Dead 6970

[sneh]

A little less than a year ago, I purchsed and installed a pair of r697oc2-2gd cards to run in crossfire on an X58A-UD5 motherboard.

Within one minute of starting a game of battlefield, the top card would hit 100 degrees and start causing artifacts. This is not right. It should not get that hot.

With this motherboard they had to be run sandwiched together to get 16x/16x performance.

I used MSI afterburner to run the fans at 100% all the time, but made no effect whatsoever to cooling.

My case (HAF-X) has more than enough airflow, so thats not the problem. (1x 200mm front intake, 1x 230mm side intake blowing directly on cards, 2x 200mm top exhaust, 1x 140mm rear exhaust)

I also tried a few different combinations of fans blowing directly on
to/sucking directly off the cards from whatever angles I could. Still no difference.

The only option in the end came to be watercooling the gpu's and using stick on sinks for the vram. This worked beautifully. temps never got over 45 degrees on both cards.

Last week I switched on the computer and noticed the row of LEDs didnt light up on the bottom card. Its dead.

As I have said, watercooling was the only option. Before I decided to watercool it, I spoke with the vendor I bought the card from and he said that I cannot return the card as it is fully functional and has been used, leaving me with 2 options... 1) a $500 paperweight that I cannot use. 2) watercool the card to fix AN OBVIOUS DESIGN FAULT.

2 of these cards will not operate as they should in a sandwich configuration. There is nothing in any manuals or marketing information that makes any mention of this.

The problem is in the non-reference cooler setup these cards run. Reference cooler setups generally dont have this problem.

I have been watercooling systems for about 10 years now, and never had any component fail. So I know that the failure is nothing attributed to the water cooling or anything I've done.  The second card is still running perfectly.

Where do I stand as to a warranty? Even though the card has been 'modified', it was done to correct an obvious design fault.

[Dark Mantis]

A little less than a year ago, I purchsed and installed a pair of r697oc2-2gd cards to run in crossfire on an X58A-UD5 motherboard.

Within one minute of starting a game of battlefield, the top card would hit 100 degrees and start causing artifacts. This is not right. It should not get that hot.

Hi

My first and obvious question is why has it taken so long (a year) to do something about this ?

I am afraid that due to you customising the cards and adding a waterblock instead of the standard aircooling you wouldn't be covered by any sort of warranty. I know because I am in the same boat as I always watercool my systems and it is something I have to live with too.

[sneh]

Originally when I found they were going to cook under air, I could not return the cards without going through a painful and lengthy legal battle, so found the only option was to watercool. So I did that. They were both going fine for months up until that one died. The second is still going hard.

[Dark Mantis]

Oh, well sorry to hear the bad news but chances are that again you are not going to get anywhere without a lengthy legal battle. Normally companies won't accept any card for warranty work if it has been "tampered" with.  

[sneh]

I'm still gonna try and RMA it. Just gotta go through my various thermal pastes and find one that looks similar to whats already there, then remount the original air cooler heater.

I guess it all depends on how thorough their testing is, whether they will just plug it in, find it doesnt even power up then pass it straight away or whatever.

Worst they can do is say no.

[Dark Mantis]

I agree. It doesn't hurt to try but I woulkd be surprised if you manage to get it replaced/repaired. I must admit to feeling a little short changed when I am told that an RMA isn't possible because I have changed a cooler. But I suppose that I can see it from both sides. Please let us know how you get on.