6800le 'Black Screen' - The Complete Guide: Identification, modification and reason

Hi SikaRippa, I have found this thread and appreciate all the work you are doing :)

I just bought a Gainward 6800LE and it looks like it could be a version 1b card because the capacitors start with 47. I have managed to unlock it to 12 pipes and 6 vertex and overclocked it to 390 core and 850 memory. It has been running stable for two days. I have run the SkiAlpin many times and still no BS. Also I tried to stress the card running 3dmark05 and doom3 on highest settings and no BS. I have made some photos for you. on the back where you said the 1b card had some modification on the switching regulator mine does not appear to have it but you will be able to tell better.

Back of the card
http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/3...11413fp.th.jpg

Closeup

http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/6...11499ax.th.jpg

Front of card
http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/1...11442ia.th.jpg

Closeup
http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/1...11503lq.th.jpg

Hopefully it means this is one of the new cards that Gainward has "fixed" I will let you know if I encounter any problems

I have now taken a closer look at the card. It has the same text (SPAG40 REV P212A01) on it as the picture you posted. On the back side I found two stickers with some numbers on them. Are they of interest? Unfortunatly, the Arctic Cooler covers the capaciters, so I can't see the numbers on them. :(

Anyway, like you said, when I tested it in my friends computer with a PSU with more power, the result was the same (BS).

A also checked my receipt and the card is actually less than one year old, so perhaps I can change back to the original fan and RMA the card. Not sure what to do...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jabjab

Hi SikaRippa, I have found this thread and appreciate all the work you are doing :)

I just bought a Gainward 6800LE and it looks like it could be a version 1b card because the capacitors start with 47. I have managed to unlock it to 12 pipes and 6 vertex and overclocked it to 390 core and 850 memory. It has been running stable for two days. I have run the SkiAlpin many times and still no BS. Also I tried to stress the card running 3dmark05 and doom3 on highest settings and no BS. I have made some photos for you. on the back where you said the 1b card had some modification on the switching regulator mine does not appear to have it but you will be able to tell better.

(clip)

Hopefully it means this is one of the new cards that Gainward has "fixed" I will let you know if I encounter any problems

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Hi !

Nice fotos, thank you :up: !!

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I took a very close look your fotos and saw some pixels in wrong places :D:

http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/2...pmis6tt.th.jpg

.. are those capacitors misaligned, especially the one in the right side ? Could you check is those are 'not so nicely placed' that the other nearby ? Those two (marked with arrows) are changed at least in 'version 1b' -card I have investigated.

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I also started to (again) think about version numbers. These codes were some reported cards (first in barcode, second at bottom of card)

a version 1 (#1 example): G040900553, xxx
a version 1 (#2 example): G041003120, xxx
a version 1 (#3 example): G040814005, xxx

a version 2 (#1 example): B041201502, GW6841101282
a version 2 (#2 example): B041134662, GW6841100549

a version 1b (#1 example): B041134230, GW5841100910
a version 1b (#2 example): B041201576, CW7041100629
a version 1b (#3 example): B050113539, xxx
a version 1b (#4 example): B050113522, xxx
a version 1b (jabjab's card): B050113475, GW5841100417

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Logic ?!? Maybe the barcode number is one kind of identification or '41134230'th card of GW's production. That would make sense since your is new, and those two quite old ((one could calculate how much GW's is selling ;), the first 1b has got at April...)). The reason why '1b' card (modified) could have lower number is explained as follows (purely speculations): It was sold at first point as unmodified (had "4 3 470 6E" caps?) and after RMA'd *them* modified it and return - in theory makes sense (?). But how about 'GW***'-code ? Maybe GW6*** means unmodified and GW5*** (CW**) modified plus some extra info.

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Please post if somebody has different codes on GW's card :) I think that those two codes ARE KEY ELEMENTS to distinguish easily GW's BS and non-BS-cards !!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xotoy

I have now taken a closer look at the card. It has the same text (SPAG40 REV P212A01) on it as the picture you posted. On the back side I found two stickers with some numbers on them. Are they of interest? Unfortunatly, the Arctic Cooler covers the capaciters, so I can't see the numbers on them. :(

Anyway, like you said, when I tested it in my friends computer with a PSU with more power, the result was the same (BS).

A also checked my receipt and the card is actually less than one year old, so perhaps I can change back to the original fan and RMA the card. Not sure what to do...

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No bad feelings about capacitor codes ;) Maybe you can provide that info ehrn you (hopefully) RMA your card and get the original cooler back..

