EVGA says to return my 7900GT KO for RMA. Do you agree?

I have the infamous corrupted screen issue on my 7900GT KO and Vista.
Have also noticed this issue in some games on XP too. But I can alt+tab
in XP games and the screen comes up clean again. I contacted EVGA about
it and they said to do an RMA for a replacement. Thing is that I have
seen people do RMA's over this issue and the replacement 7900GT does it
too so I'm not so sure this is a hardware issue and is really a Nvidia
driver issue with those cards. For one thing, the drivers that come with
Vista don't cause it so that is why I think it is a driver issue. I
could be wrong though. I've already had to do one RMA for the same card
and don't want to go through the hassle of doing another if it doesn't
really fix it. EVGA charges for shipping both ways too. Anyone know for
certain if this is a driver issue or a hardware issue?


Here is a video on youtube about the issue I am talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZVPZse53Tg

"John Adams" wrote in message
m...
I have the infamous corrupted screen issue on my 7900GT KO and Vista.
Anyone know for
certain if this is a driver issue or a hardware issue?

From what I've read, it's a driver and Vista AA issue not a hardware issue.
I suspect you'd be out of a videocard for a long time, then get the exact
same thing when you get it back. There's a discussion about it here, and
what did and didn't work for some...
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion...hp?t26830.html

John Adams wrote:
I have the infamous corrupted screen issue on my 7900GT KO and Vista.
Have also noticed this issue in some games on XP too. But I can alt+tab
in XP games and the screen comes up clean again. I contacted EVGA about
it and they said to do an RMA for a replacement. Thing is that I have
seen people do RMA's over this issue and the replacement 7900GT does it
too so I'm not so sure this is a hardware issue and is really a Nvidia
driver issue with those cards. For one thing, the drivers that come with
Vista don't cause it so that is why I think it is a driver issue. I
could be wrong though. I've already had to do one RMA for the same card
and don't want to go through the hassle of doing another if it doesn't
really fix it. EVGA charges for shipping both ways too. Anyone know for
certain if this is a driver issue or a hardware issue?


Here is a video on youtube about the issue I am talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZVPZse53Tg

Things to try:

* Disable power management.
* Check voltages and amp ratings on your PSU.
* Use a CRT (bypass EDID mode information sent to the DVI port).
* Disable AA/AF.
* Borrow another card, preferably a different brand and series.
* Update your chipset drivers, make sure no incompatibilities exist.

That's a weird issue you got there, I've never experienced it on any of
my EVGA cards or any of them for that matter. At least the forums are
pretty well documented on it.

Augustus wrote:

From what I've read, it's a driver and Vista AA issue not a hardware issue.
I suspect you'd be out of a videocard for a long time, then get the exact
same thing when you get it back. There's a discussion about it here, and
what did and didn't work for some...
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion...hp?t26830.html


But it's not just a Vista issue. As I said i have seen it happen in a
few games under XP too. Quake4 and CM:Shock Force for example. If it is
purely a driver issue then why doesn't it happen on 8800 cards too?

deimos wrote:

* Use a CRT (bypass EDID mode information sent to the DVI port).

I am using a CRT. How do I bypass EDID mode though?

John Adams wrote:
I have the infamous corrupted screen issue on my 7900GT KO and Vista.
Have also noticed this issue in some games on XP too. But I can alt+tab
in XP games and the screen comes up clean again. I contacted EVGA about
it and they said to do an RMA for a replacement. Thing is that I have
seen people do RMA's over this issue and the replacement 7900GT does it
too so I'm not so sure this is a hardware issue and is really a Nvidia
driver issue with those cards. For one thing, the drivers that come with
Vista don't cause it so that is why I think it is a driver issue. I
could be wrong though. I've already had to do one RMA for the same card
and don't want to go through the hassle of doing another if it doesn't
really fix it. EVGA charges for shipping both ways too. Anyone know for
certain if this is a driver issue or a hardware issue?


Here is a video on youtube about the issue I am talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZVPZse53Tg

I've never seen anything quite like that and I've seen it all, not that
it is dramatic, just atypical. At first blush it doesn't seem like
hardware failure, since there is motion and you can recover from
it...once a ram chip goes it is gone.
I'd pin the blame on the Forceware drivers first and probably be right.

John Adams wrote:

few games under XP too. Quake4 and CM:Shock Force for example. If it is
purely a driver issue then why doesn't it happen on 8800 cards too?

The architectures of the 7-series cards and 8-series cards are
completely different so that bugs can and do appear distinctly between
them. Even cards of very similar design manifest gpu-specific bugs, no
surprise.

John Adams wrote:
deimos wrote:

* Use a CRT (bypass EDID mode information sent to the DVI port).

I am using a CRT. How do I bypass EDID mode though?

By using a CRT, substituting VESA for EDID. Glad you asked?

Bring the core and memory clocks down to nVidia reference speeds (450/1320)
and see if the corruptions persist. Even though the higher clocks are
"guaranteed" by eVGA, their testing and binning process isn't bulletproof.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

"John Adams" wrote in message
m...
I have the infamous corrupted screen issue on my 7900GT KO and Vista. Have
also noticed this issue in some games on XP too. But I can alt+tab in XP
games and the screen comes up clean again. I contacted EVGA about it and
they said to do an RMA for a replacement. Thing is that I have seen people
do RMA's over this issue and the replacement 7900GT does it too so I'm not
so sure this is a hardware issue and is really a Nvidia driver issue with
those cards. For one thing, the drivers that come with Vista don't cause it
so that is why I think it is a driver issue. I could be wrong though. I've
already had to do one RMA for the same card and don't want to go through
the hassle of doing another if it doesn't really fix it. EVGA charges for
shipping both ways too. Anyone know for certain if this is a driver issue
or a hardware issue?


Here is a video on youtube about the issue I am talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZVPZse53Tg

First of One wrote:
Bring the core and memory clocks down to nVidia reference speeds (450/1320)
and see if the corruptions persist. Even though the higher clocks are
"guaranteed" by eVGA, their testing and binning process isn't bulletproof.

Yea, tell me about it. I had to RMA my first 7900GT KO because the ram
couldn't do the factory overclock in deep freeze bench of 3DMark. By
downclocking the ram by 50mhz it was fine though. Last night I
downclocked the ram by 10mhz and haven't seen the issue in the game I
tested it in but am not running Vista on that PC any longer so don't
know for sure if it has fixed the issue. I've read of other's fixing
this issue that way too, some have overclocked by 5-10mhz instead of
downclocking and it still fixed it. That hasn't worked for everyone
though. If it works for me then great and I will modify the bios by
10mhz on the ram if it does but need to do further testing first to make
sure it fixes it. I really don't want to do another RMA with EVGA as
that will put the PC out of commission for 2-3 weeks. No thanks.