Well it was fairly hard work, several phone calls and emails and it took about a month. OC-UK were as helpful as they could be I suppose... none of the UK retailers like dealing with RMA's. Certainly not as much as they like selling you new gear anyway!
^ mate I e-mailed Scan nearly every day and called them weekly, took six weeks the first time and the replacement was faulty, then the re-RMA took over a month, I'll never buy from Scan (I was living in the UK at the time)
It's really not good enough but to be fair, I've always found Scan to be pretty good... but I guess I've been pretty lucky with reliable components, so far!
now the RMA is going bad.. Well got my RMA'ed 4870x2 back in January, seemed fine, but I started getting BSOD 0x00000116 from atikmpag.sys on windows statup, and I'd get graphical corruption in BIOS screens after a reset, green dotted lines all over the POST screen and more corruption after the POST screens. Even had it stick around after pulling the plug and letting the power drain, though that did clear it up once. So it's hardware if it causes problems in BIOS screens and no need to try TWL's mod drivers. The RMA card has an extended 90 day warranty from it's ship date (orig card warranty went out Jan 31), so I'm sending it back. When asked about a pre-paid shipping label since it's a second replacement, they said no, but would be willing to send me a 5870 instead. Equivalent performance, only 1 GPU so no second GPU driver issues, and DX11. Here's hoping that the 5870 refurb will hold up compared to the 4870x2, as I'm doubting they are feeling generous and sending me a new one. BTW, my electronics seem to hate me. I had to RMA the replacement MB, now RMA'ing the replacement Vid card... If only the Insignia LCD TV I use as a monitor was not out of warranty... I'd be RMA'ing this piece of junk too. 28 months and the unit powers on but doesn't power the screen unless it's turned on after a cold boot. :bang:
I got a 5870 as a 4th replacement for my X2 from Visiontek. So far it has held up great and performs on par with my old X2. It also runs much much cooler. (non reference design so it has the big fan with the air coming out in and out of the case, but still never goes above 70C and stays pretty darn quiet.)
Well, I finally got my replacement Asus 6950oc from OC-UK and bought another identical one for x-fire. Lovely build quality and bloody huge! Loving them so far...
water vs air 4870 x2 what id like to see, is the amount of people whos 4870 x2's are dying that have watercooled them compaired to non water cooled....if the water cooleds are failing alot less,,,then we can say for sure why the 4870x2's are dying so much
I bought my 4870X2 in 2008, used it extensively, and never had any problems. I'm thinking about upgrading it to a 6970 or GTX580 because I want a single GPU card and a more silent card. Does anyone have experience with upgrading from a 4870X2 to a 6xxx card? fasteddy, is there a noticeable performance improvement upgrading to your 6950OC?
I've not had much time to test them really... I'll post back in a couple of days. Just contemplating unlocking the shaders at the mo! edit Done! I don't think ONE 6xxx single core card would be much of an upgrade for you, if any. You'd need to go x-fire or go high end green really.
Got mine in Sep 2008. It's still on stock cooling, though I immediately unlocked and just set the fan at 48%. Month ago, the fan started spinning up and down aggressively playing Crysis and Dragon Age. No other games seem to provoke this. Checking temps show the GPUs tipping over 90C and the VRM at 115-120C. The air coming out the back of the card is pretty much volcanic. Frame rates very occasionally have started dropping out (like when vsync drags your fps to 15 suddenly), but no artifacts or crashes. Is this a card preparing to die?
Atel, it happens with 4870x2 around once per year, the 2 copper radiator inside get clogged up with dust. You have to disassemble it totally, clean it and its gone be grand. I did my one yesterday (last time a year and 2 days ago and from 75 in idle and 110 load with fan on 100% I went to 42 in idle and 90 in load with the fan set to 36% when you cant hear it at all if I crank up the fan to 45% it doesn't hit 85 in full load
As I noted to Khalam in another thread, the x2 is out of the case now and cleaned up and in an anti-static bag. Truth be told, not sure what to do with it. Anyone desperate for one?
With the failure rate of the VRAM in the 4870X2s I wouldn't buy a used one if I was anyone, the best you could do is stick it in a 2nd system or sell it to someone for super cheap because in my opinion if you sell it to someone knowing there are issues with it (unless you warn them) is kinda asinine.
To dig this thread up, my Sapphire 4870 x2 recently lost it's life out of nowhere. I have never had any problems with it, nor did i OC it. I just ran F1 2011 on ultra high settings, and as soon as the track loaded, i heard a terrible sound coming from the GPU as the PC restarted in a moment. And after that, eternal darkness. Card is out of warranty. Should I even bother trying to RMA it, considering Sapphire has the worst RMA service?
got a gainward 4870x2, neither reference disign nor cooler ( 3 slot ) but still rocking after more than 3 years OCed 825/1000. minus the crappy drivers this card gave me awesome bang for my bucks, bought it less than 300€ and still recently played at rock solid 60 fps in 1920x1080: DX:HR full details ambiant occlusion normal, Rage full details 8k textures config 2xAA (on a single GPU :banana, Crysis 2+hd texture very high settings without AA, ... and that's on a q9550@4ghz+P45 board Oo and to think i use this rig as HTPC only lol
You aren't going to get a replacement out of warranty. Personally, I was pretty fed up with Sapphire and went and found a brand that had a good warranty (XFX double lifetime). I certainly feel spending $550 on launch day for a 4870 X2 warranted better quality. I don't know how long I plan to use my 6950/70 UL, but at least if it dies I'm not stuck borrowing money so I can have a computer I can use.
Mine's still rockin' hard! And with great games like Rage that run, even on a single GPU, at Ultra settings @50-60 FPS, who needs more?