How do the companies know that your graphics card died of OC

mogpie

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So how do they know if your graphics card has died because of overclocking ?? Is there something in the bios that indicates OC?? What about using software to OC instead ?? I am asking this because I want to OC but am afraid of breaching warranty.
 

dvdpiddy

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2 things first bios records and second sometimes if you oc a part of the chip or pcb changes color if you oc a radeon sometimes on the pcb a spot will turn from one color to another usually yellow to black or if its nvidia green to some other color.
 

Heyyou27

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2 things first bios records and second sometimes if you oc a part of the chip or pcb changes color if you oc a radeon sometimes on the pcb a spot will turn from one color to another usually yellow to black or if its nvidia green to some other color.
Bullshit; I've fried Nvidia cards from overclocking before, and gotten a replacement card for free.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
They can't really.

Unless you've physically altered the card (replacing the heatsink or something) - or flashed an OCing BIOS and didn't flash the stock BIOS back before you return it - there is really no way for them to know...
 

dvdpiddy

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2 things first bios records and second sometimes if you oc a part of the chip or pcb changes color if you oc a radeon sometimes on the pcb a spot will turn from one color to another usually yellow to black or if its nvidia green to some other color.
Bullshit; I've fried Nvidia cards from overclocking before, and gotten a replacement card for free. Dude what cards and what companies?(evga,bfg,etc)
 

maury73

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In theory it is possible through JTAG Boundary Scan of the GPU and RAMDAC. Not all chips are enabled to record clock speeds changes and not all the cards assemblers enable this features, but in theory it is really possible.

In all the recent chips there are some locations (256-512 words usually) of e2prom that record hardware configuration changes and faults. This is standard behaviour of many chip manufacturers.

But this is in theory!

JTAG scanning of theese records can be done but the manufacturer itself and the card assembler only (the JTAG registers involved aren't publicly documented) and it is used for debugging e production monitoring only.

So, since it is really possible to discover a card fault due to OC, in practice none of the card or chip manufacturer will ever check for this: it will be more expensive than simply replace the part free of charge.

And least but not last, every card manufacturer shines when he knows that his card can be OCed to higher clock speeds than the competitor ones!
 

mogpie

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So does that mean there is a good chance that I can overclock my card but still covered by the warranty :D ?
 

GeneticWeapon

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In theory it is possible through JTAG Boundary Scan of the GPU and RAMDAC. Not all chips are enabled to record clock speeds changes and not all the cards assemblers enable this features, but in theory it is really possible.

In all the recent chips there are some locations (256-512 words usually) of e2prom that record hardware configuration changes and faults. This is standard behaviour of many chip manufacturers.

But this is in theory!

JTAG scanning of theese records can be done but the manufacturer itself and the card assembler only (the JTAG registers involved aren't publicly documented) and it is used for debugging e production monitoring only.

So, since it is really possible to discover a card fault due to OC, in practice none of the card or chip manufacturer will ever check for this: it will be more expensive than simply replace the part free of charge.

And least but not last, every card manufacturer shines when he knows that his card can be OCed to higher clock speeds than the competitor ones!
You are teh stupid.

In all seriousness, you're full of crap. No special chip investigation takes place, they dont have the time or resources to take on something like this.

If you overclock your card and burn it, and it's still under warranty, then you'll get a new card back(unless you've fudged with the cooler, shim, etc)
 

maury73

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If I'm stupid, you aren't able to read.

Re-read my post and you will find I've told that in theory is possible, but they don't investigate because it will be more expensive to do the verifies than replace the card free of charge.

The records are for debugging and production monitoring only.

Learn to read before insult other peoples.
 

bombasschicken

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It's actually not that expensive. Each company has a hound in their RMA department that can sniff out the burnt smell of an OC'ed card. :roll:

i thought all the cards were tied wirelessly to a global satalite network.. and when you try to OC then it sends a signal to the master computer bank on uranus and makes that card as non-returnable..
then the master computer bank on uranus sends a kill signal through the blatter to the gpu to die faster..

something like that right?
 

Adk_Eric

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[/quote]Bullshit; I've fried Nvidia cards from overclocking before, and gotten a replacement card for free.[/quote]

And your conscience doesn't bother you? Sad....

You're ripping off the people you bought the card from and in the end contribute to higher prices for the rest of us.
 

bombasschicken

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no man.. its coffee grounds.. coffee grounds cover the scent of like everything.. not that i would know anything about that.. so just smear the grounds all over the card.. that should throw them hounds off your trail.
 

Adk_Eric

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So how do they know if your graphics card has died because of overclocking ?? Is there something in the bios that indicates OC?? What about using software to OC instead ?? I am asking this because I want to OC but am afraid of breaching warranty.

Overclock smart and do it at your own risk please. Not someone else's.
 

GeneticWeapon

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Overclock smart and do it at your own risk please. Not someone else's.
I overclock for a maximum score, and I'm not kidding. I have burned up cards less than 2 days old in my system....and that's the way it should be.

I burned up an eVGA 5700Ultra(during it's debut) in less than four or five hours after purchase by pushing the memory past 1200Mhz(a big feat).

The best time to return it, is the same day you bought it(if you know what I mean :wink: ).