Gtx 285 OC BFG (throwing driver error, after about 10 mins of play)

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tsd16

Distinguished
Jan 11, 2008
333
0
18,790
intel core i7 2.66
6gb corsair mem
Asus P6T MB
Corsair 750TX PSU
GF GTX 285 OC BFG
Vista 64


Ive tried 2 PSU's (The corsair is brand new, I needed a new PSU anyhow)

Used driver cleaner to clean out the old drivers, tried multiple driver revisions. the 9800GTX I had installed previously still functions as intended.

3dmark 06 fails during the snow scene, every time, with a driver error. Basically what generally happens, is the game will begin stuttering, then minimize and i see the nvidia driver error pop up.

The BFG tech i spoke to wants me to update my chipset and bios. The chipset hasnt changed, there are a few new bios revisions, but nothing specifically to address this issue, and frankly I am hesitant to update my bios if I dont have a reason. First thing BFG wanted to point to was power, but unless i am somehow not hooking the damn power to the card properly, which At least from my point of view is no different from my 9800GTX. The 750TX provides 60a on a single 12v rail, my previous psu provided 52 on the 12v rail both have a single rail (the card requires 42a). So I dont think power is the issue.
 
Solution
PsyKhiqZero
for whatever reason best buy had them on clearance. I think I got mine for somewhere around 220. But I bet it's a problem with the batch of cards. My temps are fine but the OC causes crashes. Since I don't game to much I didn't really notice till it was to late... But setting the thing to stock 285 speeds still beats any card at the price.

I would go with a ati 5850. benchmarks look real good for the unit. All and all I don't think it's as fast as the 285 though. But if it's slower it's not by much. I believe the card is about 250.
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i tried multiple revisions old/new.

I think I have discovered the issue.

Heat.

the card starts artifacting at about 60c in ATI Tool. From my experience, with video cards thats a pretty low temp for the card to start artifacting.

If i take the card off automatic fan control and manually crank it up to 100, like clock work, it takes longer to artifact and doesnt do it till 60-61c.

tested this with 3d mark, as assumed it made it through 3d mark when I cranked the fan speed to 100, it starts artifacting at the airship/dragon stage and then ultimately fails on the snow stage if I dont crank up the fan. but it made it through with the fan at 100 with no anomalies.

now it may just be me, but my 9800gtx idled on automatic fan speed at about mid 40's and in intensive gaming, easily hit the 60's with no issues.

now my 285gtx artifacts at 60, and STILL hits 60 eventually with both sides of the case open and the fan on max. By default my case has excellent airflow, I have a thermaltake spedo case, 200/120mm exhaust fans on both sides of the case, 200 mm exhaust fan on the top of the case, two rear 120mm exhaust fans, two 120mm intake fans, and one 120mm exhaust on the bottom.

Ive pretty much 100 percent confirmed, it doesnt have problems until it hits 60c.
 
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Hmm, that certainly is convincing. Odd, though, I know my 4850 can take 110C and not artifact. This is a brand new card, correct? That is disappointing that it can't stay cool. You may want to RMA that if possible to be safe, as that should not be happening.
 
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Funny thats where I got mine, BB outlet for a hell of alot cheaper than I could get a gtx285 on new egg. It was literally 100 bucks cheaper than any on new egg. I will prolly RMA it, I really shouldnt have to manually tweak *** to and underclock it to get it to work, Hell I wouldnt even mind if they would replace it with a non OCed GTX that works out of the box. I still paid a hell of alot less. I am not much of a brand whore, I had a bfg ti 4200 back in the day. my last card was an MSI 9800GTX, before that I had an eVGA. I tried ati once back in the agp days, but had a horrendus experience with multiple RMA's and problem never getting resolved. I am sure it was just one product, and in know way do I think that reflects on ATI as a whole, but if I was a first time nvidia buyer, I have to admit this would turn me off to them.

I just personally think thats a pretty damn low temp for the card to start artifacting and crashing.
 
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Well I will be returning this card directly to best buy. It looks like there is a reason its so cheap. I suppose I should have researched further before buying this immidiately because of the price.

Apparently BFG F'ed up when flashing the bios, and overclocked them too far. (mine is clocked beyond what is stated on the box), people frequently reporting the driver error and instability with this card in particular.

On top of that I was basically belittled by the most recent tech I spoke to, to the point I am pretty sure he has no idea what hes talking about, I am by no means an expert, but Ive built so far about 10 computers in the past 10 years. I research my parts (greed got me on this one).

the tech flat out said, in these words, "your motherboard is ***", I purchased the P6T based on the review here at Toms at the time I was planning my build, and have had no problems with it. I was waiting for him to thrash the rest of my set up. Currently my MSI 9800GTX is back in my system and running without a hitch. Then he tried to claim something else on my board that isnt being temp monitored is causing my card to overheat.....um.....why doesnt it do it to my 9800gtx. He set up an rma, but i think im just going to say screw it, and return it to best buy. My God the price was great though.

