Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

The guy at the returns dept will probably see that, think "what a schmuck" and then send the original one back!
I think perhaps you could have worded it a bit more professionally!

Anyway, keep us posted how you get on.

 

well i just visited a thread at hardforums.com, and some people say that theirs works fine (x1950xt) they say that is could be a luck kind of thing... Hope dinc get better luck this tme. other people say that when they got theirs, their computer wouldnt even pass the bios post, so I guess it could be worse.

btw dinc, did you try that tape mod, where you put some electrical tape between the copper plate that holds the tec on and the card? most people say that what fixed it...

if you did, did you take it off, because the person that first posted the thread said that it could voi your wauntee, and you might not get your rma.

One other question, with the tidewater, o you think I should mount it outside of my case (the temps are alo cooler out there, 75F tops) or inside, where the temps caan get to about 86F. what do you think? It is meant to be put inside the case, and take up 2 pci slots (have enough of those to spae) but I just want the liquid to be as cool as possible, since the liquid will only get as cool as the air.

 

I was under the impression it had to be mounted to the card, so inside.

 

what do you mean by that? you have to remove the opper backplate, and thee is a humps with gray tae on it, remove that and place a 1/8in wadd of folded electical tape there, place the gray tape back on top and screw the backplate back onto the card. this will add some more tension between the TEC cooler and the gpu, since the backplate is what holds the TEC cooler to the gpu.

oh, i get your reply now sammoris, too bad i wrote all of that...

only the waterblock has to be connected to the card (and t connects to a 4 pin molex connector). I have a slot in the back on the case where I can easily fit the tubing (looks really long) and the molex connecter through and connect the vga waterblock to the card inside.

 

if you've got somewhere suitable to put the radiator outside, then go for it. Just bear in mind it needs to be away from any of the hot air your PC puts out!

 

well my compter faces paralel to the wall, with the door with the window farhest wa from the wall. I was thinking of putting it on the other door, that doesnt have a window, tha way no one will be able to se it (unles you turn the pc aound)

I would have to try mounting it some how though... Glue or duck tape/. what do you think I should stik it onto the door with?

 

Well, as secure as possible, you can't afford it falling off!

 

Well, I wrote something like that, but I can't help I'm just a mediocre 19 year old guy that just wants a good videocard.
I have right on a good working one when I throw down 230 euros.


But that electrical-tape-mod was exactly the one I mentioned and linked like at least 3 times before.
Only what I had to do to get it cooled down to 40-45 instead of 70, was to put 3 of those folded pieces of tape, so that would make for 6 layers of tape.
And I also put cardboard washers between the card and the rubber washers that are already on there.
If only the rubber washers were about twice as thick, that would add pressure too.
Plus it might be safer since the rubber will like flex(?) when there's too much pressure.

Then I also don't know if I put the heatsink on straight, as I noticed the last time that some wires or something could get stuck in between.
But I doubt I would've put it on wrong since I'm careful with that, and it's hard to believe you could screw it on all the way when it's not straight.


And I did remove all of it, because I was afraid they wouldn't take it back otherwise.
But like I said, even if some computer expert there finds out I changed the thermal paste or something, he better agree with me for replacing the toothpaste with Arctic Silver 5.
It was like thrown onto it very sloppy by a machine too, really thick.
Well, I hope it was a machine or I don't know who is being so careless with throwing around thermal paste.


But I think, now that I removed the extra pressure, they might not be able to get it started like I couldn't at first.
I mean, the first couple of tries it would shut down at the Memory Test, or else seconds later.
I believe the farthest it got was at the Windows Boot Screen and then shutting down again.
Until I got it to cool right...

If they call me about "why I sent back a broken card while I said it underperformed", I'll just spill out what you have to do to get it to work.
I don't care, it's the truth and GeCube's mistake.
It's not like the changes damage the card right, I mean, it even get's the card cooler which would do less damage.

 

definetly not! So what would you recommend? Outside the case or inside?

