Weird leadtek 6800 agp, video corruption, lockups, sometimes :)

[Kogan]

UPDATE! My card works great! All it needed is to have thermal-paste re-applied to the heatsink/chips. Try this yourself if you have an overheating 6800 that's giving you problems. And for the record, re-applying thermal paste to a video card DOES NOT VOID Newegg's warranty.

Original message below:

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Alright, I got the refurbished leadtek agp 6800 from newegg for $150. If I just had problems with it, I wouldn't be posting this and would just RMA it, but it seems to be working perfectly sometimes.

I've got an nforce2 Epox 8rdai with a 2.2ghz XP processor and this 6800 was supposed to be the upgrade from my old geforce4.

Alright, my first experience with it was that it loaded into windows fine, but showed some slight graphic corruption in 3d apps. The longer I played around with it, the more corruption it displayed until it finally locked up my system. I decided then that it was a hunk of junk and asked for an RMA from newegg.

Then I was thinking my AGP slot was kind of dusty, so I blew the dust out from around it with some canned air and put the 6800 back in.

This time, it had lots of graphics corruption during the bios boot screen and would lock up my system before loading windows. I figured I broke it even worse somehow and put it back in it's box.

But then about an hour ago I got bored and wanted to see some of that directx9 stuff again, so I put it back in. And what do you know, it has been working almost perfectly since then. No graphics corruption and it seem to be working very fast.

So I tried the 6800 pipe unlocking thing with rivatuner. Easy to do, saved it, rebooted and then the card was 10% slower in 3d apps! No graphics corruption, it was just a lot slower. Is that normal? I disabled that of course.

Then I figured I'd try the overclocking with coolbits. Too bad it won't let me though If I move the memory/clock up or even down from their defaults, the card always fails the test. No big deal.. I'm not a big graphics card overclocker anyway. But does this mean my card is a failure? (wait don't answer that, I know it is )

That's how it has gone so far. At this rate, there's still a 95% chance I'll return it. I'll take it out and put it back in the system a few more times and see if it gives me any trouble. I'll probably leave it running Nalu 6800 overnight and see if her face is corrupt in the morning.

Oh, and that 3dmark05 demo with the airship and dragon thing was pretty damn cool. Am I only supposed to be getting 1-2fps during that scene? If so, it makes me want to upgrade my video card again - it would look nice running along at at least 25fps.

I'll probably update if something else weird happens.. but as of now, I don't really like Leadtek refurbs. And what's up with that heatsink? It's like a brick and probably cools like one, too. If you get this card, you definitely need to invest in an aftermarket cooler..

 

[Kogan]

Alright, here's the kicker. I took the heatsink off of the leadtek card and the white elmer's glue-looking paste was hardly applied to the top two ram chips and was not making contact with the heatsink. The grey gpu paste was also sort of brittle.

I cleaned all of that off, put a good amount of artic silver on there. Put the heatsink on, took it off again to make sure they were making contact, put it on again and screwed it back together.

Ever since then, it has been running fine..

Do you think the card is good to go, or should I still return it? I'll probably keep it over the weekend for testing and email newegg and leadtek about it.

One other thing though, it won't let me change the memory frequency in coolbits - 700 stock, if I move it to 701 or 699, it fails the test - does that mean my memory is still bad, or is there just something screwy with coolbits/my drivers?

Re-seated the card, tested it in another computer - No artifacts or problems at all for at least 10 hours now...

 

[blckgrffn]

Now you can't return it really... to newegg I suppose, but in Leadteks eyes you just obviously voided the warranty...

 

[Kogan]

I knew someone would say that But what use is a video card if it's heatsink doesn't touch the chips?

Still working great so far. I've been stressing it as much as possible to see if it will be OK. I need to download that BF2 demo now..

 

[Diogenes2]

Have you tried the " test for optimal " option in cool bits?


The fail on 699 doesn't sound right.. Most of these cards have 2.2ns RAM, which should be good for 900+

 

[Gamingphreek]

You cannot return your card. You voided the warranty by unlocking the pipes, then you tried OCing, then you removed the stock HSF and added a foreign substance (even though AS is probably better than what was on there). Returning is not an option.

