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I'm never buying a x800 again........

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bigswede2

Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2003
Location
Sweden
I've had 2 x800 pro cards in as many months both powercolor and both have died on me, neither was o/c and both died while playing doom 3, so I'm going to buy a 6800 ultra when i've saved up the money and Ati can go **** themselves the first card ati wouldnt replace because i had changed the fan to a vga silencer the second card they would not replace because I had opened up the extra 4 pipes which i can understand, but both cards stoped working at stock speeds the second card was infact a xt it had xt core rage chip and 1.6 mem but I thought i'd run it at pro speeds because of what happened to the first card all i did was open the extra pipes but maybe that is why it broke but i'm still pissed off,
 
yes i rma'd both and got the same reply both times no way, first card thet refused because i had changed the fan to a vga silencer and the second card because I had opened the extra pipes.
 
in all fairness to ati/powercolor in both cases you had voided your warranty - you cant expect them to replace goods that have been tampered with - nvidia would do the same if you kill any of their cards after a hsf change or OC
 
Yuriman said:
Did you try to rma to powercolor or ati?

I don't believe ATI will allow a Powercolor RMA, only Sapphire or Built by ATI which probably is Sapphire anyway ;)

Anyway with that said, once you mod a card in any way, the warranty is void/ The same applies for Nvidia based cards.
 
yes i understand that, its not that that has anoyed me its the fact that both cards died at stock speeds and without any hard modding or anything else that could of caused the cards to fail, my point is that nvidia cards probably wont fail so easily and so soon. and both cards were rma'd to powercolor.
 
bigswede2 said:
yes i understand that, its not that that has anoyed me its the fact that both cards died at stock speeds and without any hard modding or anything else that could of caused the cards to fail, my point is that nvidia cards probably wont fail so easily and so soon. and both cards were rma'd to powercolor.

Ok, good luck with your new card then.
 
If you used the VGA Silencer rev. 3 I hoped you removed the shim off the core. I know my rev 3 wouldn't touch the core with the shim installed. I can imagine that if you were playing Doom3 that the temps got really high and could toast the card. I know when I play far cry my temps get close to 60c here lately. As far as the xt moded card, well we've all heard that some pros were xt's gone sour. Maybe that's what you got. This game is rough and the hobby is expensive, but it's a gamble and sometimes it's really annoying.
Good luck with your 6800 ultra, should be a nice card, they perform well.
 
Actually I hate to say it but you really do not have the evidence to back that claim up. I hate to say it, but Powercolor isn't exactly a top tier brand, so how can you make a claim that x800's are unreliable when all you had was two powercolor cards?

There are many variables...ATi sells the cores to the third party builders, many of whom copy the reference design. However, differences in manufacturing and assembly techniques (and quality control) can result in a big difference in quality at the end. Even if a Powercolor has the same GPU and looks like the same design as another ATi card of the same model, that doesn't mean quality is the same.

I'm not bashing Powercolor here, but I'm saying it's probably a bit unfair to claim nVidia products are more reliable based on this.

I wish you the best of luck on your next purchase, whether it be ATi or nVidia, and I'm sure you'll be happy either way. But take a peek at the newegg refurbs, theres plenty of nVidia cards listed right next to the Ati cards.

Personally if I'm pumping out the big bucks for a vid card, I will put my money on either a built by Ati product or a top tier, such as ASUS, Gigabyte, etc. For Ati I'll also trust Sapphire, since they probably also handle production of the Built by Ati stuff.

I know your upset with 2 vid card failures, but it's tough to blame Ati, the GPU maker, for what could've easily been shoddy circuit assembly.
 
As regards to the last 2 posts you both have a point I think the vga silencer did fit tightly onto my card but i'm not 100% certern and it would explain why both cards died in the same way I'll have to look into this further, and I also agree with the last post that it could be just down to powercolor my last card a hercules 9700pro worked great without any problems with far crt and all other games so maybe I was a little hasty to blame ati ,
 
So, let me get this straight - you are mad at powercolor because you have had 2 cards die, one of which you attached a honkin great heatsink to, the other you forced the card to use the 4 disabled pipes.

Ever think that a) the heatsink may have damaged the first card and b) the pipelines were closed because they were broken? Never mind the fact that Doom3 is the most graphically stressful game for a card with many people reporting higher than average temperatures.
 
This honken great heatsink keept the tept below 60 while playing doom3 for a number of hours as regards the second card if you read all the replys here you would have seen that I myself said that the second card could of died because of the opened pipes, but i'm still angry because they should not die @ stock speeds even with a honken great sink on it .
 
I looked at this after the first card died so brought a new antec 480watt true power, but it didnt help
 
man, I feel so bad for you.

I tryed the mod and it failed, never removed the trace btw.
I too have a VGA silenser ver3 added to my BBA x800pro card, and I agree that it does a great job at cooling.
by the way, michaelkahl, I didn't see any shim on my x800pro.

since I have nothing to add, I'm sorry for your loss.

mica
 
henesse said:
what shim are you guys talking about?
are you talking about the silver metal lining around the gpu?

yes, that's the shim.

i got rid of mine stat.

i thought they fixed the gap problems tho. :-/
 
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