Also, I see you have a x1900, how good is that? what do you get in 3dmark06 (if you have it)

what should I keep the tidewater on with? (on the side of the case)

EDIT: I just saw your message dinc, after yo got it to cool, wre you getting ok frames in bf2? Iremmber talking to you abot that but I forgot what you said...

The thing that's weird is that I just read on another forum that some person got to play bf2 on a nvidia GeForce 6600 @ highest settings, 1280/960 and 4x aa and ff...

I think this card is without a doubt under performing... But then again that person had claimed to overclock his 6600 a litle.

--------------------

Is 700 to low for a memory clock? Maybe that's why it is underperfoming? I had bought some bronze heatsinks from newegg when Ii got the card, but I cant mount them becaause of the TEC cooler. When I get the therrmlake tide water, I'll mount the heatsinks.

One question.. CanIput arctc silverr 5 on the bottem of heatsinks? They have just a stickey bottem, and I wonder if the as5 will make the sticky adhesive not sticky anymore, so they'll fall off. Will as5 do anything to them?

Also, I saw some people reach into into the lower thousand mhz on their ram for the x1950xt... Is that reeally possible?/, to go from 701mhz to 1000 or beyond?

 

You mean those separate heatsinks for VGARAM-chips?
I wouldn't really mess with the sticky side, because like you said, they might not stick anymore.
On the other side, I believe thermal pastes harden, so they might hold the heatsinks.
Maybe because they're smaller thus lighter, even when the pastes are still soft.
Just try them as they are first, and Arctic Silver 5 under the main heatsink.

I also don't believe shit of someone playing BF2 on highest settings with a 6600.
Only maybe when the rest of the system is cutting-edge and the GPU is extremely overclocked and cooled.
I mean, an 6800XT is supposed to be newer and probably better right, there's no way you can get stutterless performance with that.
It might be that mine is AGP, but still...

On second thought, it might be possible:
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=187&card2=441

And I was also thinking before about the memory-clock.
Like I said I saw on GPUReview.com, that this card would have a 900MHz memory-clock or something, like you said.
But when I look in the ATi CCC Overdrive it says 702, and it will only let me overclock to 703.
I mean, that doesn't even help, and 700 MHz seems a bit low???


Anyways:

I got a new one and also a new same fan, and it's both the same story.
A noisy fan and an underperforming card, but it might work a bit better than the previous one though.
And also, the cooler was on there tighter than the previous one out of the box.
Everything I did was just tightening the screws for a millimeter or something, that's it and it immediately worked at 40-45 degrees.

Plus, for some reason I got a Gigabyte of Kingston Value RAM for free for some weird reason.
I don't know if they sent it with the rest by accident or that it's just their message that I just need more RAM.
Only, I never mentioned my system specifications or amount of RAM.
What's even more freaky is that it's exactly the type of RAM I use, WHAT THE HELL!


So, I don't know what the heck this card's problem is, I think it's... I don't know, this card is just weird or not built right or something.

It also almost always performs the same.
I mean, it doesn't matter if I use Medium or High settings, even 1024x768 or 1600x1200, it gives about the same framerate.
I guess you could say it performs "well", but it would still hit the 20's at times which it shouldn't ever do.

And oh yeah, it still shut down the computer a couple of times, funny enough mostly when I got blown up in games.
Except when it did the Overdrive-test to find the best overclock, and it set the clock to maximum automatically.
The 3DMark06 Demonstration still runs pretty bad, but I just turned it off so I don't know if it would shut down the computer, but it probably would.

All I know to do is to try a set of Zalman-cooling.
But, I wouldn't bet on that it helps much because it's already being cooled down to 40-45 idle.
Maybe it's not enough since it still shuts down probably when it's too hot.
But... maybe it gets too hot because there's just something wrong technically, I don't know.


So, I might try Zalman-cooling, or else ask on another forum if anyone else has a clue there, I don't know what to do with this.
If I just had PCIe...

