XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme – an eBay special (with LONG story)

[Sparkey55]

Re: XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme – an eBay special (with LONG story)

Looking again at your installation photo you would not need to cut off more than 3/4 inch of the vertical fins in order to allow a good flow of air above the HDD when the heatsink is turned 90 degress.

[Wester547]

Re: XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme – an eBay special (with LONG story)

See, that's (again) what I don't understand: why is everyone OK with having a big heatsink on the CPU but not on the GPU? IMO, this is what the stock heatsink on any high-power video card should be (and have a fan too, of course). I just played with a Radeon HD4850 yesterday... and I've got to say, whoever thought that a 110 Watt TDP card can be cooled with a single-slot cooler properly is/was absolutely mad. But that's for another topic I have coming sometime later this summer .

Most people seem to gravitate towards the preference of a low profile and quiet PC rather than a properly cooled one (I think it's also cheaper). At least that's what I've observed. And I look forward to that other "ghetto" mod - you did a nice job with this one.

It's not the big heatsinks in these units that are the problem. It is the passive PFC choke on the 250 Watt models that blocks almost a quarter of the fan and much of the primary heatsink. But they still run quite cool inside compared to an LCD power supply, for example. If they didn't, the one would expect to see burned and/or darked spots on the PCB. But I've never seen any on a HiPro PSU, save for a few models that had a hot dummy load resistor on the 12V rail (IIRC).

I think the PPFC is located in that position in the Hipro PSUs to keep it cool. In the case of the Newton Power units, the PPFC is located on the secondary side so it blocks off much of that area (but not so much of the fan itself). However, even in the units with PPFC, I've never actually seen a bloated LTEC or Taicon in any of them, ever, which tells me Newton/Delta did something right (maybe spin the fan a bit faster than Hipro does ). The Hipro PSUs are another story, primarily because their choice of stock capacitors are worse (Arcon, Teapo, Hermei, or/and G-Luxon, all known to have a higher failure rate than LTEC and Taicon). Given that +3.3V is linearly regulated, I figure the choice of such a massive secondary heatsink is a prudent one.

Indeed.
If it wasn't for the PCB on HDDs running hot, I'd never bother to cool them at all. The Hitachi Travelstar in my Dell Latitude C600 is regularly running 45-55C now in the summer.

Another study was conducted regarding HDD temperatures besides the Google study of 2007, and it agrees with Google that HDD failure rates don't actually increase relative to high temperatures at base casting temperatures of 40*C or below. However, it doesn't find that the annualized failure rate increases with lower temperatures either, which I found to be baffling. Still, 45C-55C sounds a bit high (but it's typical for poorly cooled and ventilated laptop drives under load). In fact, given how many Hitachi Travelstar HDDs I've seen amass bad sectors in a relatively short amount of time, I think it's a bit of a concern (although I will note that the old IBM Travelstar drives seem to do better, probably because of their lower data density regarding the magnetic coating on the platters). I'd still put Hitachi drives above Toshita and Samsung, though.

Nope.

It was a faulty HDD out of some NAS backup device. I couldn't even install Windows on it at first. So that's why I only "temporarily" placed the like that - no screws or anything to hold it in place. After many tries, I finally managed to install Windows XP... and then I just left everything as is. This "temporary" setup has stayed like that since the spring of 2013.

It has too many bad sectors I take it?

[momaka]

Re: XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme – an eBay special (with LONG story)

Looking again at your installation photo you would not need to cut off more than 3/4 inch of the vertical fins in order to allow a good flow of air above the HDD when the heatsink is turned 90 degress.

I actually don't even think I will have this video card in that particular PC. Just put it there a few times to test (after testing with my test PC ). So I'll just flip the HS 90 degrees for now and worry about fans and the rest later.

Most people seem to gravitate towards the preference of a low profile and quiet PC rather than a properly cooled one (I think it's also cheaper). At least that's what I've observed.

True.

The Hipro PSUs are another story, primarily because their choice of stock capacitors are worse (Arcon, Teapo, Hermei, or/and G-Luxon, all known to have a higher failure rate than LTEC and Taicon).

