Although somewhat cheaper, you get what you pay for. I’ve seen numerous posts where people complain XFX is simply getting a bad rap and little first hand information about the quality of their cards exists. Well, here it is.
I bought an XFX 6600GT from MonarchComputer. The first card arrived and was confirmed DoA in two different machines, the symptoms being a corrupted display at boot time and in Windows. The screen was unreadable with so many atifacts in 2D mode. The visual pattern consisted mainly of many vertical, colored lines under Windows.
Needless to say, I RMA’d the card and off to Monarch it went. Shortly thereafter, I was sent a second XFX 6600GT. I open up my system, install the card, and boot to the same corrupt graphics at the BIOS screen as I had with my first XFX 6600GT. Two cards, DoA. XFX is certainly exceeding my expectations at this point.
Dare I RMA it for yet another XFX replacement? No, I’m going to try to get an eVGA instead, if possible, or some other brand that’s not XFX.
Total time wasted on this project, so far, thanks to XFX: 3 weeks
Total cost, thanks to XFX’s quality video cards: $12 return shipping, priceless aggreviation
XFX. I’d just say “no”.
I just spoke with a support person at MonarchComputer who, after I explained the scenario, said Monarch was well aware of the reliability issues with XFX cards. He recommended I go with a different brand, liking both eVGA and BFG. They’re giving me a full store credit. I’m going to snag myself an eVGA.
And here are plenty of posts detailing related XFX failures. The issues discussed below sound similar or identical to mine. Most mention a garbled screen at POST time, before the operating system even begins to load, which is what I experienced with both my XFX cards.
berkut7 on AnandTech forum where the comments are mostly XFX positive, but his problem is identical to my own:
insert the new card (I noticed it had different serial number), turn on my brother’s PC and all I see is checkerboard patterns. I try it in my computer (also has 6600GT, but a Leadtek) same thing, it can boot into windows, but can’t do anything in windows because the checkering and artifacting is so bad. Now my brother has to pay to ship the card 2nd time, and live another 1-2 week without a decent video card.
I find the most damning posts on XFX’s own forum, though, where others have the same identical problem.
Here’s a post from daniel.mchale .
I just got a geforce 6600 GT AGP version, and when I tried using it, with a 400 watt power supply with 18 amps going through 12 volt, the screen had weird vertical lines and characters on it. The power cable was connected to the card.
hot.pepperz has another with the same deal:
I just put together my computer and turned on the power to set up the bios and total garbage came up on the screen. Some words can be seen at post, but mostly looks like a rug pattern. Any ideas before sending it back? I can hardly do anything since most of the post text is garbled. Most of what I can see at post seems to pass. It recognizes the CPU and the memory, that is about all I have connected right now. I went into BIOS to set up my RAID so not even any HD’s
rogue108 is on his third card already. That’s pretty sad.
I purchased an XFX 6600GT AGP. The runs for three months, in stock mode and dies. I RMA the video card. The 2nd card, I received won’t allow the system to post. It doesn’t even allow System BIOS to post, its all blue and gray lines. Fast forward to my third card. This will allow the system to post to the Windows Title Screen and then scrambles the screen and locks up the system.
And here’s another.
I bought my 6600GT card close to 2 months ago and it was working perfectly fine. I had some PSU issues at first but I resolved that issue, which eliminates that conclusion. I took out my vcard a few days ago so I could transfer it to another computer for a few days. When I put it into the other PC the card didn’t display the letters and other stuff properly. During boot up the words were distorted and the colors were weird. When I got into windows it looked the exact same. Tried rebooting in safe mode… same.
Oh, I just love it. Here’s another one.
What displayed on my CRT during POST can best be described as random extended characters in random colors. In the upper left corner of the crt you could sort-of make out the Energy Star logo. I put the old ATI card back in and it booted normally. I put the XFX card back in and got the same scrambled display during POST. I let it continue booting to see if the problem cleared up in Windows. When the Windows GUI started the display was filled with white virtical lines. I was able to barely make out the Windows GUI behind the white mess.
The moral of the story is, don’t buy XFX cards unless you want to get screwed. Don’t go through three or more RMAs to get a working card. Just buy a different brand.
Update, October 10th. I received an email from someone claiming I was experiencing an issue with NVidia chipsets and ViA chipsets. It’s useful to note that of the systems I tested my XFX card on, neither had a ViA chipset. One had a SiS 735 chipset, the other was a NForce2 chipset. Again, to reiterate, the problem with my XFX card occurred at system POST time, before Microsoft Windows had begun to load. Hence, it cannot be a Windows driver issue of any kind and it is not the ViA chipset issue. My card was defective. Period.
Update, May 19th, 2006. R. Jones wrote to inform me that he and his associates haven’t had any issues with recently XFX video cards. Obviously, your milage will vary. However, I personally won’t gamble on another XFX product ever again. My time is too valuable.
Richard Jarvis said,
March 23, 2006 at 8:56 am
Had my 6600 GT for about a year and booting up one day started to see the weird colours and random characters as described above.