What do you guys think of a Radeon HD 2600XT?
Might be good, but some points seems low versus the X1950XT:
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=503&card2=521

If they just had the 2900XT in AGP...
Do you think there will be a new AGP GeForce?
And I don't really feel like getting a 7950 or something.
Maybe I should wait until there's an even better AGP?
Or at least something like the X1950XT, but then a working version...


I forgot to say:
The drivers from the GeCube-wesbite also wouldn't install.
When I uninstalled the one from the ATi-website, the setup of the one from the GeCube-website said it couldn't find a video-driver.
I kinda was like "duh, you need to install it", and that I had to install standard drivers before running that setup.
So I thought, maybe the ATi-ones need to be installed first, and then the drivers from GeCube to work together, and THEN it might work.
But it still didn't install anything, just said the same thing...

 

Then we are exactly the same age! Check and mate!


The 2900XT in AGP? Do you have any idea how silly that is?


I'm sure the posts in this thread get longer every day!


The reason why nobody's made another X1950XT AGP buy the way is that AGP can't deal with the bandwidth. I think that's what causes these problems to start with...

 

Hyea, I guess... AGP doesn't seem to keep up, kinda bottlenecking this card.
But maybe they will release AGP 16x motherboards soon or something, since there are still companies like I believe XFX that believe in AGP.

Maybe for AGP 8x I should go with this XFX 7800GS or something like that I found before as pretty much the best AGP-card after this X1950XT.

 

AGP is ancient, it won't see that much of a renaissance. Upgrade to PCI express 16x if you want graphics cards that powerful.

 

Yeah, not enough money...
It will have to wait until like 2010.

But I just noticed something weird (AGAIN).
When I'd uninstall the drivers and restart the computer, normally it would have to be in low resolution or at least lower frequency.
You know, which your eyes would really notice, in this case a jump from 85Hz to 59Hz.

But just now, I tabbed out of BF2 in the highest settings, didn't go further than the menu though.
Anyways, I arrive at the desktop and it looks exactly like when the drivers are uninstalled.
The screen is not completely filled and the frequency is at 59Hz.

The software is being suspicious from day 1.

 

Hm, and it stays like this when I closed the game too...

Btw, I also get some kind of fragments sometimes, which is hard to explain the situations.
But it's like, not just some spots, but whole screens sometimes, you know all kinds of funky colors.
I had it worse with the previous 6800XT, could it be the motherboard or AGP-slot damaged?

Although, the GeForce did the same in the DELL before it, so I don't know if that card might have damages both computers?
I think I need to get the drivers fixed somehow, they seem to be the problem...
Argh lol.

 

Ehh, wutta-fak?
Look how they display it on their website:
http://www.gecube.com/cms_file.php?id=2832

I don't think I've seen it like that on their site before, rather the one with the 2 purple fans.
And I don't see the one with purple fans on their site anymore either.

This seems like they fixed either the cooler or the whole card I rather hope?
The store should have sent me that one lol.
And the blower is blowing to the right side too!

 

That's artifacting, and is usually caused by heat problems.

 

Hmm, the cooler doesn't reach the end of the card where the air hole is, that makes no sense.

What's good about that though is it doesn't use Peltiers like the current one does, which are known to be rubbish for anything other than small cooling capacities.

 

Yeah, but at least this one's easy enough to modify so it does reach the grill.
You could probably even do that with some tape lol.
Unless it's closed to just keep blowing wind throughout the area of the cooler, that would be messed up.
But I can't see it...

But the artifacting... the card's not been higher than 80 or something.
And it was also cool enough right off the bat, so I mean it couldn't have been damaged or anything.
Plus, I see the artifacting also when I open Windows Live Messenger from the system-tray.
Right when you see it pop up, kinda disturbed lines and everything.
But it's only since the revamp of Messenger, must be something about the engine.


Anyways, do you think it's being sold like that and they might have fixed things about the card they've been seeing complaints about?

I've asked them in a message and everything, but that's the third message I sent them for support and they never replied before so...
Prix... lol.

 

hmmm....

Does your new card play any better in bf2? What frames do you get? Does your computer shut down for overheating? What temps are you getting with this new one on load?