Ugh video card I just bought overheats.

[Shawn]

I just bought a Sapphire Radeon X800GTO from newegg and it overheats. From what I've read these cards work fine with the full 16 pipelines and many of them even come from newegg with the extra 4 pipelines unlocked. So I decided to flash the card but now it crashes when displaying 3d animation.

I have the temps showing on my task bar and when I click Show 3D View in ATITool the temps keep rising until they reach 88C then the screen garbles and the computer crashes. Even at idle just sitting at the desktop it's at 58C! Is this card defective? Should I RMA it or just buy a better cooler? I'd like to try to reflash it to only use the 12 pipelines but I didn't backup the old bios.

 

[Ika]

Ouch, that doesn't look normal. Make sure the cooler is seated correctly on the video card. If you can't see a problem, RMA.

 

[Rockhound1]

What were the temperature readings before you flashed the card?

 

[Shawn]

I'm not sure. The first thing I did when I got the card was to unlock the pipeline to 16. Others on newegg say that the stock cooler sucks and have been seeing temps of 47C at idle and 80C at full load. This is after unlocking the card too. People have also overclocked this card with no problems but have said that they needed to upgrade the HSF to overclock much higher than stock. So did I just get a crappy core?

 

[BassBomb]

what is your case like?

 

[jiffylube1024]

You could try getting aftermarket cooling (Zalman VF900 or ATI Silencer 5).

 

[Shawn]

The case has plenty of ventilation. Anyway I just RMAed it. I hope I get a better one.

 

[Shawn]

Here are the reviews for this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16814102042

Some people are reporting really high temperatures and some much lower.

For example:

Pros: i overclocked this card from 390/490 to 535/585. that is an extremly good overclock. the mem on this card is samsung brand, so its easily overclockable. I can run bf2 at med-high settings, with a 3dmark05 score of 4800. that is good... the r480 core was meant for x850 series, so the core speed should be able to take it way beyond the standard 400mhz

Cons: you have to flash the bios to unlock 16 pixel pipelines, which will require a cd burner due to the large bios file size... oh, and the stock cooler is not that good. i was running it at 80 degrees C, not very safe. so i had to buy an vf900 from zalman. my temps are at 45 now... dropped it quite a lot, so its not a big deal. i dont have a cd burner so i cant unlock the 16 pipes, but when i do ive heard of this gettin up to 5500+ on the 3dmark05... SO YOU NEED TO OVERCLOCK IT!!!

Pros: 480 gpu,256mb, 256 bit, 400 core, 980 mem and I unlocked it to 16 pipes. Runs hot though idle temp was 50-55 , full load 70-85 with the stock heatsink. Bought the zalman vf700 idle 25-35 full load 40-45. OCed the card to x850 specs(520 core 1080 mem), full load 51!!!! This card with the zalman cooler is the best thing since sliced bread. It brought down my cards temps by 40 percent.

Cons: High heat with stock heatsink/fan.

and then:

Pros: Great card for the money, runs everything I've thrown at it so far including WoW and FFXI. Came with 16 pipelines unlocked out of the box according to ATI Tool. Good card for great mean, what more can ya ask for? Overclocks easily aswell. I run it on a 350 PSU no problem, no heating issues either, under load hits around 45-48c, runs cool with no load at around 38c.

Cons: None so far, only had it for a few weeks but I love it. People have told me to get Nvidia but this is making me happy so far.

Pros: great card. I benchmarked it in mark03 and it scored 9500. I flashed the bios to 16 pipelines and now it scores a 10500 with no overclocking. In comparison the 6800gt I had scored a 12000 overclocked. I think I can match or beat that once I overclock. Newegg shipped out quick and it got here a day early. Great value card!

Cons: Haven't really found any. Stock cooling seems to be adequate even with the unlocked pipelines.

So, should I just order the vf900 and see if that fixes the problem? I'm sure it will, but I didn't want to spend any more money.

 

[Elfear]

Are flashed cards covered under Newegg's RMA policy?

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: Elfear
Are flashed cards covered under Newegg's RMA policy?

They have no way of knowing if the card was unlocked from the factory or not since some were.