Is my x800XL fried?

Partizan

Hi!

I got the following problem. I happened twice. I was playing a game and then suddenly this:



First it happened in Battlefield 2, and secong in GTA as seen on the picture. If I restart the machine it's ok. Is the card fried and I should RMA it?

Regards, Partizan

OmegaRED

Do they RMA overclocked cards?

Partizan

Well, the card was overclocked for testing purposes and benchmarking only. My signature shows at which speed the card is stable. I am normally running it at stock speeds.

Regards, Partizan

Tipstaff

"Club-3D X800XL VIVO 256MB @ 450/1100 (Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer v.3)"

Which Silencer is this exactly? Is it the original VGA Silencer Rev.3, or the ATI Silencer 3? The reason I ask is that in either case you are using the wrong Silencer for that card. Hopefully you mislabeled your sig, and are using the ATI Silencer 5. If not, due to the layout of the card you might have parts of the Silencer touching parts on the video card that shouldn't be, such as the heatsink touching some capacitors in the top portion of the card nearest the bracket, or the back plate or a screw touching a resistor or raised trace on the back.

Do you have this same issue when you use the stock cooler?

Secondly, one thing to try would be to change the drivers your are using, either a different series (modded or not), or a different version to see if you get the same results. Also, although turning off FastWrites, VPU recovery, and SmartGART can be helpful, depending on your board you may need those items enabled. If they are enabled, try disabling them one at a time to see if that helps.

Question: What does the ATI Overdrive tab tell you what your GPU temp is when this happens?

Partizan

Nope, it's the original VGA Silencer v.3. But I checked the card thoroughly, so the parts of the card aren't touching anything and it worked for the past two months.

I didn't try it with the stock cooler on, but I am going to.

I am using cats 5.6 now, and it happened only with this version. I am going to install Omega 5.6 now and report back. Fastwrites are on, the other two are off at all times.

The GPU temperature was at maximum 72C (hopefully it is not to high).


Regards, Partizan

H3X4D3C1M4L

You can't RMA a card if itsb een touched with clock sped in any way, but if they don't test it for that you're lucky.

I'd chance it.

Partizan

How can they prove that the card has been overclocked?

Regards, Partizan

Sandok

Ya how can they proved it? What if you underclock as I am currently doing?

wiskerbizkit

the x800 xl has memory sinks on it stock usually, im assuming you would have to remove them for the silencer. there'd be traces of the original HSF being removed. Dunno if that voids the warranty though.

Tipstaff

Um.. actually, they don't. Only the preview boards from Sapphire did, and if memory servers that was just for the 512mb preview board. You can see HERE the card that Partizan has, and there are clearly no ramsinks.

The only way they can tell if it's been overclocked is 1) you forget to remove the replacement heatsink (DUH!), 2) there are clear signs that you got thermal paste all over the place when you replaced the old one, or if you used the Silencers you got thermal paste all over the board near the ram chips (or you forgot to thoroughly clean the ramchips of any paste), 3) the thermal paste on the GPU is not the same color as the ones the manufacturers use (replacing it with white thermal paste is a good idea.. like.. who would use that cheap junk other than the original manufacturer??), 4) you flashed the bios with one that had a higher clock rate by default, and 5) in your RMA request you said, "Well, I was trying to overclock my video card when...." (double DUH!).

I'm sure they know what a card undergoes when subjected to intense heat of certain kinds such as this happens because of this, and so on. But guess what? It doesn't matter if you overclocked the card or not. The reason is that ATI does just that with their Overdrive function, so how can they really blame you for something they already do? Just make sure the card is in the same condition physically as when you bought it (original heatsink, no ramsinks or material on them if there were none originally), and RAM the sucker.

wiskerbizkit

My BBA x800 xl 256m has them dude

ReDGuiTaR

well .. CPU and video card are overclocked so, at first, you should try to clock them to their default speed and see if you still got problem ... if not then redo all overclock step by step ...ps : you cannot blame an overclocked part to not run good even if it was running fine for months before ...

Partizan

Tipstaff that was a very educational post. And you are totally right. Don't worry, they won't know I had a silencer. Actually it should be counted as an advantage of using a silencer, because it's a lot better cooling solution as the default one.

Anyway, since I installed the Omega 5.6 I can't reproduce the problem, I even tried overclocking the card a little more. And by the way Radlinker and Atitool are no match for the Ati tray tools.

Regards, Partizan

Tipstaff

Sorry if I offended you, but I'm just trying to correct what you said. Trust me on this. I've sold over a dozen ATI X800XL cards which I got directly from ATI (they're just up the street from me), plus cards from 3rd party makers, and stock ATI X800XL cards don't come with ramsinks. This goes for both the 256 and 512mb versions. If your card has a large silver or blue heatsink with a ramplate on the back then these are usually pre-release, or preview cards (one exception is the 512mb cards which the first batch of retail cards sometimes came with the pre-release heatsinks... but these were very rare). Case in point: take a look at the review Stuart did on the ATI X800XL card HERE, and you will notice the layout of the cards cooler, and visible lack of ramsinks. Even though it was a preview the cards layout is the way a stock card comes from ATI. Partizans card was built based on the ATI reference, and as such has the same layout, and no ramsinks. I'm not disputing that your card doesn't have them, just that I'm doubting that it is infact a "Built by ATI" retail/oem stock card, or a card that might have had them put on by someone before they sold you the card. I've had suppliers look me right in the face, and tell me that the OEM card they were selling me was a BBA card, or a card that was infact used, when infact it wasn't. Other than by calling ATI up, and checking the serial number, there is no way to tell by apperance if the card is infact a BBA card.

One thing I should mention is that not all "Built by ATI" cards are actually built by ATI. Connect3D and PowerColor, for instance, build cards that are branded BBA, but they're not. ATI has a deal with these companies to build BBA branded cards for them so that they can keep up with demand from OEMs. This allows them to concentrate on their retail cards, and other products inhouse.

Sorry to be blunt, but as I've said, I was just trying to say that you assumed wrong about Partizans card, and the fact that stock ATI cards don't come with ramsinks. Here's something to consider: if the X800XL is a slower card (not just GPU but ram too), and produces less heat than the X800XT (the older card), why would ATI use ramsinks on the X800XL if it didn't need to on the X800XT, or X800XTPE in my case which runs hotter than either card? When you consider that then you can understand why I posted what I did.

H3X4D3C1M4L

ATI has ways. They're obviously not going to tell us, but there are things like BIOS's that have to be unlocked to overclock, or telltale signs like the core overheated and melted parts of it.

I'm just being paranoid probably, but its worth a try to RMA