My kids MSI NX6600GT-VTD128 fan is fried. No OC ever.

[HomeAppraiser]

Last April I got my son an HP Pavilion a850e AMD64 3000+ on Build to Order special.

After researching I decided on an MSI 6600GT to fill the 8x AGP slot, which I purchased last June for $186 minus a $20 rebate. Worked fine, quiet fan and handled all games up to Star Wars Battlefront 2 fine.

Last week when my youngest was playing SWBF2 I noticed black lines and triangles shooting from the centerpoint of the screen. I guess you would call it artifacting, anyway I figured the card was hot and shut down the computer.

Boy was it ever hot. The fan was hanging at an angle off the card. pic1 pic2 pic3

You can see the burn marks on the fan. There was some dust in the heat sink slots, but none at the fan base. The inside of the PC case was also dust free, must have all gotten sucked into the video card. I never overclocked the card.

So what now? Will MSI replace the fan after 9 months of use? Will they give me a new card under their one year warranty? If not can I replace just the fan or will the entire heat sink need to go?

 

[dug777]

I would hope that was all ocovered by the warranty...

 

[JBT]

I'f you never oced use your warrenty. If for some reason MSI doesn't let you return it just grab an after market cooler and you should be good to go.

 

[HomeAppraiser]

I never had to RMA anything before, and after waiting six months for my $20 rebate I am leary of sending it back to MSI. Will they just slap a new heatsink/fan on and send it back, test it first, or send me someone elses refurbed card? I see a form fill RMA page at their site, I'll try that first. Anyone have any warranty experience with MSI or RMAing a card after 9 months?

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: HomeAppraiser
I never had to RMA anything before, and after waiting six months for my $20 rebate I am leary of sending it back to MSI. Will they just slap a new heatsink/fan on and send it back, test it first, or send me someone elses refurbed card? I see a form fill RMA page at their site, I'll try that first. Anyone have any warranty experience with MSI or RMAing a card after 9 months?

usually a refurb card.

 

[Gstanfor]

RMA it, then sell it secondhand, get a better brand. I can't stand MSI and I can't believe Anandtech talked up their motherboards a few years back. They are very nearly the new PC Chips. You name the fault I've seen it with MSI products and not just once or twice either... Even XFX would be preferable.

 

[orangat]

RMA for sure. Thats what you paid for - 1 yr warranty since you didn't oc or anything.

Did the fan fail to spin? I think the core is fried is the fan got to be blackish and warped.

 

[HomeAppraiser]

The fan was hanging at an odd angle not spinning (pic1). The fan was so quiet we never knew it stopped. The thing is I bought MSI BECAUSE of all the good reviews on the eleven blade fan and huge copper heatsink. Even FiringSquad.com ranked it number two behind BFG and a head of EVGA! EDIT for bold.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Every brand has manufacturing defects. That's life.

If you bought from newegg.com you might be able to RMA through them instead of MSI, and you'll have a replacement in under a week. If not, RMAs are generally much faster than rebates.

 

[HomeAppraiser]

Yes, I did buy it through Newegg.com I can't find the original listing, but I may be able to dig up the invoice or shipping label.

I cleaned off the dust for sending.

 

[Bull Dog]

Go into your order history. You'll find it there.

 

[moonboy403]

from what i've read, it seems like the cooler on the 6600gt is really weak (especially for msi model)

most of the fried/broken fan came from msi

 

[HomeAppraiser]

Invoice obtained from the newegg site. Thanks. So if I want to keep the replacement card, what can I do to keep this from happening again?

 

[moonboy403]

change brand to evga or bfg...

if you didn't oc and the fan still fried by itself, then there's nothing much you can do about it

but next time, you should switch to a more reputable brand such as evga which offers a lifetime warranty on most of their product

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: moonboy403
from what i've read, it seems like the cooler on the 6600gt is really weak (especially for msi model)

most of the fried/broken fan came from msi

Not at all. Most brands don't have a problem. MSi and XFX seem to be the exception. Early on there was a potential issue with the mounting mechanism using only 2 retaining pins and being capable of crushing the edge of the GPU, but I believe later revisions have corrected this (I don't advise people to handle video cards by the heatsink/fan unit in the first place).