And Asiacon too.
But I don't mind Asiacon. Have them in two units and they are okay. Only one unit is with Teapo, and I am definitely a bit more worried about it. I think it's been more than 3 years since I last checked it.

In fact, given how many Hitachi Travelstar HDDs I've seen amass bad sectors in a relatively short amount of time, I think it's a bit of a concern (although I will note that the old IBM Travelstar drives seem to do better, probably because of their lower data density regarding the magnetic coating on the platters).

Actually, that hot HDD in my laptop may be an IBM. I think it's right from that time when Hitachi bought the IBM HDD division, so some Hitachi HDDs were simply rebadged IBMs.

I'd still put Hitachi drives above Toshita and Samsung, though.

Better than Toshita - absolutely.
Samsung.... I have no experience. Their old (Seagate pre-merger) desktop HDDs are solid, though.

It has too many bad sectors I take it?

700-and-something bad, and 1300-and-something pending.
But the worst part is, many sectors will not get marked as bad. However, the HDD does regularly corrupt data when written to those sectors. So I only use that PC for games and just general messing around with.

[Wester547]

Re: XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme – an eBay special (with LONG story)

And Asiacon too.
But I don't mind Asiacon. Have them in two units and they are okay. Only one unit is with Teapo, and I am definitely a bit more worried about it. I think it's been more than 3 years since I last checked it.

Did you forget yet again that Asiacon is just another Hermei trademark? I'm sure you remember the "just fine looking" Hermei HT capacitors that killed your former router. So yeah, I would be worried about those too. Hermei and Asiacon have all used the same + shaped vents, honeycomb shaped vents, and T-shaped vents. Teapo are also a latent problem. Teapo used to be the worst brand on the planet for failing without signs detectable by the sensory (OST is a famous rival). As for the +12V dummy load resistors - I recall the units with the fan positioned as an intake rather than exhaust having one of those and causing discoloration, but the primary heatsink, secondary heatsink, and primary transformer all block off most of the fan, so the secondary side doesn't get much airflow at all. Newton units were a bit better, but even in the ones with the fan used as an exhaust, the input filtering PCB sort of blocks off the fan just a bit. Some old Dell 200W Hipros were known to have very hot running load resistors on the -12V rail.

Actually, that hot HDD in my laptop may be an IBM. I think it's right from that time when Hitachi bought the IBM HDD division, so some Hitachi HDDs were simply rebadged IBMs.

Yes, the IBM Deskstar 120GXP and 180GXP drives were rebadged by Hitachi during Q4 2002 / Q1 2003. Some IBM Travelstar drives followed suit. I was referencing the Hitachi Travelstar drives made a couple years later, which were made solely by Hitachi. Their Deskstar drives seem to be more reliable.

Better than Toshita - absolutely.
Samsung.... I have no experience. Their old (Seagate pre-merger) desktop HDDs are solid, though.

Samsung 2.5" and 1.8" drives are as notoriously unreliable as Toshita drives of the same ilk - high volumes of bad sectors often surface after less than 1,000 hours of use.

700-and-something bad, and 1300-and-something pending.
But the worst part is, many sectors will not get marked as bad. However, the HDD does regularly corrupt data when written to those sectors. So I only use that PC for games and just general messing around with.

How many bad blocks are there? It might be possible to write zeroes to every sector of the drive with something like Spinrite. What brand is the HDD?

