Hey guys, my card started crapping out after 3 months. I placed a review on newegg that I'll quote here so that you can see what my problems and system specs are. By the way, everything is running at nominal stock speeds.
OK at First, Terrible Now!
Pros: -Very Quiet
-Great while it worked
-Great shipping from Newegg
Cons: -Glitches, Freezes, Corrupted Windows, and Lock-ups whenever anything 3D is going on
-Totally unreliable despite updated drivers and re-installation of games
-Worthless for anything other than General Windows Use
This is going to sound like a broken record, but I'm experiencing the same thing as everyone else. The card worked fine at first, but now it's worthless. I could play Starcraft II with everything set on Ultra with zero issues. All of the sudden, I now have major issues. I can't even get logged into Battle.net before my system locks up. While trying to log in, the screen is corrupted to the point that I can't even tell what I'm doing. There is minimal stuff going on in 3D there. I've uninstalled the game and re-installed twice. I've updated DirectX, and I've used nVidia driver versions 258.96 and 260.99 with the same results. I loaded up the original Call of Duty (from 2003) just to see if there was an issue with Starcraft being too much. (continued in other thoughts)
Other Thoughts: Nope, I was able to play part of the training mission, but alt-tabbing to the desktop smoked the system again. I've also tried to run MSI Kombustor and the Uningine Benchmark. Everything hard locks the system to the point of having to reset to get out of it. In my mind, this is a hardware problem. I am running the card at spec as confirmed by MSI afterburner (BTW, I had the same problems before installing afterburner). The card is running cool in an open case, so heat is not an issue. All of my other components are top notch. Avoid this card!
Gigabyte X58AUD3R
Intel Core i7 930 (Cogage True Spirit Cooler)
G-Skill F3-12800CL8T (6 GB)
Corsair HX-850
GV-N460OC-1GI
OCZ Vertex II boot drive (Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit)
300 GB WD Raptor HD (games and apps)
1 TB WD Caviar Black (data)
Coolermaster ATCS 840 Case
Lite-On DVD-R
4 Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850 RPM fans
Looks like I'm going to have to contact Gigabyte about the card as I'm past the 30 day return period with Newegg.
Manufacturer Response:
Dear Customer,
Thank you for your comments. We apologize for your difficulty with your Gigabyte product. Please contact us at
newegg-support@gigabyte-usa.com with the case number 64539 in the subject line. We will provide personalized service and analysis to help solve your issue ASAP. If the matter is urgent, please send us your contact number, and we will contact you.
Gigabyte VIP Support Team
Well, the funny thing is that after a couple of days, I tested it again so that I could take a video of the problem to submit to Gigabyte Tech support, and magically all was well. I was able to run Starcraft II trouble free. I was also able to run MSI Kombustor and the Unigine Heaven Benchmark with pretty good results. However, after about 5 days, now I'm back to lockups and crashes. I can see no other common thread other than the card being faulty. Other than what I said in the review above, I made no changes, the card just started working and has now started not working again. I've sent an E-mail to the newegg/gigabyte customer support based on their response to my review, so we'll see how that goes. Can you guys think of anything I'm missing? I have video if anyone is interested.