Problem with BFG 6800 Ultra!

[KoN]

I bought the BFG 6800 Ultra OC because I was in the market for a top end card. I have always had Nvidia cards, so I decided to go with them again. The BFG offered an overclocked version for no extra money, and my last card was a BFG, and I was satasfied with that. I also bought an Apsire ATX 520W powersupply to fuel the beast.

I installed the card, and it ran great. I could finally jack up all those detail settings with playable framerates. So I'm playing Half Life 2, and I notice this snowy "interferance" almost on the screen. I restart the game to see if it goes away, but it doesn't. So I turn to the web for some help. While I'm looking at some sites, the entire screen is covered with small lines, and a box of lines surrounds and moves with the mouse. I cannot do anything, the computer is essentially frozen except for the mouse. I restart thinking it was a one time deal, but it does it again. This time the computer automatically reboots itself. The next time, it barely runs for 10 seconds before it does it. The next time, it doesn't get past the Disk scanner before its frozen. Now, as soon as it gets passed the disk scanner there is a blue screen that moves so fast I can't read it, then the screen goes black and I have to reboot. Then when I rebooted, the whole screen was covered in jumbled up multicolored pixils. I couldn't even edit any BIOS options or anything, because most of the text was covered! This is really annoying, and I hope its not something big. I'm almost positive that I had the power cables hooked up right, and I made sure the two connectors were not from the same main line out of the PSU. In fact, I know its not a power problem because I hooked up the card and only one harddrive, and still no go. I'm pretty sure its not overheating. Its fan is working, and it has plenty of breathing room, and its not hot at the touch. I think it's kinda strange how it worked perfectly for two days, and suddenly started to slowly deteriorate. I emailed BFG's tech support, but haven't gotten a response yet. I figured I would be better off on the net somewhere.

System specs
Intel P4 2.8 GHZ 800mhz FSB w/HT
MSI 865PE Neo Motherboard
BFG Nvidia 6800 Ultra OC
1 Gig Kingston ValueramPC3200 CL3
Asprire ATX 520W PSU

I was running the current Nvidia Drivers (66.93 I think), and just updated my Motherboard drivers, but haven't tried it yet. Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[StumbleBum1]

Pull the card and make sure the HS is in full contact (Give it a little twist) with the core and try it again

 

[KoN]

I took it out completely and reinstalled it, and it did the same thing. I'll try it again, but are there any other possibilities?

 

[ponyo]

Call BFG. They have 24/7 phone support. It sounds like your PS is insufficient but I would give them a call.

 

[Todd33]

Sounds like you needto RMA it. If it does it as soon as you boot while the card is cold, then it's not heat. You have a 520W PSU, so it's not that.

 

[KoN]

Can you explain RMA? I did build this computer myself, but there is still a ton that I don't know. Thanks!

 

[ponyo]

Random rebooting is usually sign of bad memory or insufficient power supply.

 

[KoN]

It isn't really randomly rebooting. It did that once, but every other time I rebooted the computer, because it just went black.

 

[Todd33]

RMA, return it to the store or get a waranty replacement. Basically replace the card ASAP.

 

[KoN]

Are these symptoms consistant with a lack of power?

 

[KoN]

I think it might be driver related. On the disk check it picks out almost every driver file and says it is "cross linked" then it fixes it by copying. Someone also said the memory might be bad. Is there a way to check or clean system memory?

 

[StumbleBum1]

Sorry I think it's RMA time baby

 

[Killrose]

Seeing as how it was all fine and good and then went to crap while in the middle of gamming and even in 2d apps, it probably is RMA time. Don't be messin with it or you could void your warranty. If it was a PSU, you would experiance crashes and blue screens IMHO.

 

[KoN]

for some reason everytime I try to reinstall the drivers it crashes right in the middle of the install and the computer restarts. What could be causing it to do this?

 

[KoN]

ttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/ninanai/001__scaled_600.jpg

Here is a photo of the moniter....

 

[asianmaster]

From what you are saying (the static) I'd say the card just burned out. It actually happened to me a month ago or so. Got a brand new 6800u, put it and and saw it burn out the first night. I had the exact same symptoms as you. It sounds crazy, I know, but I spent a lot of time talking to techs and friends and it was just a bad card. I'd either call up BFG right now or try to exchange it at the store you got it from. Don't delay. BFG was very nice to deal with when I called them and thier support is 24/7. Good luck

 

[Gudhjem]

Got my BFG 6800 Ultra OC PCI-e. The card has problems from the start. Serious graphics corruption in all games and 3D benches, even before the card got warm. Went through all the obvious steps with driver cleaning, trying different (older and beta) drivers, reinstalling Direct, etc., with no improvements (I refused to try underclocking my new $550 card). WindowsXP, Asus SLI, Antec neopower480, 1 Gb matched OCZ low latency RAM, WD Raptor, etc.

Reached BFG tech support, which told me to RMA the card. I was impressed I could reach BFG on a Saturday, but I'm not impressed that they just told me it will take at lest ?2-3 business days? before they get around to "processing" my RMA, which they received yesterday morning. Of course, not impressed that I had to RMA in the first place, but we'll see how that goes...

 

[Gudhjem]

Update: Received my replacement BFG 6800 Ultra. No problems with the new one.

 

[ss284]

I have a similar problem with my bfg 6800 ultra. I was upgrading from a BFG 6800 GT, which other than running a bit hot (dual fan) it worked great. I purchased the card from outpost, and after I got it I noticed weird problems where the screen would flicker, and I got minor graphical corruption in the form of rainbow colored sparkles. The interesting thing was that the flickering was only present on one of the DVI ports. However, ATItool's stability test wouldnt report any problems. I tried about 5 different driver revisions before calling up bfg for a replacement.

I just recieved the replacement yesterday, just to be greeted with the same problems. This time however, the card would fail ATItool instantly with yellow patches all over. That and now instead of just sparkles, im getting polygonal corruption in games, like WoW. I was thinking it was a power issue, and unplugged everything except the main boot drive, the motherboard, and the video card, with no improvement. Im using a superflower 450 watt, which is giving me a good stable voltage of 12.14v.

My setup:

a64 3500+
asus a8v deluxe rev 2, latest bios
2x512 corsair pc 3200
XP sp2
TTGI 450w
audigy 2

I'm about to test it in another computer, hopefully that will explain some things. If I get the same results, I'm gonna be giving bfg hell over the phone.


-Steve