Brand new 6950 artifacting

[lucifer_9mm]

Guys!!! please help me out here, I bought this Sapphire 6950 2gb dirt 3 edition just yesterday....I overclocked it a little following a professional guide on youtube, bumped the clock speed to 900 and memory to 1400, it all worked fine for hours until while playing crysis the display literally split in two, i had to stop the game and return to the desktop, and guess what, weird colored artifacts showed up and system froze, had to restart but it happened again n again.

I had to remove the card, uninstall the driver, use driver sweeper to remove it completely then re-insert the card and the artifacting stopped. I downloaded the latest driver from Sapphire website and re installed, I ran crysis on max settings for a couple of hours again and it worked fine without any further problems. Although now i'm really terrified, i bought this card with great expectations with my hard earned money. Was it a driver problem or faulty hardware?? should i ask the dealer for a replacement?? HELP PLEASE

 

[kikireeki]

Have no fear, just an unstable overclocking, next time keep your eyes on the temps and be easy on the clock and memory speeds to achieve a stable oc and always remember that same VGA does not necessarily mean same oc ability.

 

[lucifer_9mm]

I did some research and looked into many customer feedbacks, for instance on newegg a few consumers report artifacting just after a short while the card was purchased. I dont get it, the reviews about this card are very good but is it a common problem with dirt 3 edition? The card has been working fine since I removed and re-installed everything last night, I'm just worried it does not happen again, I'm also gonna stay away from overclocking this card for a while. Any ideas?

 

[hyperreader]

like kikireeki said its an unstable overclock , each card has a different limit for overclocking and even if they are the same model they can have different thresholds .
i suggest overclocking your core to 875mhz and memory to 1300mhz and see what happens.

and DO NOT forget to monitor your temps.

 

[lucifer_9mm]

Thanks for your inputs, i'm relieved. Just wanna know one more thing, does the warranty stand void if I have oc'd the card once?

 

[hyperreader]

no , its void if you overclock the card , so dont bother.

 

[phishy714]

Honestly though, if you reset the card to factory settings, how would they even know if you overclocked the card?

And to Lucifer- Yeah don't you worry about the card. If it has been running great since you wiped everything, you will be just fine. IMO, you don't need to overclock your card until you start to notice that it is struggling to keep up with what you are trying to play. For that 6950, it will be a long time until you need to overclock it, so you are good.

 

[hyperreader]

i dont know, some kind of trip mechanism?

 

[lucifer_9mm]

Since that incident I'm scared to oc this card so I'm not gonna touch it for a long time anyway. And I think hyperreader is right, so I'm afraid my warranty is gone, I just hope I wouldnt need it in the future, thank you guys for replying.