Short lived GeForce video boards

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carlmart

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Sep 17, 2006
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Today I found the dreaded blue-screen on my computer.

Tracing the problem, the culprit was the Zotac GT640 video board.

As this is my second GT640, the other being an EVGA version which lasted less than a year, I'm beginning to wonder if there's not some problem with the 640 series. Is there?

I have been checking temp regularly, and it never got hot, around 40C or so, and never more than 50C. So it doesn't seem like a heat issue.

A friend of mine, who is technical director at a large video production company, where they use mostly Quadro types, told me that video boards seemed to last less than they did in the past.

A problem I have is that I can't pick the "ATI path" because my video editing program of choice (Avid), only recommends and supports Nvidia boards, even if they are not Quadro. If you go on the Avid forum and ask for advice on using an ATI based board, you will not get any help.

My requirements for video are not that great, in the sense that I do not need serious gaming capabilities. Avid works quite fine, even in full-screen, with the GT640. Having more, in the case of more powerful boards, would speed up processing capabilities (in Avid and other programs) but I'm happy with the speeds I have now.

What I don't want is short lived video boards. The one before the EVGA GT640 was a Zotac 9600GT that lasted like four years. Any more modern board I can get that can give me that?
 
I'd recommend looking at the new 750 series cards. They are significantly more powerful than what you're using now, plus they should run a lot cooler and quieter. 60W total draw.
 
The only problem with 750 series boards, from a quick check I just did, is that price (in Brazil at least) escalates up 2x apparently.

They also get larger, using two slots space. Which is a problem on most modern mobos.
 
carlmart said:
The only problem with 750 series boards, from a quick check I just did, is that price (in Brazil at least) escalates up 2x apparently.

They also get larger, using two slots space. Which is a problem on most modern mobos.
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Say what? I may be living in a bubble, but I'm pretty sure most motherboard manufacturers have compensated for dual slot cards since they have been mainstream for pretty much the past 6 years... Unless you're talking about proprietary boards in pre-built systems?
 
There's too many factors to say what could be going wrong with your cards. I have Nvidia cards are cracking 10 years old and still work fine.
 
Armenius said:
Say what? I may be living in a bubble, but I'm pretty sure most motherboard manufacturers have compensated for dual slot cards since they have been mainstream for pretty much the past 6 years... Unless you're talking about proprietary boards in pre-built systems?
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No, my mobo is a Gigabyte GA-Z77M D3H, and the 750 cards I have seen will cover the only PCI exppress slot I have left.

What I am arguing about the short life is for recent cards, not old ones. Before the GT640 I had a Zotac 9600 that lasted 4 years.
 
i have a gigabyte 9400 thats still cranking away in my HTPC
 
Private_Ops said:
I have a 3DFX Voodoo 3 that still works. :D
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And I bet Diablo 2 still looks incredible on Glide!
Its so funny how my buddy and I played D2 together for years and he'd break out the old Win98 PC with his Voodoo 3 just to play it. None of my ATI or Nvidia cards ever ran that game as smooth as his Voodoo 3.
 
You guys are killing me. :D

OP, the 600 series seemed to be slightly "underbuilt", IMO. The newer cards seem to be a step up in build quality. Since you need a new card and you aren't looking top of the line the 750 is actually a very good recommendation. It's actually a next gen card (other than being 28nm) and will likely give you the longest service because of that.
 
My evga GT640 has been rocking along a long time no problem.
 
Relayer said:
You guys are killing me. :D

OP, the 600 series seemed to be slightly "underbuilt", IMO. The newer cards seem to be a step up in build quality. Since you need a new card and you aren't looking top of the line the 750 is actually a very good recommendation. It's actually a next gen card (other than being 28nm) and will likely give you the longest service because of that.
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Honestly it all comes down to the board partner. Some use better parts than others. If you could strip the gpu out of the cards that died on you and put it on another board, I bet it would work just fine.
 
OP, it could also be 'dirty' power. I've seen a bad PSU cause several issues similar to those you mentioned. I've also heard of a shoddy power infrastructure in some countries causing similar issues. If you are electrically-inclined, I might recommend attempting to test the PSU similar to the JonnyGuru or HardOCP review tests. Also, there is the possibility that the PCI-E slot could be causing trouble. Have you tried the card, or a different card may be a better choice, in the other PCI-E slot instead?

I don't have a 640, but my 9800GTX+, GT 520, and GTX 660 Ti are all running pretty well. I game with a couple of guys that are running 640s (pretty casual gaming) and neither of them have had any issues with them.
 
Well, I am RMAing the board to Zotac in Brazil, as there seems to be a 2-year guarantee for it. Pity I didn't check on the EVGA when it failed, as it may have had something like that too.

We'll see what happens when it comes back.

How can I test my AC line and the PSU? I live in a big city and my electrical installation is 3-phase type, with one phase just for the computer and nothing else. So I always thought that might be a rare place for anything to happen. But who knows?
 
lloose said:
There's too many facts to say what could be going wrong with your cards. I have Nvidia cards are cracking 10 years old and still work fine.
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That because they used to be alot more reliable, I have a geforce 2 what has outkasted any other nvidia card, from the 7000 series up they just don't seem to last, like nvidia just wants you to upgrade
 
OmgitsSexyChase said:
That because they used to be alot more reliable, I have a geforce 2 what has outkasted any other nvidia card, from the 7000 series up they just don't seem to last, like nvidia just wants you to upgrade
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I'm totally disinclined to believe this, firstly because I have two 8800GTS 512s that still work from nearly 7 years ago, and they've both spend a significant number of years overclocked. I think that, as is always the case, sometimes you get a dud of a card and there's not much that can be done about that.
 
flak-spammer said:
I'm totally disinclined to believe this, firstly because I have two 8800GTS 512s that still work from nearly 7 years ago, and they've both spend a significant number of years overclocked. I think that, as is always the case, sometimes you get a dud of a card and there's not much that can be done about that.
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Well the 512 was also not one of the original released it was a revision so I'd imagine they could fix most problems with it by the time it came out

I had the 8800 gts 640, which also happened to be a dud which fried my mobo upon bootup, I had to return it, and get a newone from newegg.

My friend who inspired me to get the 8800gts had lines through his first one upon bootup and he bought it a few months before me

So im inclined to believe the original 8 series the gts and gtx had high failure rates

Neither of our cards are operational now mine got replaced with a gtx 260 216

So maybe you just got a stud of a card? and I just got a regular card
 
Until my card returns I will have to use the on-board video. Problem is it's very poor, probably because it depends on the RAM you have. In my case it's 8Gb with Windows 7 64. Is there any way to improve things?
 
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