And yes, LCD power supplies are about the worst as far as heat output goes... the difference between the heat generated by a CRT and LCD is hard to fathom. Many LCD PSUs would be fine candidates for ghetto-modding.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme – an eBay special (with LONG story)

But the worst part is, many sectors will not get marked as bad. However, the HDD does regularly corrupt data when written to those sectors.

just to let u know, a hard drive will not reallocate or mark a sector as bad on a failed read attempt. it just gets marked as a pending or suspected bad sector. it only reallocates a sector on a failed write attempt. thats the way the hard drive firmware is designed on all hard drives.

i did exactly that on my partly failed ebay hitachi 500gb ide drive. i did a full write pass using victoria like i said in the other topic. that forced all the bad sectors to expose themselves (waaa a nakkid bad sector? *catcall*) and be reallocated. the problem was that there were over 1890 reallocated sectors (too many to handle) that i think the drive ran out of spare sectors as the normalized value for reallocation event count and reallocated sector count dropped all the way to 1. the last 1% of the drive remains bad due to pending sectors unable to be reallocated. the beginning 99% is fine. despite that, the drive is still too slow with writes. the write speed is around 20-30mb/s but the read speed is fine. i can only use it as an archival drive for data that wont change, i think.

I'd still put Hitachi drives above Toshita and Samsung, though.

Better than Toshita - absolutely.
Samsung.... I have no experience. Their old (Seagate pre-merger) desktop HDDs are solid, though.

aye, thanks to this site and all the members here for keeping me aware of hard drives to avoid. thanks for saving my data and prawn collection, guys!!! if it wasnt for this site, i would have thought toshiba laptop drives were good lol because my mom's sony vaio laptop has a toshiba drive. she had it since 2011 and the drive is shockingly still in 100% health with no reallocated or pending sectors. really wtf man?!

also, thanks for telling me even tho hitachi makes excellent long lasting desktop drives, their laptop drives leave more to be desired. my mom's previous dell inspiron 510m pentium m dothan laptop had a 40gb hitachi laptop drive in it and it died a horrible death with 50,000 reallocated and pending sectors. was a nightmare recovering her data off the drive! picked an excellent time to fail too... right in the middle of the thai floods!!! with sky high hard drive prices!!! had to cough up US$80 or S$100 at the time for a replacement samsung hm160hc 160gb ide laptop drive. thanks to the weak us dollar at the time tho, it didnt hurt as badly as it sounded. i picked the hm160hc as it was one of the fastest laptop ide drives around at the time. it was a 5400rpm laptop drive yet still as fast as a sata 7200rpm desktop drive from the same era.

the drive still sits in the dell inspiron laptop barely used and unused these days with only a few hundred hours of running time. hope it lasts~

since hitachi rules the desktop drive market with the most reliable drive around, i wonder which manufacturer rules the laptop drive market with the most reliable drive around? im guessing it would be wd? i quite like the scorpio black 7200rpm laptop drives. cheap, doesnt cost a bomb like the 10k rpm desktop drives, fast and consumes the same power as a 5400rpm laptop drive. doesnt make sense to buy a regular 5400rpm laptop drive with that bad boy scorpio black around.

i have a couple of legacy format 512 byte sector 500gb scorpio black (wd5000bekt) drives (one with a few hundred hours of use and the other with around 1000 hours of use) from an amazon firesale back in 2012. i started to "hoard" 2 of them cuz i was disappointed to learn wd was migrating the scorpio black to advanced format 512e sector drives. so i grabbed 2 in case i would need them for a laptop in future. sounds like a good investment... might sell em to my mom in case her toshita laptop drive kicks the bucket.

[Wester547]

Re: XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme – an eBay special (with LONG story)

Sorry momaka, I hope I didn't come across as condescending. I just figure it would help to remember that Asiacon is Hermei in disguise and I know how highly you esteem Hermei. I kind of feel bad for derailing this thread into a HDD discussion as well... although I guess it's "sort of" on-topic seeing as how your test drive in that ghetto PC was/is the topic of discussion...

just to let u know, a hard drive will not reallocate or mark a sector as bad on a failed read attempt. it just gets marked as a pending or suspected bad sector. it only reallocates a sector on a failed write attempt. thats the way the hard drive firmware is designed on all hard drives.

