Graphic Cards Sparkle GTS 250 unstable

Guess so. I just happened to see a customer's feedback on amazon, he had bought some card and the temps were much higher than other similar cards. Much tweaking didn't help and he bought an aftermarket cooler to try and solve it. As he was disassembling the old heatsink, he found two of the screws only partially tightened. Additionally, there was a ton of thermal compound under it. He cleaned of the gunk, added a couple of lines of arctic silver, tightened the heatsink properly and temps were down 20 degrees! So i guess the manufacturers do f*ck up sometimes too!
 
so whats the problem ? i have use sparkle 9400gt and 9500gt both were good :p better than xfx counter parts :p ..anyway what did it turn out to be ?
 
Hey i wasnt talking about your card, some other card. Just that sometimes there's too much thermal goo and the heatsink's not properly installed. Sparkle does have heating issues but it aint the worst.
 
Guess what... I finally RMA'd my card, and got a brand new Sparkle 250GTS... was very excited, but on installing it, the same old overheating problem is there :( i feel this card is way hotter than the prev one. thing is both the cards are from the march 2009 lot. I guess thats a buggy batch. Thing is i really don't get much time other than weekends, and frankly i'm tired of running around... I just want to sell the damn card, but don't feel like making others go through this ordeal again. Any suggestions other than RMAing again?
 
I think this card is fine for cooler climes or air-conditioned rooms. Sell it off and get a new card mate. I got myself a 5670 from the US because i was on a budget and while it wont do max quality at max res, it's good enough. ~4k.

edit: for your 19" any lower-mid range card would do fine i guess.

p.s. how old is your atp3? mine is over 10 years, changed the transformer once after it blew.
 
My ATP3 is almost 4 years old... i guess that was the best 2.1 speaker in the 3K price range.... I guess i'll be looking to buy a 5770.. seems good at 7.2K... just will look for one with good cooling options...
 
I would suggest getting one from the US if someone's able to bring one for you. The SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100283VX-2L model is pretty good, costs $129.99 and $109.99 after Rebate. Pretty good cooler there!
 
Well right now, no one i know is coming to India soon, so i'll have to buy here only... on a friend's advice, i'll wait till crysis 2 is released... then i guess the options will be more...
 
Well i really didn't find time to go to the service center again, So i thought I'll examine the card before giving it back. I opened the heatsink of the card and was shocked too see the way the thermal paste was applied. It was a thick paste which was unevenly spread and it was dry. I'm so sure my dog can apply the paste better. So i removed the pasted with some alcohol swab bought from the chemist(70% isoproplyl alcohol) and cleaned it up and then i applied some pasted from the TIM i got along with the CM Hyper TX3. I know there are better pastes, but right now the MX-2 is out of stock.

Anyhow on running the card, its significantly cooler, and i ran furmark for 15 minutes, and the max temp it touched was 93 degrees Celsius. I could notice a few artifacts, but i played Bad company 2 for about 10-15 minutes and no artifacts had appeared and the card had touched ~80 degrees.

I guess the way the TIM was applied was the problem all along. I will apply MX-2 once i get my hands on it...

Thanks to everyone for the help. I really appreciate it.

Regards,

Nj
 
Dude...it's a new card, under warranty. You should have just have RMA'd it, instead of risking voiding your warranty. I doubt the artifacting is going to get better with time.
btw, did you try running the card in another system?
 
@iamddevil
See, point is they would have given me the same card from the same batch... Which i feel is a bad batch... So i tried putting the TIM myself and its running almost 20-30 degrees cooler. The old TIM was hard as cement and badly put... Anyways will test for a while and then RMA it... I don't think i've voided the warranty as there is no 'Warranty void if removed' sticker on it... plus i just opened the screws and put them back...

I made a mistake by mentioning artifacts, i meant tearing and it happens only when the card crosses 90 degrees...

Regards,
Nj
 
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