Asus 7950 DCII owners! Do i get a new cooler?

Z

ZZAC

New member
Basicly, please read this post.
the 7950 DcII and other cards have had a very bad desing fault
read this article
http://www.behardware.com/news/12153/asus-hd-7950-directcu-ii-fault-report.html
as you can see by the pictures in the article the heat sink is not properly contacting the gpu cuasing instability and a small overclocking potentail on a massive cooler. overall just frustrating me as the sensor is saying its only hitting 60 degrease but at 80 it artifacts and freeze's. it will only hit *80 when im overclocking or on a hot day, but still, looking at the thermometer picture on the fault repot, and the fact that solder doesnt melt for a fair bit after 80 (130+) i am worried, and at the moment have a face like this going on :huh:
I have replaced the's crews witch gave me overhead for another 100mhz stable clock, but again when it hits 80 degrease it artifacts (solder is melting)
again, i can clock it up to 1200+ core and its stable untill it hits that magic tempriture due to poor heat sink pressure it will artifact.

And so, i am now stuck with a card that's constantly heating to a high tempriture and cooling down again witch is a stress to the solder. I have already changed the screws but i believe the problem lies more in the stand offs.
I have contacted asus and received no reply, i was baffled by this. but after reading the fault report it seems asus are just running away from there problems.
This leaves me with 3 ideas
1: get anyone with the card and design fault to complain in hope they reply to a dozen or more complaints at once. (unlikely one
2: plain and simple, its a stock/reference pcb hence i should be able to replace the cooler, witch is a bit of a shame seeing how big and decent this cooler was meant to be.
3:try work a fix on the original cooler so anyone with the same faulty can do so themselves. (only if i get enough requests)
WHat should i do? :confused:
This sucks, ive never liked asus, ive had like 8 or so faulty boards and was avoiding them for my card but then... i did get it half price (obliviously unaware of asus's ridiculasly stupid design fault
edit: may be working a fix, coolers are so expensive, £60+ :L
 
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well the melting range for solder is 90 - 450 degrees C. so therefore what you thought was 80 is actually 90plus degrees.

1. keep bashing on asus's door (normally they are really good)
2. try to rma it through supplier stating asus not responding, see if they can arrange it for you.
3. if there is a recognised design flaw, try trading standards, using sales of goods act 1973 (if you are in the uk) as your best friend as it is not "fit for purpose"
4. try another cooler
 
VengeanceUK said:
well the melting range for solder is 90 - 450 degrees C. so therefore what you thought was 80 is actually 90plus degrees.

1. keep bashing on asus's door (normally they are really good)
2. try to rma it through supplier stating asus not responding, see if they can arrange it for you.
3. if there is a recognised design flaw, try trading standards, using sales of goods act 1973 (if you are in the uk) as your best friend as it is not "fit for purpose"
4. try another cooler
Click to expand...

another cooler is expensive, at the moment im trying to figure a work around.
i have been emailing asus, asked for a rma for.ect and they wont help me, no response from them at all, it is fit for purpose as it is still usable, and it all depends on the type of solder, amd has a safe thershhold of 84-85 iirc, and nvidia runs solder that barely melts at 105, hence id think amd have not concked out on solder that melts at 90 degrease on a top end card that may hit that temp during stress, it would just save them allot of rma trouble.
took a good look at the heatsink design, changed for better matching screws once again, tried diffrent washer arrangements, the thing i find stupid is the outdent on the heat pipes for the die, surely it would of made lots more sense to decrease the height of the standoffs and have all the heatpipes as a flat surface first cutting production costs, and secondly giving a smother surface with less imperfections. Anyway, i am now at the prime, and possibly the best it will get, with 4 even screws (non spring, with a full thread) tightened evenly (half turn intervals) and it seems to be making solid contact, but ill see.

Even with the current out dented heatpipe design (seen here: http://www.hardware.fr/medias/screenshots.php?id=IMG0035288)
They could of made the stand-offs on the heat sink 1mm or so taller, and the screws have a thread stop, witch should be 2mm or so (maybe more) high upn the screw, so the heat sink makes even contact with the gpu die.
Edit: over clocked at 1100mhz furmarking, and the temps has dropped a good 5-8 degrease (with new screws and thermal paste).
But it also seems that the problem still persists of artifacts at 84 degrease witch again i dont think should be happening (correct me if im wrong but ive seen my mates gtx 280 do 105 all day without artifacts)
so this brings me to a conclusion of unless it is remodelled with new standoffs on the heatsink and new screws there is no real workaround exept for replacing the screws and Tim witch seams to be the best easy quick and cheap thing to do that increases stability and overclocking potential (by about 200mhz in my case. but to get the best out of my card (1200 core+) id need a waterloop that can keep it under 70 degrease preferably, or a £60 air cooler, witch i was hoping for about the same quality with the tri slot beast of a cooler thats on my card of the production line
 
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the problem is though, it is clearly defective, the temperatures it is hitting prove this fact, it should be able to cope with these temps, but can't. therefore is unfit for purpose due to inherent instabilities at temperatures within its operating window.