I've seen a few drives where the offline uncorrectable and/or pending sector count isn't updated but the drive has an unreadable sector.

i did exactly that on my partly failed ebay hitachi 500gb ide drive. i did a full write pass using victoria like i said in the other topic. that forced all the bad sectors to expose themselves (waaa a nakkid bad sector? *catcall*) and be reallocated. the problem was that there were over 1890 reallocated sectors (too many to handle) that i think the drive ran out of spare sectors as the normalized value for reallocation event count and reallocated sector count dropped all the way to 1. the last 1% of the drive remains bad due to pending sectors unable to be reallocated. the beginning 99% is fine. despite that, the drive is still too slow with writes. the write speed is around 20-30mb/s but the read speed is fine. i can only use it as an archival drive for data that wont change, i think.

If I'm not mistaken, the sequential writing speed is almost always slower than the sequential reading speed, although with that many reallocated sectors, data throughput is bound to suffer.

aye, thanks to this site and all the members here for keeping me aware of hard drives to avoid. thanks for saving my data and prawn collection, guys!!! if it wasnt for this site, i would have thought toshiba laptop drives were good lol because my mom's sony vaio laptop has a toshiba drive. she had it since 2011 and the drive is shockingly still in 100% health with no reallocated or pending sectors. really wtf man?!

It's not impossible for crap to last a while... how long crap will last though, is anyone's guess.

so, thanks for telling me even tho hitachi makes excellent long lasting desktop drives, their laptop drives leave more to be desired. my mom's previous dell inspiron 510m pentium m dothan laptop had a 40gb hitachi laptop drive in it and it died a horrible death with 50,000 reallocated and pending sectors. was a nightmare recovering her data off the drive! picked an excellent time to fail too... right in the middle of the thai floods!!! with sky high hard drive prices!!! had to cough up US$80 or S$100 at the time for a replacement samsung hm160hc 160gb ide laptop drive. thanks to the weak us dollar at the time tho, it didnt hurt as badly as it sounded. i picked the hm160hc as it was one of the fastest laptop ide drives around at the time. it was a 5400rpm laptop drive yet still as fast as a sata 7200rpm desktop drive from the same era.

Hitachi Travelstar drives are notorious for bad sectors. IBM (with their 75XP/60GXP Desktar line) were stricken with lots of flack when they decided to go with glass platters which in turn stipuated antiferroussly coupled media, and that had the tendency to peel off the platters and contaminate the read/write heads.

since hitachi rules the desktop drive market with the most reliable drive around, i wonder which manufacturer rules the laptop drive market with the most reliable drive around? im guessing it would be wd? i quite like the scorpio black 7200rpm laptop drives. cheap, doesnt cost a bomb like the 10k rpm desktop drives, fast and consumes the same power as a 5400rpm laptop drive. doesnt make sense to buy a regular 5400rpm laptop drive with that bad boy scorpio black around.

Western Digital Scorpio Blue drives are just as unreliable as Hitachi Travelstar - they're both bad sector ad nauseam drives. I think WD Black drives are possibly the most reliable on the desktop market, although they are also noisy and a bit hot.

Keep in mind that all hard drives will eventually fail regardless of brand. They are extremely precise and fragile devices by their very nature and all drives harbor the same mechanical weaknesses (nothing lasts forever).

[momaka]

Re: XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme – an eBay special (with LONG story)

Did you forget yet again that Asiacon is just another Hermei trademark?

I did (Oh no, again? )

But I am still not that worried. I think HiPro pulled off what Delta did with CapXon and Ltec - designed the PSU well enough that perhaps the output caps don't get stressed as much, hence why those crappy brands tend to last so long. I'm sure you'll agree with me that CapXon is probably one of the worst brands... following Sacon/Evercon and Rulycon, of course.

Also, the output caps in those 250W HiPro PSUs are HUGE! (Most being 3300 uF caps in 12.5 mm diameter cans.) I think this is part of the reason why they don't fail as much. Also, remember that JonnyGuru HiPro PSU review, where he noted that the thing had a few bulged caps, yet it still showed ripple in spec? Not to mention he was able to pull something like 300 Watts out of his.

How many bad blocks are there? It might be possible to write zeroes to every sector of the drive with something like Spinrite. What brand is the HDD?

It's a Seagate ST3500620AS (aka 7200.11).

