Joe, I'm going to try to put this gently... You don't... work with marketing people, do you? Or a legal department?

I'm guessing there are no Lawyers or Marketing weenies involved in your design process.

Again, no logic here and none is to be expected. Absolutely, under no circumstance, should the end user ever be given options that could potentially change the operation of the device. They will find a way to break it, and it will be the manufacturers fault, because they gave the end user the opportunity to break it.

I imagine it went something like this:

Marketing: < uses Kneejerk, Its super effective! > Fan noise gives bad reviews that hurt short term sales. Engineer! Make it quieter!

Engineer: < uses Logic, Its totally ineffective! > But... (Joes above statement)

Lawyer: < uses Exploration! > If we reduce the speed and noise, will it last longer than the warranty period?

Engineer: < uses Truth, becauseengineer! > 80% of the time, it will work 100% of the time

Marketing: < uses Fight Club formula, Its super effective! > 20% warranty return rate costs less than sales revenue increase total due to positive reviews about lack of noise. Marketing Approved!

Lawyer: < uses Liability > Lock it out so they can't change it either. If they don't like it and try to change it, it'll void the warranty and we won't ahve to deal with it at that point anyway. Legal Approved!

Engineer: But... < uses Logic, can't understand why its totally ineffective! >

Marketing: < uses Sales Figures Projections! > Whatever, just make the fan quieter, It'll sell more cards. When the card dies in a year, they will want to upgrade anyway and that will get us another sale.

Marketing and Lawyer win! Its super disturbing!

Engineer: < uses Whisky! Its super effective! >

<3 you guys BTW. It's been a while since I've had a chance to nerd it up like this.

I thought almost the very same thing when I read his post. I couldn't think of an amusing way to state it, so I left it alone.

EO2K, I want you to know that I literally laughed out loud reading your meeting transcript while standing in line at a cheap Chinese restaurant in lower Manhattan waiting for my Sesame Chicken w/ flied lice to go.

We don't build consumer products, so legal isn't really involved. We do have to deal with marketing weenies (actually, sales has much more involvement in NPD than marketing, since we're a direct-sales company rather than retail).

However, we also have an engineering director who isn't a total pushover, and will actually stand up for the department in the exceedingly rare case that we're being asked to knowingly sabotage our own product.

I understand your Fight Club analogy (Incidentally, I was sitting across from a guy who REALLY looked like Tyler Durden on the flight into JFK today), however there's a difference between accidentally designing something defective because you were penny-pinching vs. making a conscious decision to build an unreliable product where no cost delta is involved.


Also, irony:Why irony? Because in order to make the fan work properly, I had to download and install a third-party utility from a direct competitor to the company which made my card, and that utility not only allows me to adjust the fan, but it also gives me sliders to control clock frequency and core voltage, which are potentially dangerous settings that I have no interest in adjusting in the first place.

EVGA?

I did send you a link, booo.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia-...08-driver.html

However, if your card is zotac, download the Firestorm software, its easy management.
http://www.zotac.com/index.php?optio...id=541&lang=en

I personally messaged you, because I care <3


edit: Precision X is a very dangerous program for what you are looking to get out of said type of program, I know... I use it.

Yeah, I realized that after I posted the above.

EO2K beat you by an hour, though. :D

My wife's pc runs the zotac firestorm because its a simple click reset, and set profile (just one with max fan speed), and helps with driver recovery.

However, nVidia's software has a profile rule creator where you can set a profile to have max fan, or a temp/fan curve graph to what your computer does. For example:

Her's was set to use profile 1 when the card temp. reaches 58c, which gave it max. fan; and when the graphics card temp dropped below 40c it went to systemdefault "OEM auto fan speed".


nvidia's software doesnt help with driver crashes though, which is fine if your machine wasnt a broken installation of XP 64bit.

That's because you are doing it wrong, Joe. You are not supposed to fix the old one, you are supposed to buy a shiny new one!

Understood, and I was about to. But going back to the marketing decision, I sure as hell wasn't going to buy another Zotac, or another nvidia for that matter, based on the perception that they were buggy pieces of shit that locked up all the time.

I don't blame you for that. It really is troubling how short-term most companies seem to think. Save a buck today rather than retain a customer who will maybe later buy another $600 graphics card (not that you would).

I guess that's part of why I am so excited for Google Fiber, since it seems at least ONE company can look beyond the next fiscal quarter.

Your 280 likely needs a touch more voltage. Set the fan speed back to the default and monitor the gpu temps while you play games.

About waterblocks. When the 280 released at $600, it was worth it to spend $120 on a waterblock to get 10-20% more performance out of it while keeping it dead silent. Prices just don't drop on those over time. New waterblocks for new gpus range from 50-150+.

Ouch, joe. Ouch.


I have never had issues with the new 600 series, and I abuse them on purpose because they are in warranty.

I haven't had a single issue with the Zotac's in the 500 series, except for me screwing up the clock speed on the overclocked-from-factory card 560ti AMP!, and frying it (they gave me a new 570, and it is smooth running).

Yeah, and I understand that for pretty much any technology product, there will be a certain percentage of users who say "this product is great and has never given me any trouble", and another group who say "this product is a buggy piece of shit that locks up after a half hour."

Selling me a card that crashes after a half an hour because they intentionally decided to cripple the cooling system is NOT an effective way to build my confidence in the brand, garner good reviews, and ensure that I am a repeat customer.

You can't even really abuse the 600 series lol. Voltage limits FTL.

there arent voltage limits on mine.

What model do you have?

EVGA GTX 670. Evga precision X unlocks them, I am at 1183mV

Either you have the only unlocked 670 on the market, you've modified your gpu bios, or you're mistaken.

Nope to all of those. Just plugged in, driver installed, overclocked and go.


edit: I read the program specs, they allow you to overvolt, but if your card gets damaged using Precision X overvoltage software, your warranty gets voided. and their warrenty max is 1190mV before it warns you.

If anyone has 2 GTX560ti's for sale, i'm looking to buy. I want moar phowwahh and my current GTX460 wants to be put in this racing simulator.