add in the fact the cooler is blatantly mis-fitted then thats even more unfit for purpose fodder, especially with your url link proving that asus are blanking out the issues that are becoming more widely known as a manufacturing error, adds even more credence to the case
 
VengeanceUK said:
the problem is though, it is clearly defective, the temperatures it is hitting prove this fact, it should be able to cope with these temps, but can't. therefore is unfit for purpose due to inherent instabilities at temperatures within its operating window.

add in the fact the cooler is blatantly mis-fitted then thats even more unfit for purpose fodder, especially with your url link proving that asus are blanking out the issues that are becoming more widely known as a manufacturing error, adds even more credence to the case
Click to expand...

you are spot on, was thinking a copper shim, but its better than it was, still clearly defective though, but i have no receipt on the card, and asus wont reply, i don't understand what i can do, as a retailer wont take it back, i got the card half price without knowing the fault for only £160, im tempted to have a loop just for the card but that is a alot of money for me at the moment, and also id need to mod my case to take all the water cooling geer.
may try contact asus again later
 
mate, mine doesnt render 2D properly, it performs worse atm than my old HD6870. i'm currently contacting the support and after 3 days they told me to test that in a different system. right, like i have a second rig laying around. and no i dont know anyone who has a proper rig to test that card in atm, they'd all bottleneck it like crazy. either they replace my card or i'm going mad.

/edit/
i have the top v2, and it doesnt have any heat problems. i dont exceed 65°C in benchmarks and the fans then are at about 30%.
 
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yeah same its annoying me theres a clear fault with the card so they should replace it i keep getting directed to these rma forms that dont work and on the odd time when they do asus reply in japanese :/ its unbelievable that they can get away with it
 
There is deffo a design issue with the cooler. I think the mounting screws around the gpu dont apply enough pressure to make proper contact between cooler and gpu. Asus claims that they fixed this issue with the V2 version of the 7950DC2...

I had issues with a 7970 DC2T, still have issues to be honest. I bought this gpu with a beefy custom pcb with overclocking in mind. But it turned out it is voltage locked. All review samples were unlocked and clocked high as s**t. The only way to get acces to voltage control is to hotwire it to a ROG mobo which suports this function. Hotwiring includes soldering on the card which of course voids your warranty.

When i got my card i only tested it with the stock cooler a couple of hours to see if everything was working lije it should, then mounted my waterblock on it.
After a couple of months i had enough of the card and decided to sell it. I remounted the stock cooler replacing paste and pads with brand new ones. Tested it several hours playing games and running some benchmarks.

Everything was working like on day one. Then i sold the card to a fellow forum member. After a couple of days he reported back that the card had an issue:

-Fans suddenly stopping while the card is under load.
-Fans not even start to spin on boot up of his PC.

I refunded him of course and covered the shipping fee's for him to send me the card back. When i got the card back i threw it in my system and started testing. On first boot the fans spin up, then i lauched a benchmark (Heaven) and after ten seconds the fans started stuttering and making weird noises and then stopped (underload). Stopped everything and restarted my PC.

Fans not working att all anymore. Started an rma procedure with my e-tailer who had to send the card in to asus. Waited two weeks and got told that it is not going to be covered by warranty since there is a sticker with the serial number missing, not even a "warranty void if removed sticker".

I harrased Asus with e-mails but never got an answer.

Since this day im stuck with a perfectly working pcb with no fans. The only way i can use my card is with a waterblock on it.
I cant even sell the card in this condition even if it is 100% functionnal.

I spend nearly 600E on this card and this is the result. I even asked asus if there is a possibility to get a replacement stock cooler for which i would have paid of course to get this piece of s**t working.

Still no answer untill this day.

You cant imagine how mad i am of getting no support at all. I near to end up playing baseball with the card.

Asus failed on the 7970/50's DC2 series and dont admit it !

I sweared myself to never give this company one single cent again even if on the motherboard side they rock. Owned a few and never hand an issue.

F*** you ASUS ! Money hungry bi*** ! :mad:

So i think the best solution is to get an aftermarket cooler like an arctic accelero and try that out and see if it solves your problem.

Cheers!
 
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FTR.4500MHz said:
There is deffo a design issue with the cooler. I think the mounting screws around the gpu dont apply enough pressure to make proper contact between cooler and gpu. Asus claims that they fixed this issue with the V2 version of the 7950DC2...

I had issues with a 7970 DC2T, still have issues to be honest. I bought this gpu with a beefy custom pcb with overclocking in mind. But it turned out it is voltage locked. All review samples were unlocked and clocked high as s**t. The only way to get acces to voltage control is to hotwire it to a ROG mobo which suports this function. Hotwiring includes soldering on the card which of course voids your warranty.

When i got my card i only tested it with the stock cooler a couple of hours to see if everything was working lije it should, then mounted my waterblock on it.
After a couple of months i had enough of the card and decided to sell it. I remounted the stock cooler replacing paste and pads with brand new ones. Tested it several hours playing games and running some benchmarks.

Everything was working like on day one. Then i sold the card to a fellow forum member. After a couple of days he reported back that the card had an issue:

-Fans suddenly stopping while the card is under load.
-Fans not even start to spin on boot up of his PC.