YOu just dont have a card that OCs well.

What you should have done is return it for a new one right from the get-go instead of messing around with it yourself, now your stuck with it.

-Kevin

 

[Kogan]

Alright, no more replies about me returning the card or not because I really don't give a damn what you think. It's like trying to tell me I can't return my processor because I put arctic silver on it - I know what the hell I'm doing and know if something I did could possibly damage the video card. If I think it's bad by monday, I'm returning it and getting the refund/replacement I believe I rightfully deserve.

I have no desire to overclock the card since it's about 20x faster than my previous card. I also ran geforce4's, 3's, and 2's at stock settings for several years - I'm really not a big video card overclocker and was only trying it to begin with to test the card's stability (at which point it failed at any memory speed).

For some reason now, coolbits works and will let me change the memory frequency and is passing all of it's tests. The longer it runs in my system, the more it likes it. (it must have overherd me talking about returning it)

The heatsink doesn't seem so bad now, too. It's just got a puny little fan and a lot of flat area with no fins. It gets to the point of burning you when it's running 3d apps, but cools down quickly when switching to 2d.

It's still running great so far. No corruption or lockups, and I've ran nalu all day.

My prediction right now is that there's a 95% chance I'll keep it (yeah, my old prediction was pretty bad).

And if I get anymore ass-wipes posting, I'll just quit posting here and you'll regret it for your entire life because you'll never know what happened to the hunk of hot doo-doo video card

 

[Gamingphreek]

Alright, no more replies about me returning the card or not because I really don't give a damn what you think. It's like trying to tell me I can't return my processor because I put arctic silver on it - I know what the hell I'm doing and know if something I did could possibly damage the video card. If I think it's bad by monday, I'm returning it and getting the refund/replacement I believe I rightfully deserve.

You know this really is a tragedy. The card you will not work faster than advertised or what you payed for. I would be mad too but sh!t happens, you just were unlucky. I would have thought a person posting here since 2000 would have a better attitude. It doesn't matter if you dont care what we think. Returning a card after Voiding the warranty is illegal! No one gives a sh!t if you think you know what your doing, i know exactly what im doing yet i still make mistakes. So dont even give us a lecture on that; ill guarantee you someone will report this thread if you keep that attitude.

If it is so hot it is burning is a good thing. If that GPU is running full load and the HS isn't hot it isn't making proper contact and is cooking the processor because heat isn't being dissipated properly.

As for OCing, you can manually set your clock speeds to whatever you like without having to run test in Riva Tuner. I set my 5900XT (MSI) to 450 850 (5950U speeds) and it ran, but i had some minor artifacting in some games, and plus i didn't want to risk anything. I cant remember where it is since i haven't used Riva Tuner in a while. But if you feel the urge to really increase the clocks Riva Tuner will let you.

-Kevin

 

[Kogan]

I have no idea what kind of ass hole you are, but you are obviously a huge one I have made absolutely no mention of returning the card because it does not overclock or unlock - Did you just make that up yourself? The only reason I filed for an RMA is because it gave me massive video artifacts at stock speeds.

And for the non-asses out there, I'd like to report that the card has been working flawlessly since I've gotten it and have decided not to RMA it. I even emailed Newegg and told them I no longer need the RMA and asked them if removing the heatsink voided their warranty. They replied with:

Dear Thomas,

Thank you for contacting Newegg.

We are glad to hear that you will not need to return this product.
Simply disregard the RMA; it will automatically void after two weeks. We
certainly appreciate the heads up.

Please kindly note, any kind of physical damage will automatically void
the product warranty. If replacement heatsink caused physical damage,
we will not offer any RMA service. Otherwise, you can still obtain
warranty service from us within warranty period.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to let
us know. We will be more than happy to assit you.

Thank you,
Lex

The card still runs too hot for my liking, so I'm either going to try to trade it for a 6600gt (or similar cooler card), or just buy a better cooler for it in a few weeks.