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All codes are interesting (you saw my latest post ;) ), at least if there is a clear 'version x' etc marking which could help to distinguish different versions. I'll put that picture I attached earlier to next update, if you think it looks like identical to BS-affected model.

:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SikaRippa

I took a very close look your fotos and saw some pixels in wrong places :D:

http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/2...pmis6tt.th.jpg

.. are those capacitors misaligned, especially the one in the right side ? Could you check is those are 'not so nicely placed' that the other nearby ? Those two (marked with arrows) are changed at least in 'version 1b' -card I have investigated.

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You are absolutely right :) , the capacitors are misaligned, see mega zoomed photo below:

http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/3...11568mo.th.jpg

I suppose that means It could have been an ex-RMA card (either because of BS or because they could not get the full 16 pipes :D)
Do you think I am quite safe from having BS then? I think you mentioned there is one instance of a 1b card giving BS?

i have the xfx card, and i keep get the bs all the time, the prob is that i bought the
silencer and i cant find the location to the holes that the cap need to be inserted to them, can anyone show a pic of that holes on my xfx 6800le?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jabjab

:D

You are absolutely right :) , the capacitors are misaligned, see mega zoomed photo below:

http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/3...11568mo.th.jpg

I suppose that means It could have been an ex-RMA card (either because of BS or because they could not get the full 16 pipes :D)
Do you think I am quite safe from having BS then? I think you mentioned there is one instance of a 1b card giving BS?

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Heureka :woot: !! A single card repaired afterward could be explained as 'fault-in-production-line-but-fixed-ASAP) BUT two fixed excatly in the same manner - no chance by accident. And I think that CONFIRMS the theory how GW (and) others made some card working better than very first cards.

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Are those working better enough ? As we all have seen those are working FAR better than old models. Yes, a single case has reported about fixed version (assumed using capacitor info) giving BS after ~ 5 months. The one I am investigating will be ~ 5 months old (got from RMA, can be older if really modified) in this month (!!!!!)

I cannot say for sure that modification is enough to remove BS a long time (>year). I have some unpublished measuremt data (acquired from modified version !!) and not fully convinced the current spikes are acceptable level - thus that single faulty case would be a typical case.

Maybe *them* count on (=hope) the fact users change cards so frequently, and after say 3 years nobody still using 6800le-cards (?).

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EDITED: 'jabjab', Do you have a capacitance meter (multimeter with that feature) ? If 'yes', could you make an easy reference measurement (I'll give instructions later) :) ?

and another question:
if i replace my power supply to a better one(430W,480W) and flash the bios to 1.4 with nvflash
can it solve the problem?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by inspire

i have the xfx card, and i keep get the bs all the time, the prob is that i bought the
silencer and i cant find the location to the holes that the cap need to be inserted to them, can anyone show a pic of that holes on my xfx 6800le?

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Hi,

At first power supply does not make big difference: good supply decreases BS probability little, but NOT a solution to problem.

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About capacitors, you can use this figure to locate holes at the bottom side of the card:

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/4061/capmod35gz.th.jpg

... your card should look like the same (?)

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Could you see (under cooler?) what labels you have at top of those green capacitors ?

here some pic of my card:

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/739...e0026gl.th.jpg

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/766...e0016qe.th.jpg

http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/1327/amit1kg.th.jpg

At the third pic u can see where the tp10,tp9 on the card.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by inspire

here some pic of my card:


At the third pic u can see where the tp10,tp9 on the card.

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Yep, seems to be the same card i.e. you can use those TP's for cap mod.

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I noticed the version number (a sticker at bottom) is '2.0'. Could you see (under the coooler) whether those memory caps have green labels or purple ? This is important, since XFX has both versions, but I do not know (company) version numbers for those (green cap's should give BS, and purple not)

my caps are purple(u can see it on the pics if u save them and open them
on xp.
when i play hl2 and doom 3 for 20 min...the screen is suddenly shut down.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by inspire

my caps are purple(u can see it on the pics if u save them and open them
on xp.
when i play hl2 and doom 3 for 20 min...the screen is suddenly shut down.

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Sorry, I was not too accurate. There are allways 'purple' capacitors for Vcore etc. purposes in these cards. These capacitors (having values of 1500 or 330) can be seen through NV5. Memory capacitors can not be seen in this angle, since they are just below fan.

