9800GX2 graphics card issues

[jackcrackerman]

Hey everyone, I'd like to get your feedback regarding this recent turn of events I've experienced. I recently upgraded my 7950GT with a 9800GX2, I ran it for a solid 4 days on Win XP Pro 32bit, no problems and it ran great. Today I decided to finally use my Win 7 disk I've been sitting on, everything installed just fine, however about 3 hours into it, I started seeing errors in the graphics (I was just setting up voice recognition so I wasn't doing anything graphically intensive at all. Shortly after I noticed the blocks on the screen the screen stopped receiving a signal from the card but it promptly came back online and displayed a message about the driver kernel crashing. It then went completely unresponsive.
I rebooted the machine, while it was booting up the BIOS I continued to see blocks and graphical errors. I even booted in safe mode and uninstalled the drivers and it didn't fix the problem.

it's my idea that the card is toast. I can't explain how even when the BIOS is loading the screen can be producing errors unless there is something physically wrong with the card, but I'd like to get your guys opinions on this.

Windows 7 64bit (Home Premium)
750w Antec PSU
160GB boot disk
EVGA 680i SLi (N68) Mobo
BFGTech 9800 GX2
C2D e6700 @3.1ghz
4gb DDR2

 

[rolli59]

Looks like the card is on its way out.

 

[decode]

Yes it definitely sounds like a faulty card, you PSU appears to be more than adequate as does everything else. RMA it(if possible, which I doubt since BFG is now out of business)

 

[gamerk316]

If you have one, test with another card (you don't need drivers; just get into the BIOS to confirm).

Odds are the GX2 went; the card gets HOT, and if you don't supply adequete cooling, it can and will eventually overheat something important (probably VRAM).

 

[jackcrackerman]

Hey everyone, thanks for the feedback. I was finally able to get through to a rep at BFG and he confirmed that they aren't giving out any RMA's but that is what this card needs. No biggie, like I said I just purchased this card so I contacted the company that sold it to me to see about a refund or a replacement.

 

[jackcrackerman]

Best answer selected by jackcrackerman.

 

[jackcrackerman]

At this point I'm hoping they just refund me rather than trying to replace it. I don't want a BFG card if they aren't going to be able to fufill their lifetime limited warrenty. If all goes to plan, I'll get my money back for the defective card from the merchant I bought it from, I've already picked out a replacement card with an ASUS Geforce GTX 470... it's far superior anyways, I don't know why I didn't just go for that card to begin with.