gtx 480 soc heat issues...RMA?

[xander89]

I recently bought a gigabyte gtx 480 soc graphics card from OCUK and the card seemed to run fine, but when i checked the temperatures it seems it was running far too hot. Or at least much hotter than all the reviews i read said it would.

My card when when idling is running at between 50-60c. It was idling at 60 initially until i put an extra 2 120 mm fans blowing cool air directly onto it which dropped the temps by a good 5c. This is in a haff 922 case with decent airflow ( 200mm and 120 mm intake, and 200mm and 120mm outtake) so airflow shouldn't be an issue.

I decided to stress the card to see what temps it got under load. And on all the reviews i read the card never really went higher than the mid 80's when running at 100% GPU load on auto fan speed( so nowhere near 100% fan speed). After about 2 minutes at load, and with the fan manually set to 100% my card was running in the high 90's before it crashed. Ive tried a few times since and every time the card get to around 97c and it crashes. Which is odd for a card that was said to have been in the mid to low 70's under load with 100% fan speed.

As a result its giving me no headroom in terms of being able to overclock,which is the main reason i bought this card, and im reaching uncomfortably high temps while gaming. Ive tried reinstalling all the drivers, switching the PCI express ports, etc etc but to no avail. This card is running far too hot for the cooler that it has on it and so i can only assume it is defective.

Judging by the information would it be possible to RMA the card for a new one/ have it repaired? I sent this email to your returns department, and they said that i should return it to the seller, which i all fairness i dont want to do as their Returns department is terrible. Also the card itself is working, just with temps which are rather worrying and shouldnt be that high. I am worried that i am going to waste weeks returning my gfx card to my retailer and them saying that its working because it isnt dead even though it seems the chip is defective/ runs far too hot. ( despite having already emailed them twice about the issue. Not to mention their stock in this card is running out, so the likelihood is i wouldnt receive the same card which is useless to me) So would it be possible to return this card to gigabyte for repair/ replacement. Or do you think it would still be better to go about sending it back to the retailer and hoping they replace it?

If anyone could shed a bit more light on this that would be wikid.

Regards

Xander

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

I am not surprised it crashes when it gets to that temperature as htat is pretty much the ceiling. It does seem to be running too hot. What firmware does it have installed and have you checked to see if there is an update available ?

Are you using the latest drivers off the website ?

Have you got any third party software installed to enable you to manipulate the fan speed ?

[xander89]

not sure about the firmware tbh aint updated that. The card comes with specific software out of the box for OCing etc ( also manual fan control the temps are with the fan set manually to 100%) Gigabyte OC Guru. Im not running the latest drivers ( although i have tried the latest one and it makes no diff to my temps.) Im running the ones out of the box as they work with OC guru ( if u dont use the ones out of the box u can alter the voltage etc.). I think the ones out of the box are 258.96, opposed to the lates ones which are 26x.xx ( cant member exactly) these high temps are on stock too, no altering of voltages/ freqs

[Dark Mantis]

You will need to update the firmware then to the latest version and then run  the latest driver update.

[xander89]

what do you mean by firmware? do you mean the bios? im pretty sure the card has the most up to date bios ( as in its the same one supplied on the gigabyte website 4.1) This card has a duel bios do you think switching to the second bios ( the ln2, which fixes the cold bug) would help?

[Dark Mantis]

You coud try it by all means. There is nothing to lose.

[Coeus1990]

Ive had similar problems with mine and after a lot of hunting through forums ive found only two solutions.

1.) if youre running dual monitors unplug one and the temp will drop over 20 degrees straight away.

2.) Turn down the overclocking from the factory default of around 821 to somewhere inbetween this number and the standard non "SOC" clock speed of 700. (Mines around 760 but im still "tweaking"). 

I know these aren't particularly great solutions but they're all I can find and it seems like a lot of people are having the same problems with this card. 

Hope this helps.

[Aussie Allan]

 If you have any ability with your hands, I would have a look at the factory heat-sink install integrity....it really is not that hard to R&R (Remove and replace) the heat-sink // clean // and re-apply some good quality thermal paste and re assemble even with the factory heat pads...with your Idle temps so high to begin with , I think this or could very well be the Rat!... if not It's one more thing you can rule out!

 Allan Thomson