Guess that the card is messed up now and will have to buy another one.
Lucky I have onboard graphics on my motherboard. But cant play any games right now.
Matthew Schultz said,
June 28, 2006 at 1:08 pm
My XFX 6600 GT 128mb agp card that I bought a year and a half ago died. It decided not to post one day. I don’t know if it had anything to do with one of the capacitors coming lose due to shoddy soldering. I found out XFX had a two year warranty which I was happy about. They told me to RMA the old card and they did some testing and decided to send me a new card. I got the new card yesterday. It has a different HSF on it (chrome?). I popped the card in and it booted into windows fine and I told it to detect the nvidia drivers and install. That worked fine and after that I popped into a game, the game started and then froze. I rebooted and then I noticed the screen was all garbled on POST. The computer would post and I could get into the bios but there were noticeable red lines running down the screen and artifacts all over the place in the bios screen. I can’t even read the POST message for that matter. It was at this point that I decided to try it in another computer. This other computer works fine with an older nvidia card. I popped this replacement card in that computer and it had the same problem. Then I popped the old video cards back in both computers and everything looked fine and booted fine. I don’t think this bodes well for XFX. I’m going to RMA this REPLACEMENT card in and hope that this doesn’t happen again. I wonder how much money I’m going to waste on shipping this before I get a working card? I’m going to look at different manufacturers too when I buy a new card.
Wayne said,
September 2, 2006 at 6:32 am
I’m having the same exact problem on my computer. I’ve also tried to diagnose my friend’s computer which had very similar symptoms on his tower. Nevertheless, his tower no longer boots up.
As for mine, I’m getting a lot of artifacts on POST now on my 6600GT. I’ve singled down the problems to the power supply and/or video card. I’ve been doing research on this topic of PSU failures and video card failures but I get a mixed bag of results. One theory no one has mentioned (none that I have come across) is that perhaps ailing PSU’s or faulty ones are causing video cards to degrade and eventually fail.
It would be logical that a bad PSU could cause the first video card to die (and after RMA or a new video card purchase), the same results could occur after some time. Well if anyone has any results, please e-mail me. I will be glad to share my results of purchasing/installing a new PSU and testing my system with another video card tomorrow. Good night.
Altria said,
October 6, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Hello,
I am having this issue right now with the 6600 Gt card from XFX. Everytime I place it in PCI-e socket the machines turns on for a second and off again. When I remove the card, all fans, cpu, drives, turn on (BTW, I put in an old PCI graphics card I had laying around). Now I am wondering about the issue of bad PSU vs. faulty video adapter. I have a thermaltake 480W PSU and I have never had problems before. My question is if the PSU was faulty would this not show after removing the 6600 GT card and placing in the old PCI one?
Well, i have just ordered a new card…7900 GTO (not from xfx). I am hoping they will RMA this card because it is within the warranty period. If the new card does not resolve my problem then off to purchase a new PSU…this time i am going for 700W.
I have read most posts where the pc turns on for a half second then off and most people suggest to replace the video card. Does anyone here have any stories to share about this experience.
TIA,
Altria
John Bergman said,
November 4, 2006 at 6:59 pm
My PNY 6600GT 128Mb died just today. When I power on (using Via KT7 Mobo), It makes constant beeps. I put in an older GeForce 4, and it worked fine, obviously slow as can be. I’m stuck with a GeForce 4 for now.
Let’s face it, 6600GTs are junk. I know 2 friends who have 6600GTs, one died already. The other is well on it’s way.
Robert Wright said,
December 25, 2006 at 7:31 pm
Well, I was given a nVidia GeForce 6600 256mb Graphics card yesterday, and its been working like a charm! till this evening, when the POST and BIOS Setup screen became filled with foreign characters. Stuff like, ÁÉÍÓÚ and what not. Pretty miffed at the moment, but its not XFX, and I Certaintly wont be buying any XFX Graphics cards.
Back to my GeForce 5200FX 128mb. :’(
Merry Christmas!
Jon Blair said,
December 31, 2006 at 9:07 am
I got a 6600GT at the start of December, having read that it was the best GPU for those on a budget (ie me!), and was delighted with it until this morning when I was greeted with (fanfare please) a multicoloured graphical corruption, and the monitor deciding to give and and report “no signal”. iI’ve installed my antique board and the problem vanishes. I can see that it could possibly be a PSU issue, but dunno how to check further. Of course I can forget tech support on New Years Eve, but it sounds like the only option is to send it back. Any way to check it out further?
dave gomm said,
January 4, 2007 at 5:30 pm
another XFX 6600GT, another POST problem, SIS chipset, garbled characters during post, card is out of warranty now though
BN said,
January 25, 2007 at 9:39 am
How about an eVGA 7800GT, one year and two-three months old, has the exact same problem (garbled screen on POST, Windows can’t boot, CRT monitor eventually gets no signal)?
One empiric solution - switching the monitor from one video card DVI output to the other seems to make the problem go away (for a variable length of time).
