Should i RMA my xfx 6870?

[JazmaN]

Hello

Sorry i don't post much here and please move this if i have posted it in the wrong place. but i have an issue concerning the XFX 6870 i purchased yesterday. I have installed it today and installed the graphics drivers, and i have noticed that the fan of the GPU idle's at 50%, this is very annoying as it is loud and im fairly certain they shouldn't be Idling at 50%, also the idle temp is 51*c. I bought the 6870 as my sapphire 6850 became faulty after a year and it was the same price so i thought why not go for the next one up. My 6850 used to idle at around 35*c and was nowhere near as loud. The temp doesnt really change much when i manually control the fan and set the speed at 20% but i dont want to do that really. Should i RMA for a refund and buy an alternative? would i be better off going back to a 6850 or would there be a better nvidia alternative thats below £200?

Thanks for any help.

Automatic fan speed:

 

[Azurite]

Hello

Sorry i don't post much here and please move this if i have posted it in the wrong place. but i have an issue concerning the XFX 6870 i purchased yesterday. I have installed it today and installed the graphics drivers, and i have noticed that the fan of the GPU idle's at 50%, this is very annoying as it is loud and im fairly certain they shouldn't be Idling at 50%, also the idle temp is 51*c. I bought the 6870 as my sapphire 6850 became faulty after a year and it was the same price so i thought why not go for the next one up. My 6850 used to idle at around 35*c and was nowhere near as loud. The temp doesnt really change much when i manually control the fan and set the speed at 20% but i dont want to do that really. Should i RMA for a refund and buy an alternative? would i be better off going back to a 6850 or would there be a better nvidia alternative thats below £200?

Thanks for any help.

Automatic fan speed:

Just set the fan to auto or put it down manually.

 

[JazmaN]

Just set the fan to auto or put it down manually.

its 50% on auto, i dont want to manually control it because ill end up messing the card up knowing my luck

 

[sheroo]

Download MSI afterburner and set up a custom fan profile. It'll be nice and quiet when you're browsing and kick the fan in when you're gaming.

 

[JazmaN]

Download MSI afterburner and set up a custom fan profile. It'll be nice and quiet when you're browsing and kick the fan in when you're gaming.

Ill give that a try, thanks

 

[Azurite]

You should uncheck your -enable manual fan control- box and apply. Your card is idling at 53% fan rpm because it is set to manually. If you leave it at auto/default the card fan will spinn up automaticly when the card gets hot, so no worries.

I set mine to 40-50% when i game and just uncheck the box and appply when im done gaming. Simple as that, and its the same thing you do in msi afterburner, only msi AB takes more time to learn and have more and better options.

 

[JazmaN]

You should uncheck your -enable manual fan control- box and apply. Your card is idling at 53% fan rpm because it is set to manually. If you leave it at auto/default the card fan will spinn up automaticly when the card gets hot, so no worries.

I set mine to 40-50% when i game and just uncheck the box and appply when im done gaming. Simple as that, and its the same thing you do in msi afterburner, only msi AB takes more time to learn and have more and better options.

thanks for the input, but as i said above, it is 50% when set to automatic as well

the box was pretty battered when it arrived, i think it could be a defect as a result

 

[Azurite]

thanks for the input, but as i said above, it is 50% when set to automatic as well

the box was pretty battered when it arrived, i think it could be a defect as a result

Yeah that could be the case.

Then you should try and RMA it asap. Did you take picture of the package when it arrived? Anyways im sure they believe you, and that there isnt any problems to rma it.

 

[JazmaN]

Yeah that could be the case.

Then you should try and RMA it asap. Did you take picture of the package when it arrived? Anyways im sure they believe you, and that there isnt any problems to rma it.

No i was too interested in getting to the GPU haha, but the way it was, the gpu wa sput in one half of the box, and the other half was filled with bubble wrap, so only half of the gpu box was protected. I've RMA'd it and will probably buy a GTX 560ti, by the looks of google 50% idle seems to be a common issue with the 6870, gunna have a look at TTL's review of it again see if he mentioned anything about it. Thanks for the help

Got it from ebuyer, never liked the couriers they use (city link and parcel force) so i don't think i will be buying anything expensive from them again just for that factor. I tried saints row 3 on ultra settings at 1080p, and it was hitting 100% gpu usage, i don't know if thats normal ive been told its not. Don't want to touch it with BF3 incase i make it worse so ive taken it out of my system now xD

 

[Azurite]

Try get a 560Ti 2GB then. I beliieve msi got one with more memory.

Good luck

 

[sheroo]

If you are looking for silence the MSI TF3 (Twin Frozr III) coolers are brilliant.

 

[Azurite]

If you are looking for silence the MSI TF3 (Twin Frozr III) coolers are brilliant.

Yeah and you get those with 2gb memory now

Well, the 2gb uses the twin frozr II but you could get the MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti 448 Cores 1280MB with twinfrozr III

 

[JazmaN]

If you are looking for silence the MSI TF3 (Twin Frozr III) coolers are brilliant.

Yeah and you get those with 2gb memory now

Well, the 2gb uses the twin frozr II but you could get the MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti 448 Cores 1280MB with twinfrozr III

Thanks guys ill have a look into it

 

[JazmaN]

Well, as an update for ya, i think it was defective, i had contacted XFX to see if they could do anything to help (as XFX made the card) and they advised that i uninstall and reisntall the drivers for it. When midway through unistalling, this happened not the usual sort of screen changes that happen during the installs / uninstalls, didn't recover:

Not happy at all

 

[nepas]

errrr,you were midway through the uninstall,what were you expecting?tbh after what happened with me with my XFX I would not touch them with a bargepole

 

[JazmaN]

errrr,you were midway through the uninstall,what were you expecting?tbh after what happened with me with my XFX I would not touch them with a bargepole

I was expecting it to not do that never happened like that before lol, i know the screen flickers and goes blank during the driver installs and stuff, but this didnt recover, even after many restarts i probably should have made that part a bit clearer xD, and i definitely agree with you, not touching xfx again

 

[JazmaN]

Well i ended up with a gtx 560 ti Twin Frozr II, running nice and smoothly for a few weeks now

 

[DB006]

The reason your temp was high was because there was a computer issue (running WMP or similar process probably) causing the memory to stay clocked at 1050mhz instead of downclocking to 150mhz.

 

[JazmaN]

The reason your temp was high was because there was a computer issue (running WMP or similar process probably) causing the memory to stay clocked at 1050mhz instead of downclocking to 150mhz.

The supplier i got it from had determained that the card was infact faulty, and partly a driver issue, hence why it only did it when drivers where installed.

 

[goldrogers]

The supplier i got it from had determained that the card was infact faulty, and partly a driver issue, hence why it only did it when drivers where installed.

I'm having the same issue...the card was idling at 53 celsius and the fan was at 57%, all while idling (and everything set to auto, NOT manual). I uninstalled the Catalyst drivers I had and installed newer drivers. After that, the memory was correctly underclocked while idling, which lowered the idle temps to around 45 celsius. However, the fan was STILL at around 40-45% while idle. It seems like this card is supposed to idle cooler than that, and also the idle fan speed seems to be roughly 25%.

I'm curious, what did they say was wrong with the card? Did they send you a replacement?