What makes a video card die?

[imported_dorian]

I had a Prolink 6600GT, which died after 9 months of use.. Now I have a BFG 7800GS on the way, and I was wondering: why did my 6600GT die?
Was it bad luck? Bad brand? Or is something wrong with my system?

I want to make sure my 7800GS doesn't die too.. I know it has lifetime warranty (against 6 month warranty from Prolink), but I'm outside the US, so it would be expensive to send it there, then pay to have it sent back.. anyway, if they put lifetime warranty on their products, it's because they know that most of their products will never have problems, right?

 

[conlan]

Heat is the #1 killer of anything electronic. Make sure you have plenty of case ventilation and monitor your system (board, cpu, vga) temps at idle and under load. Sometimes quality, undervoltage and just plain 'ol bad luck comes into play, but i find it's usually heat and/or abuse thats the culprit.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Yep, heat.

They put mediocre coolers on them to save money. Whenever I get a card I'm keeping long term, I put something like an Arctic Cooling Silencer (or Accelero) on it -- cuts noise to virtually zero and cools much better.

 

[imported_dorian]

When my 6600GT died, I talked to other Prolink 6600GT owners and they all confirmed that their cooler sucks. The heatsink barely touches the GPU and doesn't get even close to the memories. Could very well had been heat.. my friend has an eVGA 6600GT, his ventilation is worse than mine and it's there for almost 2 years, overclocked..

I have some Arctic Silver 5 laying around, can it be put on video cards?

 

[conlan]

Originally posted by: dorian
When my 6600GT died, I talked to other Prolink 6600GT owners and they all confirmed that their cooler sucks. The heatsink barely touches the GPU and doesn't get even close to the memories. Could very well had been heat.. my friend has an eVGA 6600GT, his ventilation is worse than mine and it's there for almost 2 years, overclocked..

I have some Arctic Silver 5 laying around, can it be put on video cards?

Yup, just don't put on a ton, a little goes a long way. AS application instructions and i'd replace your VGA cooler while your at it.

 

[happy medium]

Overclocking and playing F.E.A.R. or Oblivion at max detail.

 

[imported_dorian]

There's no aftermarket cooler for 7800GS as far as I know.. will put AS5 when it arrives.

 

[happy medium]

Get a BFG 7800gs. My 7800 been overclocked allmost to the max for about a year never gets hot. Never had a problem.

 

[conlan]

Originally posted by: dorian
There's no aftermarket cooler for 7800GS as far as I know.. will put AS5 when it arrives.

I wouldn't remove the cooler just to apply AS5, the risk/reward ratio is way to small. Im sure there are coolers out there that will fit a 7800GS. Try Arctic cooling, Thermaltake and Zalman sites for a start.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Overvolting via modded firmware does the trick nicely.

 

[imported_dorian]

I checked Zalman's site, nothing for the 7800GS. Will check the others, but I don't plan to change the cooler. In fact, I probably won't put AS5 on it..
I'm convinced that my 6600GT died because Prolink sucks.. truth be told, I never checked its temps at full load. It idled at 51 °C.. nVidia control pannel couldn't keep a record of its temperature, nor could Everest and Asus Probe.
It wasn't overclocked, but now I remember that it died weeks after I started playing Oblivion.. it sure pushed poor 6600GT to its limits.
Can a demanding game damage a video card? If it's not overclocked and temps are ok, all that will happen is low fps, right?

 

[Stumps]

the cooler that comes with the BFG 7800GS OC is really good, I wouldn't worry about replacing it....just be careful when removing and applying AS5.

I'm using the stock cooler on the BFG 7800GS in my P4 setup and it's currently running at 550Mhz core (up from 400) and 1350Mhz mem (up from 1250) and it rarely gets above 55C at full load.

 

[potato28]

Originally posted by: dorian
I checked Zalman's site, nothing for the 7800GS. Will check the others, but I don't plan to change the cooler. In fact, I probably won't put AS5 on it..
I'm convinced that my 6600GT died because Prolink sucks.. truth be told, I never checked its temps at full load. It idled at 51 °C.. nVidia control pannel couldn't keep a record of its temperature, nor could Everest and Asus Probe.
It wasn't overclocked, but now I remember that it died weeks after I started playing Oblivion.. it sure pushed poor 6600GT to its limits.
Can a demanding game damage a video card? If it's not overclocked and temps are ok, all that will happen is low fps, right?

Right. I had my 6600gt's RAM die from Oblivion. Maybe you sohuld look into the airflow in your case, could help with keeping your pc parts run their full course.

 

[imported_dorian]

Aye, gonna keep a close eye on the 7800GS temps. My PC is on a different case now, there are two 80mm fans blowing right below the video card. I believe this is gonna help, since the VGA cooler will get fresh air..

 

[40sTheme]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Overvolting via modded firmware does the trick nicely.

yay for blistered memory