Take a look this figure, where you can see difference between two version
(first with two green caps, second have only purple)

http://img194.echo.cx/my.php?image=xfx6800lev1v26ky.jpg

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Shutting mysteriously down with HL2 & Doom3 is clear evidence having a BS-affected card. Have you tested 'SkiApine'-demo ((it is not so important, because seems to be so clear case)) ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SikaRippa

'jabjab', Do you have a capacitance meter (multimeter with that feature) ? If 'yes', could you make an easy reference measurement (I'll give instructions later) :) ?

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Sorry, I don't think my multimeter has capacitance measurement, its one of those cheap ones, looks exactly like this (same functions) http://www.montek.com/catalog/item1968.htm

Bad news :(
I decided to play Doom3 today with high settings and after only 5 minutes I got a BS! so in my case my version 1b card has lasted less than a week! So of course I am going to request an RMA ASAP as I'll be able to get a refund. I really like the 6800 cards though. I was thinking of getting the Leadtek 6800LE, is that much less likely to get me BS? Thanks for your advice anyway, If I manage to get a capacitance meter from work I'll let you know and maybe we can do those tests before I send it back :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SikaRippa

Sorry, I was not too accurate. There are allways 'purple' capacitors for Vcore etc. purposes in these cards. These capacitors (having values of 1500 or 330) can be seen through NV5. Memory capacitors can not be seen in this angle, since they are just below fan.

Take a look this figure, where you can see difference between two version
(first with two green caps, second have only purple)

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sorry,but they all purple...
when i look behind the nv i saw that the caps are purple 2.
what does it mean?

i am going tomorrow to the store to buy the caps...
can u give me the exact name of the best caps that i need?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by inspire

sorry,but they all purple...
when i look behind the nv i saw that the caps are purple 2.
what does it mean?

i am going tomorrow to the store to buy the caps...
can u give me the exact name of the best caps that i need?

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All purple and you still get BS ????? This confuses me *really*. You have (as far I understood/know) an XFX version 2 that should have Sanyo SVP-capacitors instead of those green CV-EX -caps. In detailed those capacitors are in other version card '10SVP560M' which should have VERY GOOD performance. Here is datasheet for those really interesting:
http://www.secc.co.jp/pdf/os_e/2004/e28.pdf

Big question: why your card gives BS ? The other XFX version 2 cards have been reported to work OK and so far only version 1 has been known to be BS-affected. I'll have to think about this, but could you tell following details:

- How old your card is ?
- How soon the first BS came (weeks/months..)
- Your BS is allways the same: total shutdown, only power switch helps

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About cap mod. Since the capacitors of your card are (should be) much better than in normal BS-case it makes things complicated. Because you get BS something in your card IS different compared to other XFX version 2 cards. If the capacitors are ruined (=should be unlike) the normal mod should work. ((Another option could be that another capacitor has poor contact (e.g. bent little bit))

Anyway, since your case seems to be somehow unique (AFAIK). I suggest to test cap mod carefully (not known how good it works this case)

- Start with low capacitance value e.g. 1000 uF or 2200 uF
- Ask for low ESR-capacitor voltage, rating > 6 V
- There are soooo MANY models, and every shop have different capacitors. Therefore, just go to shop with those specs

Please, post how your modding succeeded :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jabjab

Bad news :(
I decided to play Doom3 today with high settings and after only 5 minutes I got a BS! so in my case my version 1b card has lasted less than a week! So of course I am going to request an RMA ASAP as I'll be able to get a refund. I really like the 6800 cards though. I was thinking of getting the Leadtek 6800LE, is that much less likely to get me BS? Thanks for your advice anyway, If I manage to get a capacitance meter from work I'll let you know and maybe we can do those tests before I send it back :)

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Bad news :( indeed, I hope you get it RMA'd . Leadtek's have also problems, less that GW's but still some. I suggest to go for real 6800 (GT) if you can afford it, otherwise ASUS is the most 'safest' in the sense of BS.

Maybe you got unfamous record "How fast to get BS with card GW has modied to last for ever".

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What does this mean ? The single case GW's version 1b (=modified by company) can give BS is not a single case i.e this modification does not give 100 % reliablity of working card (as I have presumed, since current levels are the same in all versions).

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If you can measure capacitance, that would be nice :clap:

Here are the instructions (again):

Labels indicates those shown in this figure:

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/2...mfb17hp.th.jpg

Measure capacitance between 'n4' - GND and 'n3' - GND (GND to - terminal of meter !!!).

DO NOT MEASURE WHILE POWER IS ON !! (much easier when card has removed from PC)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SikaRippa

Nice fotos :thumbsup: I am planning to make a chapter '6800(le) cards not (yet?) affected to BS and these fotos would be good for that purpose.