What is the comparable ATI card to the 285gtx these days? I might get adventurous and give ATI another shot.
 
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for whatever reason best buy had them on clearance. I think I got mine for somewhere around 220. But I bet it's a problem with the batch of cards. My temps are fine but the OC causes crashes. Since I don't game to much I didn't really notice till it was to late... But setting the thing to stock 285 speeds still beats any card at the price.

I would go with a ati 5850. benchmarks look real good for the unit. All and all I don't think it's as fast as the 285 though. But if it's slower it's not by much. I believe the card is about 250.
 
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Solution


This was from the reviews on best buy:

"As stated previously, I can confirm the BIOS issue with this card. I bought 2 of these through BestBuy.com for SLI. One of them had the correct specs (as listed on the outside of the box) for speeds, one did not. The incorrect card had the bios of a different series of GTX 285 flashed on it, which seems to be a common problem for this card from BFG. I used EVGA precision utility to correct the issue, and had it load to this speed on Windows start up, so the issue is corrected. If you buy one of these and have this issue, you can do what I did, return it as defective, or use the appropriate programs to flash the correct bios to the card, which is doable.
The card itself is incredibly fast and powerful, and in SLI has unbeatable speed. But beware, you will (very likely) get an incorrect bios on this card."

or

"This is a good card but BFG errored at the factory and clocked it at 694 Mhz not the over clock speed BFG spec of 666 Mhz. Nvidia spec is 644 Mhz. With the normal cooling it can get up to 80 degrees C on games. I am water cooling it and it still gets up to 65 degrees C.
With the way over clocked chip I was getting "Driver stopped working" in Crysis when the chip got hot. This was aggravating because once it started only letting it cool stopped it, so you have to wait. The fix is to under clock the chip back to around 600 Mhz . Tryed doing this with Rivatuner but couldn't get it to work without investing alot of time into it. EVGA has a program called precision that is easy to use and works under clocking the card. No more diver failures in Crysis or any other game!!"

Apparently you can use evga's precision utility for a more perminent fix. I might just exchange the card for a fresh one and do this right off the bat and see what kind of results I get before going for a different card. Because damn it is a good price for this card.
 
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That's a bummer. Good to see they actually test the cards before taking your money. If you already returned it, I hope they get you a working one (if you are exchanging it) as that should be a really nice card and a really nice upgrade from a 9800GTX. Those symptoms do sound like too high of an OC by the manufacturer, so for once the reviewers are correct. I think it is worth trying the exchange, as I hope by now they have corrected the issue and pulled the bad batches.
 
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I went ahead and returned the card (by no means does this mean this purchase turned me off to nvidia, but bfg? yeah they can dream on if they think im ever touching another one of their products.) I ordered a sapphire 5850 (I am not very familiar with ATI card brands, but sapphire seemed to be featured on alot of the performance reviews I was reading) performance seems to be even or just below the 285. My first and only ATI experience prior to this was a nightmare, heres hoping for the best. Its going to be weird not hitting up nvidias site for drivers. the only other chip maker ive used other than nvidia, was my 3dfx voodoo3. Just seems like the 5850 is the best buy out there right now for a cost to performance ratio, the bfg 285 gtx oc was better, but I dont want to deal with the headache.

So, soon my specs will readout as:

Thermaltake Spedo case
Asus P6T mobo
Intel core i7 920
6gb DDR3 corsair dominator
MSI 9800GTX > Sapphire 5850
Corsair 750TX PSU
and an old ass creative Sb audigy 2. Thats basically been through about 4 system builds.
 
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the 5850 comes out on top it a better card than the 285
 
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I was well aware I could RMA the card, or return it to BB for a new one. If the tech I spoke to wasnt such an ass, I probably would have. It then became a matter of principle. When the guy never admitted there was anything wrong with the card, when it is an absolute fact there is since I was looking at the clocks speeds which were beyond BFG's factory spec and coutless others experienced the same exact issues with the same exact card. Went on and on with "your motherboards crap, your PSU is screwed up", etc. etc. anything but there may be a problem with the card. He finally said he "guesses he'll set up an RMA". From that point I just said screw it, returned it to BB, got my money back and ordered a 5850.
 
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well you ended up with a better card anyways....

don't buy your cards at BB, they are way overpriced and if you do see a good deal stay away from it, most likely to be a card that was rma'ed before...

last time I went to BB the GTS 250 was selling for 199.99$ 60 dollars more expensive than Newegg, that is ridiculous when you can get a 4890 for that price....
 
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The BFG 285 OC is on sale on BB.com for $249, that is ridiculously cheap for what 285's are going for on newegg(cheapest I saw was 325). That's why I jumped at it, alas, I shouldve figured there had to be a reason it was so cheap, BB was probably trying to empty its stock of the improperly flashed 285's and just hope everyone dealt directly with BFG for their replacements instead of returning to the store, or used their own manual fix.
 
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