Water cooling 6800 problems

T

theseeker

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I am getting lock-ups in 3 DMark and games. I recently saw a thread that said Nvidia cards may lock-up when H2O cooled due to the bios not seeing the fan. Anyone have a similar experience?
 
I havent' heard anything like that, but I have my 6800 gt overclocked and the aquagrafx 6800 rev 2 on mine and its working great.
 
a) that's a 7800GTX issue, not a 6x00 series issue
b) nVidia is releasing a driver fix for it real soon now
 
Beats me, it maybe an ASUS problem. I had no problems until I started water cooling the blocks and I am only cooling the blocks. Grafx wont fit my card.
 
Vertigo Acid said:
a) that's a 7800GTX issue, not a 6x00 series issue
b) nVidia is releasing a driver fix for it real soon now
Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification. Have any ideas on the possible cause of my problem?
 
DO you have the mem OC'd heavily at all? I didn't have RAMsinks on my 1st 6800GT, just a Maze 4, and after an hour or so of CS:S it would quit on me. Added RAMsinks and it was fine. How's the airflow in your case?
 
typhoon43 said:
DO you have the mem OC'd heavily at all? I didn't have RAMsinks on my 1st 6800GT, just a Maze 4, and after an hour or so of CS:S it would quit on me. Added RAMsinks and it was fine. How's the airflow in your case?
Click to expand...

No OC'ing at all and my airflow is great. My case temp never exceeds 23C. What type of ram sinks do you use? Thanks for your help.
 
Well what manufacturer's video card do you have? How about uninstalling the software and just installing the drivers? Perhaps there is some kind of additional interface that reports no fan?
 
Top Nurse said:
Well what manufacturer's video card do you have? How about uninstalling the software and just installing the drivers? Perhaps there is some kind of additional interface that reports no fan?
Click to expand...

Good to hear from you TN! My cards are ASUS EN6800. I have uninstalled following driver cleaner instructions to no avail.
What really puzzles me is that WIN XP media player can run for hours, but the moment I try to play a game or run 3D Mark...total freeze. Sandra reports no problems no matter what test I run. :confused:
BTW, I just sent Sharka an e-mail asking which 6800 cards are supported by Aqua. As we know now, ASUS cards are not. I am going to buy 2 new graphic cards tomorrow along with the Aqua FX coolers. Any suggestions? I am leaning towards BFG. As always thanks in advance.
 
As for your 6800's if you tighten them down to much and bend the card this will happen. Some times not at first but over time
 
I would ask R1ckCa1n about the 6800 cards as he used to have them. The guys in the video card forum like to argue more than here ;) I would suggest you ditch the part of the Asus program that monitors the hardware for fan activity and such. Have you updated the card to the latest firmware?
 
USPS said:
As for your 6800's if you tighten them down to much and bend the card this will happen. Some times not at first but over time
Click to expand...

He is using TwinPlex's on his card.
 
Top Nurse said:
I would ask R1ckCa1n about the 6800 cards as he used to have them. The guys in the video card forum like to argue more than here ;) I would suggest you ditch the part of the Asus program that monitors the hardware for fan activity and such. Have you updated the card to the latest firmware?
Click to expand...

I would love too, check the ASUS site and let me know where to find it!
 
theseeker said:
I am going to buy 2 new graphic cards tomorrow along with the Aqua FX coolers. Any suggestions? I am leaning towards BFG. As always thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Why not try out 2 new BFG 7800 GTX cards? and take lots of pics... :)
 
CAD OC'er said:
Why not try out 2 new BFG 7800 GTX cards? and take lots of pics... :)
Click to expand...

Sounds great to me, but that is about $1200 right? :eek: I also don't think there are any combo coolers out that will fit the 7800 yet. TwinPlex's and Maze designs fit okay so long as you use RAM sinks. On the AC forum someone just posted some pic's of a 7800 where they were trying to fit up an AquagraFX 6800 rev 2 cooler to it. Seems like it might fit properly if you ground away a bit of the metal that interferes with a capacitor or just cut off that part alltogether. The AquagraFX 6800 LE fits properly, but doesn't cool the voltage regulators. So AC says that new coolers will be available in a few weeks :D
 
I never thought about this before, but where is the temperture sensor for the GPU & CPU? How does the computer knows it is overheat?
 
