Xfx 8800 Ultra Xxx Problem

slickric21

Just thought i'd inform people here who may be in the same boat as me.
I bought a xfx 8800 ultra xxx on monday when it arrived I was over the moon to find it was one of the new ones with the increased core speed of 685mhz (from 675), its memory is clocked at 2.3ghz.

However i have spent the last week nearly in tears to find that the 2 games I play BF2 and R6 vegas both crash ( a freeze up but with sound continuing) after a few minutes playing -everytime.
I tested drivers 158.22 158.27 160.02 160.03, at first i thought it was a problem with forcing AA or AF, then vsync, then Transparency AA then conflict with firewalls etc etc - the list continues.
After 4 formats and contiunual trial and error/ trouble shooting I finally think I found the problem,,,,,

the core speed - its just too high.

if I down clock the card to say 675mhz (its original release clocks) then I havn't had a single crash in several hours gaming.

I don't think its a cooling issue - I monitored the temps and they registered 71 idle - 80ish load on the GPU.

Maybe XFX just pushed this card too far............

Maybe the above will help any other frustrated owners in future

>GSXR<mrbusa

71C idle is freaking hot even for an ultra. Even if it is not actually the cores high temps crashing the card then the high heat of the core is making other chips on the card hot as well. All of these 8800 series cards are sucking some serious juice and if the VRM chips are over heating then you will never have a stable card.
Allot of people are pointing a fan up at the fan side of the card from the bottom of the case to combat overheating VRM chips.
Do you have any side fans blowing in on the card?
How many fans are intake and how many fans are exhaust?

Raising the fan speed of the card will also help allot. I have mine set at 100% all the time. Even though it is a GTS and not an Ultra high 30's at idle like I have is very cood.

slickric21

Hi, I have A perforated aluminium case (lots of little holes with a mesh to stop dust)

At the front under the drive bays I have x2 fans blowing in directly in line with the card (my harddrives are higher so dont obstruct)

On the side there is a case fan blowing in - mainly towards the cpu tough

At the top there is a case fan acting as exhuast

I have a rear exhaust fan also - not to mention the large exhust fan on the ocz psu.

However the air as you'd expect coming out of the card is very hot - also the gfx card is right next to my sound card inside the case (otherwise they share an IRqhannel if I move it)

do you think cooling could be it - as the temps I recorded were the same-ish when at 675 and 685 mhz ?

p.s what do you use to alter your fan speeds ?
also do you know how to set the clock speeds on these cards so it auto applies on startup?- I've been away from nvida for a few years !!!

slickric21

OK i just added another fan - in the bottom corner of the case blowing directly onto the side of the gfx card -

I seem to be idling at 63/64c now for the gfa card.

>GSXR<mrbusa

675MHz vs 685MHz is not going to show any temp difference measured with software. Usually when such a small difference in clock speeds determines stability it is do to the cards clocks be maxed or a temp issue on some of the power management chips on the card. I doubt 685MHz is your problem. If your temps were actually higher than what the factory says is safe then it would be a different story. And if you were getting artifacts instead of freezes then it would be a different story.

There is no doubt about it, these cards run hot and need good airflow and a reasonable ambient temp to function properly. You really need to raise the fan speed with software and you can also mod the BIOS if you want. I am using a program called Rivatuner to raise the fan speed and overclock the card on certain games. Because of the way these cards adjust fan speed in relation to clock speeds and temps it is harder to have multiple fan speeds for different clocks. There are links to all the guides for using Rivatuner for fan speed and overclocking your card on the main page of this site>>>
http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner&menu=8

EDIT: Have you tried the card now at the factory overclock to see if there are still issues after you added the fan?

slickric21

Hi Yes I tried things again this afternoon since adding the fan,

The same problem happened after a few minutes play on bf2 (with the standard clock of 685mhz) the game froze and 1 by 1 all the textures disappeared until just a few were left - its normal behaviour at that speed.

The temp reading at this point when i alt tabbed was 72c.

I restarted and down-clocked to 675mhz wih ntune and have been playing happily for the last 2 hours no problems at all.

