BFG 6800GT OC Runs too hot..

[draygen]

Hello all,

I recently upgraded to a BFG 6800GT OC and so far I love the thing ...

I have one major issue ... The card idles at 64c.. and under a load it can jump all the way to 85-90C which obviously is waaay too hot.

The card is stock, i have not attempted to overclock it, or modify in any way.. The adjacent PCI slot is free so there is enough room for the two little fans to get airflow.

I put a house fan on the side of my case and it lowered the temp to about 59c idle and it still goes to about 82-85c under a load. I've noticed artifacts in Battlefield 2 and Final Fantasy XI.

Anyone have any suggestions other then returning the card? I've noticed most people are reporting much lower temps .. but overheating is a common problem with this card..

*edit* not sure if it matters, but my machine specs are:

Athlon XP 2700
Generic 400WATT PSU
1GB PC2700
ASUS A7N8X (Dual channel ram rocks!)

Thanks!

Draygen

[Rytr]

Contact BFG support and see what they suggest. IMO, your heatsink is not properly contacting the gpu and/or memory. If you fix the problem you might void your warranty. Although you could check for loose mounting screws as just a couple of loose screws could cause inadequate contact causing heat to build up.

[draygen]

Thanks for the reply ..I think you are correct about the poor contact with the heatsink...

I took my card out and took a look at the heatsink, i can see a gap between the memory and the thermal pads .. I guess i'll be voiding my warranty rather then waiting weeks to get a replacement card.

[hazindu]

Actually, those temps are quite normal for a 6800gt.

[rewt]

Yeah but he said it is artifacting so something is not right. I actually took my heatsink off and put some AS5 on the core and memory it seems to work ok. One things for sure, those damn thermal pads are a mess..

[j0j081]

Do the wise thing and invest $20 in some better cooling. I was hitting those temps to before buying my Zalman. Now it's great. 85 and up seems to be where the instability begins although its not rare your card gets that high as stated.

[draygen]

The saga continues.. :-/

I removed the stock heatsink, applied a bit of Artic Silver to the core / each memory chip ..I saw a minor reduction in heat, about 2-3c both idle and under a load.. The card still artifacts/flickers spikes out of polygons.

Honestly I do not think its a heat issue now .. Because I ended up returning the card and got an exact exchange. It runs at exactly the same temperature and still artifacts/flickers spikes.

I ended up calling BFG Tech support, and after having me check the voltages in the BIOS and various other things, he deteremed its because my card is running on IRQ 19 (virtual IRQ) rather then recommended IRQ 11.. I personally think this is a strange diagnosis, since i've never had any issues with IRQ's since ....what, windows 3.1 / maybe 95?? But basically .. He recommended I force a HAL (hardware abstract layer) during installation of Windows... as its the only way I can change the IRQ. I'm doubtful this will fix the issue but I'm going to try it with one of my old HDDs..

I also searched the web, and found that BFG seems to tell everyone that their issue is because the card isnt running on IRQ 11 , or because its running on any IRQ over 15..

I'm so close to returning it and buying an X800 (i dont really want an ATI, havent owned one since the TNT)....

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

[Cinema4DXL]

hmm i doubt its IRQ because mine runs on IRQ 19 and ive had this card since last auguest so almost a year now
and its always ran on IRQ 19 for as long asi can remember

[draygen]

I agree.. I doubt its an IRQ issue .. We'll see , i'm going to re-install windows tonight after work on a test hard drive .. and PRAY it works ,if it doesnt i'll find something else to try, because i shall not give up, this card is SICK and i would like to keep it!!! =) I am persistent.

[loafer87gt]

Your experience sounds quite familiar. BFG may have a lifetime warranty - but their support sucks donkey balls. I have had two 6800 GT cards with the new Twin Fan LED cooler, and both of them were running so hot that they were causing my system to severely instable. My first call to them resulted in me being told that my system either has insufficient ventilation or that my ambient room temperature must be too high. Well, my Antec case has very good ventilation, and when I was having the problems it was January up here in Canada and my apartment was quite cool. During further calls I was told that my Enermax 650 EPS power supply was insufficient, despite having 36A on the 12V rail. I was then told to manually change a number of IRQ's in my system which totally fubar'd things, causing me to lose all my USB functions and necesitating a complete windows reinstall. At this point, I took back my card to the shop I purchased it from, and lo and behold, they experienced the same problems as I was having in a totally different system. So they gave me a second card, and I was very upset to find upon installing the card that I was having the same seemingly heat related lockups. At this point I called BFG and told them that I wanted a replacement cooler with the reference fan design. I was told to send the card back, at my own expense BTW, and that they would bench test the card and perform any necessary repairs to it. Turn around time for them to recieve the card, test it, and resend it back to me would have been around 1 month. I asked if was possible to give them my CC information and have them send out a second card as this was my primary video card for my workstation, but they said that this is against their policies. In the end, I said screw it, and bought an aftermarket Zalman VF700 CU cooler and it reduced my temps from 75-80 degrees at idle down to 50, and my load temps dropped from 110+ down to high 80s. I haven't had any crashes since, but now my warranty is nullified.

So yeah, they have a lifetime warranty, but their service, tech support, and policies still suck hard. This will be the last BFG product I purchase.

[j0j081]

I still say it could be overheating because applying some AS5 isn't really ALONE going to reduce those temps enough to make a noticeable difference.