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I found something special in those figures. Take a look this figure:

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/3...ison1bp.th.jpg

.. where is zoomed area from Aopen and GW-cards. See the difference (size) of the ceramic filtering capacitors ?? The size corresponds to capacitance value in the case of the ceramics (in this case). This can be one good reason your card (model) is not giving BS. Moreover, the same kind of (larger) capacitors seem to be inserted many places at the bottom part of Aopen (all connected to Vmem!).

Aopen had also version, like this:

http://aopen.jp/products/vga/large/A...00-DV128lg.jpg

having 'normal' sized ceramics (bottom of green caps)

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I see, ive looked at the other photos on this thread and there appears to be only 1 other card that have these larger ceramics [only one the front, no pic of the back] and thats nVidias reference card [1]

<a href="http://img355.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nv68000x19pr.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/3599/nv68000x19pr.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

nVidia and AOpen together

<a href="http://img384.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled18fd.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/3089/untitled18fd.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

AOpen and nVidia again split with Gainward

<a href="http://img293.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled21nz.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/6084/untitled21nz.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

???

:woot: :banana: :banana: :banana: ....it is working, i soldered the caps between t9 and t10 and now i was able
2 play hl2 on the best resolution with AA and i didnt get a single bloody black screen...
wow, sikaripa,when u can give me your icq or msn and i talk 2 u about all the details...now here some pics :toast:
http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/8...e0063oy.th.jpg http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/8...e0100su.th.jpg http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/4...e0128la.th.jpghttp://img394.imageshack.us/img394/4...e0140cy.th.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sunn

I see, ive looked at the other photos on this thread and there appears to be only 1 other card that have these larger ceramics [only one the front, no pic of the back] and thats nVidias reference card [1]

<a href="http://img355.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nv68000x19pr.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/3599/nv68000x19pr.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

nVidia and AOpen together

<a href="http://img384.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled18fd.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/3089/untitled18fd.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

AOpen and nVidia again split with Gainward

<a href="http://img293.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled21nz.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/6084/untitled21nz.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

???

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Yep, many (most?) card have those 'tiny' ceramic capacitors, but some have larger. Eg. BGF OC 6800 has large ceramics as can be seen here:

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/2095/fig28dw.th.jpg

I made a little survey about that kind of capacitors. Here the physical size matters i.e. larger capacitor means higher capacitance value (in general capacitance value DO NOT correlate the size, but in this case a maximal capacitance vs. size is the most probable choice). The size of the solder pad is the same for all PCB's and only the height is varying. Very high capacitance value, say greater that 10 uF, in this size of package is EXPENSIVE and I guess the larger capacitors (like in BGF or Aopen) are 10 uF at maximum. The smaller capacitors (used by all other vendor GW, MSI, XFX..) are using the same logic 1 uF at maximum, propably much less (0.1 uF ?) because these vendors HAVE OPTIMIZED THE COST.

There are several ceramic capacitors bottom side of the card (at least 2 pcs for each memory chip + some extra). The electrical performance of the ceramic capacitor is excellent (e.g. ESR only few milliohms), so this 'modification' has a huge impact to the operation of the card (=no BS).

However, when having a BS-affected card (capacitors already ruined), changing ceramic capacitors does not help anymore. In the other hand, for a brand new (no BS yet !) this mod could give more life time - not too wise option with a new card :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by inspire

:woot: :banana: :banana: :banana: ....it is working, i soldered the caps between t9 and t10 and now i was able
2 play hl2 on the best resolution with AA and i didnt get a single bloody black screen...
wow, sikaripa,when u can give me your icq or msn and i talk 2 u about all the details...now here some pics :toast:

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Fine, congratulations :up:

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What size of capacitor you used (I could not read the value..) ?

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I will send a PM for you...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SikaRippa

What size of capacitor you used (I could not read the value..) ?

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Its 10V 3300F.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SikaRippa

If you can measure capacitance, that would be nice

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I couldn't find the capacitance meter, sorry. I had the RMA accepted so I have sent the card back. One thing I noticed though is that as well as the audio issue (noises on my speakers that changed frequency on fps change) There was also this very annoying ticking noise coming from the card whenever I turned the wheel in my optical mouse (I made sure the noise was coming from the card and not the mouse)


(edit: typo)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by inspire

Its 10V 3300F.

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Thanks for info ! It seems not to be too high value even when having 'purple' capacitors instead of 'green' ones..

Please post if you will encounter any problems afterwards.