This is why i don't know what to make of this problem - my system temps seem ok ... sys = 37c ,cpu = 38c ,gpu 75c after2 hours gaming on a warm humid summers day.

i'll next have a bash with rivatuner and see if I can crank up the fan speed, but I've just got a feeling its driver related

Lelisevis

You know what, im gonna stick my neck out here and risk angering a lot of people but that powersupply is a pile of low quality crap. I was having very similar issues with the system in my sig, took out a few hard-drives and hey presto 1 month of stabilty before the psu gave up the ghost. Before I end up upsetting too many people I have a lot of respect for OCZ and it's support staff but powersupplies are a great hidden disaster for them as far as im concerned, one of the reasons my fingers are crossed that pcp&c can produce some decent products for them.

Try running the bare minimum you can get by with and see if it helps things, for me even overclocking the cpu to 3ghz resulted in low/unstable voltage warnings flashing and beeping like crazy.

tastyweat

I had a similar problem with one of my XFX 8800GTX XXX Editions... artifacting & locking up in games... downclocked it and still had artifacting - the memory on the card was screwed - still haven't got a bloody refund/replacement card!

slickric21

Yeah thanks for the suggestions about the power, I disconnected x1 harddisk x1 cdrom and removed sound card and tv tuner card.
Tested the games at stock speed (685mhz) and they both locked up fully after a few minutes so i don't really think its power...

Interestingly enough was able to ctrl+alt+del out one time and noticed there was an error message on screen about "nv4_disp.dll" had malfunctioned and needed to close........ which further adds weight to my belief this is driver related.

Now what i cant figure out though is if its a driver issue why would the clock speeds affect the workings of the driver ?? because i can safley say after a few days now and many hours on both BF2 7 R6:vegas if I down clock to 675mhz I haven't had a single issue.

If it was heat related would I see artifacts and/or stuttering first ? rather than just a total lock up with gradual disappearing of textures - which is what heppens every time

i've opened a support ticket with XFX so i'll see what they say, won't hold my breath though.

kris23

try this list of fixes:

Heat: buy Arctic silver 5 or Ceramique and use that on the GPU and memory
Driver: does DHZer0Point work with the 8800 cards if so try them
Card Quality: if all mentioned above doesnt work, RMA it for a new one

Necrosis

I vote for doing a RMA...alot of money not to get what it says it should do.

Lelisevis

I'd second that, if it's degrading at this early stage then it's not worth taking it apart. Get it sent back or you'll never have true peace of mind.

slickric21

Well I got a response from XFX "try downclocking the memory speed, not he core speed"

I just had to chuckle at that - so not expecting much joy there.

In the mean time I've really gone to town on the cooling for this Card,
Now I have x2 fans installed bottom/rear of case blowing directly onto the GFX cooling fan. (I have an EZ cool alpine case - which has all these holes in it so the fans can draw air through the side of the case)
The i did some jigging and have fixed a fan to blow directly across the bottom of the card (which is face up if you get me) - this fan has an unresticted air flow from the 2 front case fans - so blows cool air across the card then out through a pci slot vent.

So in total there is 3x extra fans cooling the card, add to this my 2x front fans,1x side fan, 1 x rear exhaust, 1x top exhaust, + PSU exhaust. So i've done all I can to cool the card and case.

The result was promising at first I played BF2 for 1 hour at stock with no problems, however Dirt promptly froze after 3 or so mins.
3d mark froze on the canyon test (but I ran it x7 times straight after reboot and it was fine ???).

So all in all major inprovement but as Lelisevis said i'm gonna RMA it just for peace of mind,

Let you know how I get on.

slickric21

Well card was RMA'd and arrived with them on Weds pm.
By 10:30 am Thurs i'd checked the status of the RMA online and found it had been rejected - No Fault Found.
Nice to see they'd really investigated my problem thoroughly !!!!!

Upon phoning the store (Scan,uk) I was told it had passed 3dmark for 30mins and a test on Lost planet DX10. All they told me about their test machine was that it "has an open sided case to combat overheating". When I tried to get information re Motherboard used, Cpu Drivers etc etc - just to see if it contained any clues as to it freezing on my machine I was told abruptly "thats not the issue you just need to pay us £30 + VAT so we can ship the card back to you" They just didn't want to know.

Nice little money spinner for them though.

So the fact they couldn't find a fault with the case open implie to me that heat could be the issue - although i've taken pretty hefty measures to ensure the cards cooling and good airflow in my case.

