. I cant stop alt-tabbing to look at my temps at this level after seeing them at 90ish for so long. Who would have thought barely tightening a few screws would lead to 40 degree temp drops? Lol, I guess only DarkRogue.....

With that said, ECS support still blows as I have still not received a call. Fortunately I am obviously not RMAing now, and I am sure I could be more persistent with emails and phone calls, but regardless, their CS seems quite crappy so far. Knock on wood, but the card itself seems great, obviously came with an awesome cooler, and has a great price tag, but I would be cautious of anything from them b/c of their CS.

Thanks to all who helped and remember, keep those screws tight!!