KittyBaby said,
February 17, 2007 at 10:33 pm
I installed the 6600GT, and when the video died within 6 months, I called XFX, they had me ship the card, tested it, then informed me that it was NOT defective. The turnaround time was reasonable. As it turns out the MSI mobo was the issue. But- HAD it been the card, they were not only willing to honor a LIFETIME warranty, but they were also willing to UPGRADE my card to a 7600GT, as the 6600’s were sold out and no longer in stock. They paid return shipping, even though the card was working fine.
The guys at XFX RMA Rock. Daniel and Shannon were incredibly helpful in trying to get this “problem” solved, they were knowledgeable, uncondescending, and very professional. I will buy ALL my cards from this company, just for the service and the lifetime warranty (offered at no cost to whomever you unload your machine on, as well). I am So darned tired of dirter tech support outsourced to (fill in the blank), where english is neither a first, nor asecond language, and women are talked to like we’re all stupid.
jasonb said,
February 20, 2007 at 7:17 pm
@KittyBaby:
Be that as it may, my original and replacement were defective. That seems like a horrible gamble to me, to keep buying from a company with such an enormous inventory of failed boards. Spending four weeks shipping defective parts back and forth, at my expense on the way out in both coin, time, and frustration, I shall take a pass on XFX cards.
Cryptographrix said,
April 24, 2007 at 2:01 pm
So yeah, don’t go EVGA - I had my EVGA 7900 GTO 256 for about 6 months, and then it started freaking out some time in early February. So I decided to RMA it(my first RMA - EVER).
I got the new one(in a new box and everything - they even sent me an all-new 7950! W00T!)…I get it in, and just to be on the safe side, set up a 5 gallon watercooling system for it and the processor - 600 gpH pump and all(put my welding/soldering/plumbing skills to good use). CPU AND VGA block - it’s really a wild setup.
I tested the watercooling for 72 hours(outside of the system) - no leaks whatsoever - so, ok, I’ll throw it all together.
I put it all together - poof - same problem - vertical lines from POST(BEFORE windows), and windows wouldn’t even load(so long as the nVidia/EVGA driver is installed). So I uninstalled the driver(through safe mode), and here I am, running at 60Hz@1600×1200, can’t do a darn thing for video or 3d whatsoever.
So I figured its probably the RAM, right? I mean, I have corsair DDR2 667, but I have a bunch of sticks of mushkin DDR2 667 lying around, too - so I throw those in - same problem. So, I triple check my system for any signs of leaking with the watercooling system - none found - the whole system is dry as a bone(the radiator is OUTSIDE the system, even :p[thank you dremel lol]) and the Pentium D 3.2Ghz(940 I think) is running at a cool 88degF. No problem with overheating, of course.
So, I see a post about someone replacing their power supply and everything working like a charm. well, my current one was a ThermalTake 750Watt, but, hey - what do I know? I throw in my old 600 Watt.
Can you guess yet? Same problem.
So, now, I think I’ve narrowed it to the motherboard(an ECS PF5 1.0) and/or the processor - guess what? I ordered a new one of EACH(I’m stupid sometimes, but in this case not really stupid stupid - I figure, hey, if the problem isn’t the mobo/proc, well that leaves me with a decent server/media center/render engine lol).
The weirdest part about the current setup is that the FSB speed changes on each boot - sometimes it’s 800, and sometimes it goes to 801 or even 821. And, no, I’m not even trying to overclock - with the standard setup, this thing ran WoW at 100fps, before it started having problems, and that’s waaaay more than fine for me.
The mobo/new proc will be in on Thursday - I’ll let everyone here know what I find out from it - if you have any suggestions, please email me - this is really insane.
Jeremy said,
May 2, 2007 at 3:21 pm
I just recently gained two PCIe Nividia GeForce 6600GT from a friend. I installed them both on my new EVGA 590sli board only to find that one of the cards fell ill to the blue lines and garbled letters on the POST screen and beyond. Luckly, the other card didn’t have the issue. I hope this doesn’t mean the other card will mess up if I use it in SLi mode.
Kyle said,
May 14, 2007 at 11:28 am
Jeremy, sorry to say, but I started to experience the same issues everyone above is discussing quite some time ago. The card I had in my second video card slot was defective, and trying to boot with it either alone in the first slot or together with a functional card (no matter which slot the cards were in) yielded the same results.
Dave said,
October 30, 2007 at 11:53 am
I am now having some significant problems with my 6800XT card from XFX. I have verified that the card is bad, however they want to RMA my card instead of RPL it so I would be down until they fixed it. Instead I bought a BFG 7300 GT and will send it in. Sounds like it will be a nightmare to get a working replacement from them. Of course now thier website is down so I cannot even log in to print out my RMA sheet.
Damien R. said,
December 28, 2007 at 10:09 am
Just bought a XFX 8800 GTS 512. Brand new card. Guess what! DOA. Exact same problem as described in this blog (corrupted at POST and after). I guess XFX still hasn’t fixed their QA…