[LBJM]

I hated the high temps with the 6800s esp when OCed. When running SLI it really heats up. my Bfg 7800GTX under 3D load gets up to 54C. in 2D it runs 47C. Nvidia's SLI isn't as good as the original 3dfx vodoo2 sli. when it is I'll go back to it.

[bkswaney]

Contact BFG support and see what they suggest. IMO, your heatsink is not properly contacting the gpu and/or memory. If you fix the problem you might void your warranty. Although you could check for loose mounting screws as just a couple of loose screws could cause inadequate contact causing heat to build up.

If it's the dual fan unit it's no wonder.
I've had 2 BFG GT's and they both
run HOT with stock cooling.

If you notice BFG has went back to stock Nvidia cooling.
The IRQ thing is BS. The card is just getting to hot.

Get a Zalman and all will be fine. :D

[StoNer]

So yeah, they have a lifetime warranty, but their service, tech support, and policies still suck hard. This will be the last BFG product I purchase.



That sucks man. I had that crappy cooler when I first bought mine aswell but the guy I talked to just had me send it to them (at my expense aswell) and they sent me a green one with the reference cooler on it. But your temps still are better than the reference cooler, I idle at 57 so at least your card is staying really cool now. And even tho your warranty is voided now, your card will probably last a really long time because of it keeping so cool.

[draygen]

Honestly, I shouldnt have to buy a cooler for a card thats running STOCK out of the box .. A heat issue shouldnt even be the problem.. Taking a card out of the box using it as designed and having to void the warranty to cool it off is just plain stupid... My room was warm at the time , but putting a massive house fan blowing on HIGH into the side of my open case only decreased the temp by 2 degrees (still ran too hot)..

Also after reading forums for hours on end, it seems a lot of people have a lot of different temps on their cards.. anywhere from 45c idle to 59c idle to 75c load and 85c load..

Honestly, I gave in , I returned the card to Best buy, saved myself $100 and bought an ATI X800 XL and lost about 80 3dmarks score on my benchmark (not even noticable difference)... It idles at 42c, under load its about 50c or something. My games all still run sick and I'm happy - although I still love Nvidia =)

Thanks again for the help everyone!

[Big Ev]

Maybe kinda of off topic, but what is artifacting?

I'm new to the whole highend gfx card scene.

[draygen]

Maybe kinda of off topic, but what is artifacting?

I'm new to the whole highend gfx card scene.

artifacting is when the card displays graphic corruption

[Big Ev]

artifacting is when the card displays graphic corruption
Thank you for explaining :)

[SigmaOrionis]

Draygen,

Why didnt you just by a card using the Nvidia stock cooling?
For the record I had to return my BFG card and they didnt give me any hassles at all and I had a new one at my door in about 7 days.

I hope you enjoy your new X800XL.

[draygen]

Draygen,

Why didnt you just by a card using the Nvidia stock cooling?
For the record I had to return my BFG card and they didnt give me any hassles at all and I had a new one at my door in about 7 days.

I hope you enjoy your new X800XL.

The reason why I didnt try another brand card (which i would have) is because ... like an idiot .. I bought it on credit , which i only had at best buy, and best buy ONLY carries the BFG brand cards for the 6800GT, returning to BFG or best buy for the 3rd time would have been pointless as it wasnt a defective card since I tried 2 of them.

My X800 XL is fine, i'm almost as impressed with it as I was with the 6800GT and I saved $100.

[j0j081]

Honestly, I shouldnt have to buy a cooler for a card thats running STOCK out of the box .. A heat issue shouldnt even be the problem.. Taking a card out of the box using it as designed and having to void the warranty to cool it off is just plain stupid... My room was warm at the time , but putting a massive house fan blowing on HIGH into the side of my open case only decreased the temp by 2 degrees (still ran too hot)..

Also after reading forums for hours on end, it seems a lot of people have a lot of different temps on their cards.. anywhere from 45c idle to 59c idle to 75c load and 85c load..

Honestly, I gave in , I returned the card to Best buy, saved myself $100 and bought an ATI X800 XL and lost about 80 3dmarks score on my benchmark (not even noticable difference)... It idles at 42c, under load its about 50c or something. My games all still run sick and I'm happy - although I still love Nvidia =)

Thanks again for the help everyone!
omg! you traitor! too bad you won't be running the Luna demo now...

[petem222]

Hi all - I've been searching for solutions to a similar problem with BF2 - I have the BFG 6800GT OC card as well, and I *only* seem to have this problem when I run BF2. I've tried EVERY in-game and system setting you can imagine, as well as every driver set that's come down the pipe since the game came out early in 2005.

Here's what I see on any resolution above 1152x864 - I can actually run other res. quite smoothly with (some) eye candy turned on, but after a while I start to get weird lines in my terrain as well as huge spikes coming out of my weapons and other characters in the game...

For example:

http://www.workwithpete.com/mac_stuff/pics/screen002.jpg
http://www.workwithpete.com/mac_stuff/pics/screen001.jpg

[j0j081]

not sure if that's heat related.

[tieros]

Oops, guess it's too late, but the temperatures reported by the nVidia control panel on the BFG 6800 GT OC are completely bogus. I can't even remember the last driver that got it right. Speedfan will tell you the correct temperature.