No, I'm not going to bother with zero-filling that HDD. It'd be a waste of time. Already tried with two other bad HDDs before, and they just became undetectable afterwards. When you have a seriously sick HDD, no software and no amount of zero-writes will bring it back to life.

This one drops out and eventually spins down if you try to force it to do anything with a known bad sector. Back when I found this HDD at the IT place where I used to volunteer, I plugged it in a computer and let HDTune do a full read scan on it. After a week, the HDD was still "scanning". Got maybe 1/10th done. Kept dropping in and out of the system. So I said, fuck it and just marked it down as unreliable/faulty. Boss said to just throw it away, though... (which both him and I knew meant I can take it home ). After maybe 5 failed attempts to install Windows XP, I finally did the partition shenanigans and was able to install XP and use the HDD.

although I guess it's "sort of" on-topic seeing as how your test drive in that ghetto PC was/is the topic of discussion...

No, that's not the test computer. That is the secondary computer I use mostly for playing older games (currently, Test Drive Unlimited... now where is that driving smiley at? ). The test computer looks even worse than that (however, it does have its HDD secured properly. )

It's not impossible for crap to last a while... how long crap will last though, is anyone's guess.

And that's what I am trying to find out with that faulty 500 GB HDD - let's see how long it lasts.

Hitachi Travelstar drives are notorious for bad sectors.

But I think only certain models. The one I have is a Hitachi DK23EA-20 (i.e. 20 GB model). I also have several HITACHI DK23AA-12B (i.e. 12 GB HDDs). Don't be fooled by the similar model number! They are completely different drives, with the DK23AA-12B being absolutely terrible. They sound different too in terms of bearing and seek noise, so I suspect different hardware inside too.

Keep in mind that all hard drives will eventually fail regardless of brand. They are extremely precise and fragile devices by their very nature and all drives harbor the same mechanical weaknesses (nothing lasts forever).

If they are used in a 24/7 environment, I don't doubt that. But with occasional use, they can last a very long time. I still have a working 3.2 GB Quantum Bigfoot here. IIRC, those were introduced in '94 or '95 or thereabout. So that HDD is over 20 years old now! I don't really use it anymore, though.

[Wester547]

Re: XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme – an eBay special (with LONG story)

But I am still not that worried. I think HiPro pulled off what Delta did with CapXon and Ltec - designed the PSU well enough that perhaps the output caps don't get stressed as much, hence why those crappy brands tend to last so long. I'm sure you'll agree with me that CapXon is probably one of the worst brands... following Sacon/Evercon and Rulycon, of course.

Sort of.

I've measured the temperature of the secondary side of the Dell Hipro 250W and Newton 250W units and the capacitors on the secondary side in Hipro units run quite a bit hotter for a number of reasons:

1) The capacitors are mounted closer to the secondary heatsink in Hipro PSUs, and because they stick +3.3V linear regulators on that heatsink that whole area runs a tad warmer.

2) The ventilation is worse - just a couple row of exhaust vents intead of the honeycomb stamp.

3) Hipro tend to leave a forest of wires somewhat covering the capacitors on the secondary side, Newton/Delta make sure the output capacitors have more room to breathe.

4) Hipro's fan controllers are a lot less aggressive, probably to keep the unit quieter.

Hipro DOES have a much heavier output filter. Most Newton units I've come across don't even use a ferrite coil on the +12V rail, just two capacitors in parallel. Hipros also have tighter voltage regulation and better ripple suppression. And not even Delta are capable of making CapXon last.

As for how I'd rank the Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean cap brands...

Taicon
Hitano
Samxon
Samyoung
LTEC
OST
Samwha

-BIG GAP-

Teapo (G-Luxon)
Hermei (Asiacon)
CapXon = Fuhjyyu
Rulycon
Sacon

Also, the output caps in those 250W HiPro PSUs are HUGE! (Most being 3300 uF caps in 12.5 mm diameter cans.) I think this is part of the reason why they don't fail as much. Also, remember that JonnyGuru HiPro PSU review, where he noted that the thing had a few bulged caps, yet it still showed ripple in spec? Not to mention he was able to pull something like 300 Watts out of his.

