Is fan rattling enough of a reason to RMA a graphics card?

[gary king]

I bought a GIGABYTE GV-N660OC-2GD GeForce GTX 660 2GB about three months ago, and ever since I got it, the card would rattle in a few games. Specifically, the fan closest to the video ports would rattle sometimes. This is a reported problem with the card, but not everyone seems to experience this.

The rattling is very annoying. I did manage to decrease it by following some instructions I found online; I put some electrical tape between the fan's plastic seat and the GPU's heatsink, and that helped a bit, but not entirely.

Now I'm wondering, would this be enough of a reason to RMA the card? Would Gigabyte accept this as a reason? Would, in the best case scenario for me, Gigabyte even accept a refund on this product? (I'm guessing no on the last one, but I like to hope anyway.) If I RMA the card, what are the chances that they would just try to fix the one I sent in, and then send it back to me? Or would I get a new one?

 

[benjii]

I suggest you email Gigabyte and ask them, you don't want to take the wrong advice from someone here and end up with postage and admin fees. As for fixing or replacing, they may well try and fix it if it's as simple as a fan problem.

An alternative to consider, if Gigabyte won't RMA it, is putting an aftermarket cooler on. That would fix your problem and most likely give you cooler temps.

 

[gary king]

Alright I emailed Gigabyte yesterday, and am still awaiting a reply.

The problem, from what I understand, is that the fan shroud isn't fit tight enough against the heatsink, so the fan vibrates it when under load. What's the chance that Gigabyte just replaces the fan shroud, and the problem still occurs? Would I have to RMA again? Would after several RMA attempts, Gigabyte refunds the product to me (after I return it to them permanently)?

The price of aftermarket coolers looks a bit expensive, especially compared to the total cost of a GTX 660 (about $30 for a $200 GPU?) and I also wonder if they would fit snug enough against the heatsink, or would they also have a fan rattling problem?