One For The Guru's - A Real Mystery Regarding 6600GT's.

Hey Guru's,

Hopefully you've got your thinking caps on 'coz this is one is a bit of a stumper!

OK, so I've had a FX5200 and Radeon 9600 Pro in my system. Both worked fine, no problems at all. Great. Then I upgrade to 6600gt. At first - was fine. No issues. Perfect. After about 6 months, problems began. I started getting random system restarts, and loads of corruption in games. Nightmare. In the end, even started getting corruption on 2D Desktop stuff. Ripped out card and replaced it with another.

An example of the 3D Corruption I got here;
http://www.techzine.nl/f/g/17456ZjNnLNH7.jpg
That's not my screen grab but the corruption was identical. Exactly what I had.


So then I get another 6600gt - this one is by ASUS. It worked fine for about 4/5 months, but then - just like the one before - started causing problems. Started getting loads of corruption in games. With the side of my case off, there was no corruption. It led me to believe this was a heat issue. Purchased a ''card blower'' fan, but it only made the situation worse and the card ran even hotter.

Posted my temps on here, most people said the ambient temp. was fine and shouldn't be causing problems. I think the hottest the card ever got was about 89c, maybe in the high 90's at the very most.

Now, that's two 6600GT cards that have gone bye-bye in about a year. Both from different brands. I'm not sure what temp is considered to be ''too high'' - the nVidia control panel states 100 something as the threshhold. I am almost 100% cards never got hotter than that.

Am I wrong - is this not a heat issue at all? Is it something far more complicated, like internal driver issues e.t.c.? I have wiped my PC clean to factory settings at least twice to try and get these cards working but it never worked. I have tried using older drivers and the latest drivers, I didn't notice a difference between using older and newer drivers at all.

Oh yeah, and I upgraded from stock 250w PSU to my current one (listed under my screename) as thought that might help - apart from a very slight performance boost it did nothing to help.

Really annoyed that I've wasted money on two cards like this. I am now very reluctant to buy even the fairly low end 6200 for fear of the same issue happening all over again. Certainly, I will NEVER buy a high end card again - even in a new system.

What do guys suggest I do? I want a 6200 - seems a happy medium - but will the same thing happen again? If so, I might have to just stick with my god awful on-board INTEL graphics which I hate. I would ask if I should install some new fans but god, I just don't want to pour any more money into this bloody card at this stage.

Any suggestions or advice very welcome - just really want to get to the bottom of this now!

 

This is what happened to my 6600GT after 4 months



Along with alot worst, they said the card had bad ram chips on it, due to the fact that most of the 6600GT's on agp they released had to ram heatsinks. I would just RMA ur current one for a new one, and tell them it is the 2nd time it has happened and u want a 6800 or something

Anyway hope it helps

-heads

 

Wow... dimesional vortex?

 

Drivers ??? Do u face the problem in all the games ???

 

I have tried a variety of official nVidia drivers - old and new. Problem was not solved.

It happens in all games - with more visually demanding games the corruption occurs quickly, while with less demanding games it takes a while longer for corruption to occur. But it happens to all games eventually.

Unfortunatley I cannot RMA the card. I will have to sell it as faulty as I am currently doing with my other card.

I'm very dissapointed with all this. It's very unfortunate. I like nVidia products, but this has somewhat shaken my trust.

Oh yeah - does everyone think I'll get the same problems with a 6200? Or should it be OK?

 

my step-dads running a system very very similar to yours , but he has the galaxy 6600GT , for about 1 year , no problems yet

semms like a heat problem , packard bell cases are usually really poor , can you fit any more case fans??

 

I could but
a) I wouldn't know how to set them up, although I'm sure I could learn.
b) I don't especially want to pour any more money into this card

Also, is it possible that the damage has already been done to the card? Because I tested NFS: Underground earlier today. Temp hit a peak at around 85c. At this point, after about 4 minutes play - the whole image became corrupted. Unplayable. I went back to desktop for a second, then back into the game and the corruption had gone. It came back again, of course, not long after.

To me, it feels as if the card is already f*cked. Even if I install new fans (which would probably be cheaper than getting a 6200 card), if the card is already dead it won't do anything.

Do you guys think the card is already dead?

 

I had all sorts of problems with 6600gt agp(stretched poly, artifacts etc)and I actually returned my card 3 times before I got fed up and bought new pci-e mobo with pci-e version of 6600gt.I think pci-e to agp bridge chip on 6600gt is not well implemented or extremely picky about which mobo(chipset) you use, and also it gets really hot too. Since I switched to pci-e version of 6600gt all problems I had just dissapeared like a miracle. So all I can say is just stay well away from 6600Gt agp and get somethingelse next time. 6600gt is very good performer on native pci-e platform but when it comes to agp platform, it's nothing but a trouble maker(at least for me). Sorry to hear you lost your cards like that but maybe you should contact card supplier directly, you may get replacement card if you're lucky since this is very well known problem. I remember I've read through some lengthy posts at nzone forum where people are complaining about this same issue but I seem to have lost the link.