Happy Hopping said:
I never thought about this before, but where is the temperture sensor for the GPU & CPU? How does the computer knows it is overheat?
Click to expand...

Well there are several sensors in most computers. There is one under the CPU on the MB and there is another one on most modern VGA cards. Thus if you have the right software you can monitor the temperature. However, these sensors are known to have a very wide tolerance so they are really only good for viewing wide swings of temperature on your specific computer. It doesn't do any good to compare your temps with someone elses temps because you could be on the high side and someone else on the low side of the tolerance even though you both in fact have the same temp. When you watercool the better thing to monitor is the actual water temps coming off your CPU/GPU or if on one loop then the temp right after or before the radiator.
 
I am leaning towards this being an ASUS problem. I have not found any one who water cooling these cards.
 
Vertigo Acid said:
a) that's a 7800GTX issue, not a 6x00 series issue
b) nVidia is releasing a driver fix for it real soon now
Click to expand...
It is not a 7800GTX issue. I have a waterblock on my 7800GTX with no issues. The issue is sub zero temps on a 7800GTX. Should work just fine.
 
Here is the direct response from EVGA....

"The bios/driver monitor the FAN speed as part of its thermal protection system. If the fan is disconnected it reads it as a fan failure and throttles back the GPU in order to protect it from damage (which in a NON-water cooled situation would be very good).

xxxxx is working to get us a new BIOS that does not pay attention to the fan but instead moves the thermal throttle monitoring over only to the temperature sensor on the GPU.

We should expect a new BIOS from NVIDIA either late today or sometime tomorrow"
This is good news....When I receive the bios I will report back...
Click to expand...
http://hardforum.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1027884752
It *is* a 7800 problem, but apparently is only EVGA related.
 
I spent hours on the phone with the ASUS techs and still no go. They finally admitted that the card may shut down without the fan connected! However, they are not for sure.Guess I will have to change cards. This is qutie dissapointing.
 
Piece of pie...

Measure the resistance of current fan or figure out what would be a good resistance to use to short the fan header with an appropriate resistor. Essentially you will cut the fan wire off the Asus 6800 board fan and then wire a resistor in series to simulate a voltage drop that you would normally get with the fan. The graphic card should then see that voltage is being used and problem should go away if the pronlem is the fan. Make sure you use an appropriately sized wattage on the resistor! :D
 
Top Nurse said:
Piece of pie...

Measure the resistance of current fan or figure out what would be a good resistance to use to short the fan header with an appropriate resistor. Essentially you will cut the fan wire off the Asus 6800 board fan and then wire a resistor in series to simulate a voltage drop that you would normally get with the fan. The graphic card should then see that voltage is being used and problem should go away if the pronlem is the fan. Make sure you use an appropriately sized wattage on the resistor! :D
Click to expand...

I agree with that, however I hate the fact that the ASUS people don't know their stuff and I spent alot of green for these cards. I am going to sell them and buy something else.
 
theseeker said:
I agree with that, however I hate the fact that the ASUS people don't know their stuff and I spent alot of green for these cards. I am going to sell them and buy something else.
Click to expand...

ASUS used to make the best video cards on the market, but it seems lately they have been falling down on the job of support for their cards. :(
 
Top Nurse said:
ASUS used to make the best video cards on the market, but it seems lately they have been falling down on the job of support for their cards. :(
Click to expand...

NS! The price you have to pay for their cards is absurd compared to the others, and not to mention you would think their video cards would work seamlessly with their MB. That is not the case. End of story.
So what is your recommendation for graphic cards?
Do you know of any head to head reviews of graphic card manufacturers?
 
R1ckCa1n said:
Got a better link to this post and where it was originaly posted? I thought mine was OK until I start 3d applications and it throttles WAY BACK. My GPU is running a smooth 33-34c so maybe I will connect the fan until this is fixed.
Click to expand...

Try my resistor trick?
 
TN, thanks for the link, but what I really want to see is a comparison of the various makers of video cards, ie...BFG, PNY, eVGA and the others.
As always you go above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks TN!
 
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