Oh finally I had another response from XFX tech support after a 10 day wait....................... "try disabling your antivirus". They obviously have a set script and each time you send them a support ticket they chose one of their fabulously obvious statements for a reply.

All in all unmitigated disaster. You live and learn though

Flash Freeze

I bought mine from a Mortar and Brick shop (8800 Ultra xXx.) The first one used to produce artifacts. Not too many but still visible. The kind you start to see when you OC the core too much.

So on the next day I returned it to the B&M shop and got the other one they had in stock. This one doesnt artifact but just like slickric21's card locks up when temps go high. In my case when core temp exceeds 81-82C as indicated in Rivatuners hardware monitoring history.

So I am guessing overheating is the problem. If I could mount my MCW60 on this baby I could have easily verified my theroy. But for now I have to make do with lowering the clocks through RT and putting the fan at 100% till I get my MCW60 G80 mounting fix or an EK8800 full cover. Hopefully I can get over 700MHz on core when the blocks do arrive.

slickric21

I've got mine down to 57 idle and 75 load now with x3 120mm fans blowing onto it, however it still freezes at 685mhz.
Lowering to 675mhz and its much more stable, but as posted somewhere above the temps are the same.

My guess is its the GDDR3 that isn't good enought to cope with this speed.

Can you post some links as to where you can get he cooling kit from please Flash Freeze,
i'd be interested in one.

cheers

I'm doing a new bulid based on e6850 cpu and Asus striker extreme mobo today, so maybe that will improve the freezing situation.

Gamblez

what program do you guys use to check temperatures of cpu parts?

i remember seeing my amd 3800+ being idle @ 70c, is that normal?

is the only result of artifacts heat of the video card?

slickric21

I use rivatuner / ntune to monitor GPU temps.
Then for cpu and internal case/"system" I use Abit Guru - but you can only use this with Abit Motherboards

Flash Freeze

Those were watercooling blocks I was refering to slickric. You need to have other watercooling parts (pump, tube, radiator, etc.) ready before using them.
Link
Link

Wolfzz

I have the exact same problem so how did you down clock it with a bios flash? Cheers

Zardon

ok I havent read every post in this thread, however I will pass on some info from my own experiences with the very same card you have.

The card runs exceptionally hot, and ive been in talks with XFX about it this week, I have noticed temps 15c higher than the GTX I last had. (at around 78c idle).

And this is in a thermaltake armor rev 2 with 2x120mm front intake fans, 1 x 120mm rear exhaust fan, 1 92mm rear exhaust fan, 1x 92 top exhaust fan, 1x120mm fan over 8 DDR2 fully buffered ram modules and a 25cm side panel fan.

Here is what I did.

Removed the cooler, cleaned gunk off core, replaced with arctic silver (be careful if you use this as its conductive, use more than you would on a CPU but not too much), then mounted 2 x 120mm fans inside the case right across the ultra (not laying on top of it, but rather pointing over the PCB at a 45 degree angle to help cool the mosfets around the card). I then downloaded the latest rivatuner 2.02 and went into the fan control and configured it to run 100% at all times. This was a bit of an ordeal on vista 64 bit as it needed to turn off driver WHQL certification and gave a few warnings about using a beta driver. However it did work.

Now the temps are around 65c idle and 75c load (im talking diode here not the GPU reading which is a good 10c lower than this), which while still high is well within tolerances and now only 3-4c higher than the GTX I had.

It is a lot of work to cool these boards and I feel they have indeed pushed this particular card a little high, i have mentioned it to them and reported my findings.

This is my particular problem, getting adequate cooling with 2x5365 1333fsb Xeons, 16 GIG of fully buffered DDR2 (each taking 0.5 volts per stick = more heat) as well as 5 terrabytes of HD storage across 8 sata hard drives. I have fans all over the case pushing some serious CFM yet ive bought expensive low noise fans, so all combined it is still quieter than my xbox 360.

My suggestions? get rivatuner installed, crank the fan to 100% at all times, and get a few vantec stealth fans and get the PCB as cool as you can (make sure you have a side case fan as well to circulate cool air in from the side as well as front intake). Wiring/airflow is critical.

Zardon

get everest engineer or ultimate edition, you have readouts for everything, from diode to ambient, HD temps, GPU memory as well as CPUs. It also can run on the desktop transparently or in the vista dock. only app you ever need for temperature monitoring.

slickric21