 

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, it's a total pisser to be honest I'm quite dissapointed. I had never heard of this issue before, so I am pleased you posted here. At least now I know what the problem is likely to be. The not knowing what could be causing the problem is often the most frustrating thing with stuff like this.

You don't happen to know about the 6200 AGP do you? Does it suffer from simmilar problems? If so, I will just downgrade to a FX5200 and be done with it. It's a real shame because I got very decent performance out of this rig when my 6600gt was fully functional. But I don't want to waste any more money on this - it has already cost me too much.

Besides, I'm getting an Apple Mac for my next system. This is fine for a couple years yet, but after that I will get an Apple without a doubt - no more PCs for me after this one, that's for sure.

 

I can understand your frustration and my sympathy to you. Well this is just my guess but over heating bridge chip finally crap out on you? I don't know about 6200 agp but I heard all 6800 series cards(agp) are quite good, at least I haven't seen much complaint about it. So if I were you I would probably buy one of those or save up until you switch to apple. BTW, only solution that worked for me to solve my 6600gt agp problem was downclocking my card by 10 percent, both gpu and memory. I don't know if it works but maybe worth trying. Good luck.

 

Don't be too frustrated and go insane.

Even if your AGP 6600 GT malfunctioned, you shall not say farewell to PC gaming! I mean, Mac has dead poor spec and hardly any gaming support.

Like the guy said, try 6800 series or even better X850 products. If you're done with PC, go for the consoles. Just don't make stupid approach to the pathetic Apple Camp.

 

Clean out your heatsink, it is a really good dustcatcher

 

That is most definitely a heat issue. I can guarantee that your case has pathetically bad airflow.

I had a 6600gt (PCI-E) overclocked it solidly for a year, never had a problem, apart from arrtifacts like your after a while of gaming as the stock fan is so so so so bad.

Get a decent cooler on it like the Actric Silencer 6 Rev. 2, you'll probably say bye bye to those artifacts (provided there's no permanent damage)

The stock coolers (and any that dont expel air outside of the case) really rely on very good case airflow to work properly.

Sorry to hear about the problems, but please dont switch to the pathetically bad 6200 or fx5200, PLEASE!!!!!!!

 

take of your heatsink and fan CLEAN IT, reapply thermal paste
im 90% sure that will fix it

 

dude that looks like the unreal tournament when i set it to open gl instead of direct 3d. i have that card. its ok you can run her 500/1000 instead of stock 900 for nice performance gain. im guessin driver.

 

Strange thing is agp version of 6600gt runs much hotter than pci-e version of 6600gt. For example 6600gt agp I had stayed around 65 degrees at idle and went over 80 degrees at full load. And this pci-e version I have now sits around 50 degrees idle and only go up to like 67-69 degrees at full load(and this card I've got has 2 chips on one card and 2 gpu sharing one big heatsink so I assume noraml single gpu card should run much cooler than this) This is with the same case with the same air flow. So I think there must be something wrong with the agp version of 6600gt, design wise?
BTW have a look at this thread,
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=1029
There are tons of people having some kind of issues with 6600gt. Actually the thread became so popular it's got stickied. There are some nice tips you may find usuful.

 

One of the reasons the AGP cards run hotter is the bridge....
To the thread starter - run the card with the case open and a house fan blowing in, if it works then it is a definate heat issue

 

I remember similar problems with a FX5200 and Pariah , where the card was softmodded and oc'ed quite a bit and was getting hot ... that could be the reason .. but my old 6600GT really went as high as 85c - 90c and i never faced a problem .. infact the person i sold it to told me that he even beat 100c ... he put in some fans in the case , and now the card is down to 80c ...

I think u should try some cooling first ... Also .. if possible , monitor the video mem. usage via Rivatuner ... the mem. chips could be the culprit ...

 

reguarding the 6200. I got mine for christmas last year and it still works. I can run far cry on medium w/ 800/600 res. and I'll play it at that. I'm on AGP too, that's just if u are thinking of getting one. I have a 64-bit one too. It's not as bad as people say it is.

I'd try cooling it better. I've never closed my case.
Good Luck w/ ur 6600gt.

 

My 6600GT PCI-e that I had went up to 140C+ from idle of like 50C, and yes the heatsink was on, and yes it was making contact, it was just a gay heatsink but even at those temps the card was fine, and it went fine for 3months till i traded it for my 6800Ultra.