Are you talking about the review of the 550W Hipro he did? I don't recall any bulged capacitors in that review, just a mix of Teapo and Rubycon on the secondary. The +12V ripple was rather high though, possibly because that one doesn't seem to have a PI output filter arrangement for the +12V rail either.

It's a Seagate ST3500620AS (aka 7200.11).

No, I'm not going to bother with zero-filling that HDD. It'd be a waste of time. Already tried with two other bad HDDs before, and they just became undetectable afterwards. When you have a seriously sick HDD, no software and no amount of zero-writes will bring it back to life.

This one drops out and eventually spins down if you try to force it to do anything with a known bad sector. Back when I found this HDD at the IT place where I used to volunteer, I plugged it in a computer and let HDTune do a full read scan on it. After a week, the HDD was still "scanning". Got maybe 1/10th done. Kept dropping in and out of the system. So I said, fuck it and just marked it down as unreliable/faulty. Boss said to just throw it away, though... (which both him and I knew meant I can take it home ). After maybe 5 failed attempts to install Windows XP, I finally did the partition shenanigans and was able to install XP and use the HDD.

The 7200.11 drives are notorious for their unreliability. If not firmware issues, they die from too many bad sectors.

No, that's not the test computer. That is the secondary computer I use mostly for playing older games (currently, Test Drive Unlimited... now where is that driving smiley at? ). The test computer looks even worse than that (however, it does have its HDD secured properly. )

I've always wondered if it's better to position the HDD vertically or horizontally. WD recommend horizontally so as to receive the best airflow.

And that's what I am trying to find out with that faulty 500 GB HDD - let's see how long it lasts.

How many hours does it have on it?

But I think only certain models. The one I have is a Hitachi DK23EA-20 (i.e. 20 GB model). I also have several HITACHI DK23AA-12B (i.e. 12 GB HDDs). Don't be fooled by the similar model number! They are completely different drives, with the DK23AA-12B being absolutely terrible. They sound different too in terms of bearing and seek noise, so I suspect different hardware inside too.

Those particular drives have an interesting way of normalizing and calculating the lifetime min/max temperature values in S.M.A.R.T.:

The normalized "worst" and "current" values are converted to the raw data by subtracting the difference between the worst and current value and dividing it by two.

If they are used in a 24/7 environment, I don't doubt that. But with occasional use, they can last a very long time. I still have a working 3.2 GB Quantum Bigfoot here. IIRC, those were introduced in '94 or '95 or thereabout. So that HDD is over 20 years old now! I don't really use it anymore, though.

I haven't noticed drives that run 24/7 to yield a lower failure rate than drives that are power cycled many times over. But I guess the magnetic coating could deteriorate faster running at so many thousand RPMs for so long.

[socratez]

Re: XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme – an eBay special (with LONG story)

So how many hours have you put on this card after you rebuilt it? Some motherboards have a counter in the bios to log the hours.

[momaka]

Re: XFX GeForce 6800 Xtreme – an eBay special (with LONG story)

So how many hours have you put on this card after you rebuilt it? Some motherboards have a counter in the bios to log the hours.

Barely any.

I flipped the heatsink 90° last fall and did a few more tests. Ever since I rebuilt it and did those tests, that 6800XT has been hanging on my wall as an art piece with very little use in between. It wasn't until February or so of this year that I took it down and decided to install it again in my AMD PC shown above.

So I've had it running for about 3-4 months now, for maybe an hour or two every day, on average (some days as much as 4 hours, and others none at all). I also finished (for the second time) an old game on it that I hadn't played since Freshman year in high school: Need For Speed Underground (On that note, I am not a fan of car ricing, but I did enjoy the fast driving feel of that game... especially running at 60 FPS V-synced ). Thus, I have put maybe 20-30 hours of gaming on that 6800XT, and about 30-40 hours sitting idle or using the PC not for games.

By the way, I also had a chance to observe the temperatures a lot more during those 3-4 months. I will make another post with the details and the setup I was running.