I refunded him of course and covered the shipping fee's for him to send me the card back. When i got the card back i threw it in my system and started testing. On first boot the fans spin up, then i lauched a benchmark (Heaven) and after ten seconds the fans started stuttering and making weird noises and then stopped (underload). Stopped everything and restarted my PC.

Fans not working att all anymore. Started an rma procedure with my e-tailer who had to send the card in to asus. Waited two weeks and got told that it is not going to be covered by warranty since there is a sticker with the serial number missing, not even a "warranty void if removed sticker".

I harrased Asus with e-mails but never got an answer.

Since this day im stuck with a perfectly working pcb with no fans. The only way i can use my card is with a waterblock on it.
I cant even sell the card in this condition even if it is 100% functionnal.

I spend nearly 600E on this card and this is the result. I even asked asus if there is a possibility to get a replacement stock cooler for which i would have paid of course to get this piece of s**t working.

Still no answer untill this day.

You cant imagine how mad i am of getting no support at all. I near to end up playing baseball with the card.

Asus failed on the 7970/50's DC2 series and dont admit it !

I sweared myself to never give this company one single cent again even if on the motherboard side they rock. Owned a few and never hand an issue.

F*** you ASUS ! Money hungry bi*** ! :mad:

So i think the best solution is to get an aftermarket cooler like an arctic accelero and try that out and see if it solves your problem.

Cheers!
Click to expand...


That sounds like an absolute bummer!
my story goes something like this!
i live messaged asus, never got any responses
i then emailed them, and after about 2 weeks someone got back to me.
I said it was partially faulty and had some small issues.
they said they would replace it, but could only replace it witha V1
i read the trading standards ^_^
Explained how every V1 7950DCII Top is not fit for purpose.
Threatened to take them to court
and about 4 months after first contact i have a 7950DCII VII (brand new one at that)
so Yeah, as soon as i explained i know what im doing and could take them to court they accepted RMA :cool:

:mad: about your card, but they cant accept a card with a broken sticker dude, RMA 101
(ive brought faulty cards on ebay and RMA'ed them before, im nearly an expert in RMA things :p )
Id suggest before breaking the bank try plug in a fan from another graphics card (just the fan not try mount a wrong cooler) and do the same, ive had cards that have bad fans (fan wont spin atall) but also had cards with a bad 12v somewhere meaning the fan wouldn't spin, so i just tan the fans power with a 12v part somewhere on the card (ill try find a picture and show you)
But the point is it may be the pcb that's causing a fan failure
and if so you need to wire it to 12v (if you want i may even be able to build you a dual GPU fan to 12v adapter.
But good luck, and ill be willing to help or throw out ideas.
going to sound a bit derp- you tried running it in the second bios? :)
 
Tried both bios: nothing

Also thought about reflashing the bios with one downloaded from TPU but im afraid of bricking the card.

Also the sticker wasnt a "warranty void if removed" sticker covering any screw. It was a serial number sticker.

I mean the card works and i can use it with a waterblock. But can't sell it since stock heatsink fans not working, i doubt someone is willing to buy it without the stock cooler.

Since i've moved to another card its just sitting around collecting dust.
 
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FTR.4500MHz said:
Tried both bios: nothing

Also thought about reflashing the bios with one downloaded from TPU but im afraid of bricking the card.

Also the sticker wasnt a "warranty void if removed sticker" covering any screw. It was a serial number sticker.

I mean the card works and i can use it with a waterblock. But can't sell it since stock heatsink fans not working, i doubt someone is willing to buy it without the stock cooler.

Since i've moved to another card its just sitting around collecting dust.
Click to expand...

i may be able to buy it as spares or repairs basis. all dependent of course!
or would be happy to take look at it and diagnose weather its the fans or in fact the pcb/bios
Flashing a bios really is not hard, you have a dual bios card, therefore if one goes bad, boot back into windows, and hot switch the bios back to the bricked one (switch it whilst in windows to the bad bios) the card will still be operation, nd then you try it again or try a different bios of course. Any pcb scratches or marks? maybe you knocked of a SMD component>
And are you sure its just the fans? or does it crash at the same exact time the fans are powered of?


oh and if there's no asus serial number on the card you can t prove its the same one as your claiming to send back, hence why you cant rma it, its security for asus.
 
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also since i've now got a whole bunch of asus 7950 users here, does anyone have bfbc2 and can tell me how well it runs in multiplayer? i dont want to RMA for nothing.
 
SeekaX said:
also since i've now got a whole bunch of asus 7950 users here, does anyone have bfbc2 and can tell me how well it runs in multiplayer? i dont want to RMA for nothing.
Click to expand...

i dont have bF3 but dependent on res id say it should max it or get close at 40+ FPS
 
SeekaX said:
45 fps on dx10 lowest settings when the server is full. 30 fps when i open the scoreboard. what the heck is wrong with that card.
Click to expand...

Something is massively wrong :O

My single 480 does 80+fps average...... (overclocked)

But no seriously, a 7950 should be blowing through that game with ease mate.
 
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