Ack!!! It appears my video card is failing.

danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
edited May 2004 in Hardware
It seems that any call for Hardware acceleration will cause my computer to freeze up or become slow as molases until that specific program is closed. It even occurs in a new installation of windows.

For example:
Two video files are playing, this will cause the computer to freeze (never occured before)
Set hardware acceleration to enabled in PowerDVD will freeze the computer (never occured before)
Running Direct 3D test in DirectX will cause the computer to freeze (never occurred before)
Not tested yet, But playing game would also cause it to freeze when trying to run in AGP mode.

Please mind you, that this video card is a PNY Verto GeForce4 Ti4200 w/64MB RAM AGP4x, which I bought around Sept/Oct 2002. This card would never ever run in AGP mode, even when new, it always ran in PCI mode. Running it in AGP mode would cause the above problems.

Right now they have a ATI graphics card for about $100.00 at the BX, which I will buy until I can afford a 9800PRO

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    64 MB.... That is about 8-16 frames of buffering at decent res and color depth, and that gen card hates DirectX 9.0. Are you sure it is not main system RAM also or instead of video card???

    I have a 4800, it hates DirectX 9.0 also. DirectX 8.1 it lives with fine-- so, what DirectX is on box, or is this a raw and virgin install without any DX or WMP upgrades????

    Wrong DX version for card can do system bogs like you would not BELIEVE!!! That I know.
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited May 2004
    I had DX9 in it previously, and it never did this. It did the same with DX8 as well.

    Oh, I just reinstalled windows, and tested Direct3D in DX8, and it did that.

    It isn't main system ram either, I know it isn't. System behaves fine otherwise.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    HOKAY, any dust at ALL on card, like under GPU fan in HS crevices??? That will cause an overheat and bog....

    Card might be dying.... But in PCI mode it will bog. Even in AGP2X it should be faster than as PCI. This is a PNY, RAM is usually good on those-- what voltage is it at??? They like about a quarter volt above default, usually, for modern boards. So does my 4800, it likes a bit higher than what the boards default to.

    Have BIOS settings changed??? CMOS battery good??? Correct monitor inf file loaded???
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited May 2004
    No changed BIOS settings, just a little dust on it, so it isn't overheating. Correct monitor INF, CMOS battery is good. No BIOS settings changed

    Problems went away with new ATI video card. But due to a design flaw in KD7-RAID, no video card will run in AGP mode (not even this ATI card)

    Usually, voltage is like 1.52 around there, I can't adjust it.

    I just noticed that one of the power amps (the little black square with three legs, left side, top, next to a capacitor) was kind of dark colored around the solder pad. In fact, the back edge of the board around the area of the capacitor, and power amp is discolored (darker than the rest of the board), and the capacitor's top is buldging.
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited May 2004
    Anyway, how much of a difference is there between a 9200 and a 9800?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    The difference is significant. They aren't even in the same class. The 9200 is a budget card; it's essentially the 8X AGP version of the 9000. The 9200SE is the handicapped version of the 9200, running 64-bit instead of 128 - light gaming, but nothing fast.

    The 9800 has better, faster RAM, and a much more powerful GPU. If your goal is simply to purchase something to tide you over until you purchase a performance video card, either the 9200 or 9200SE would be a good choice. Both have excellent 2D performance; but the 9200SE will not function well with intensive games. Don't know about DVD playback ability with the 9200SE. You can get the SE for as little as $50 or less if you shop online.
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited May 2004
    Oh? I already bought the 9200. As for running in standard AGP, it won't either due to some design flaw in the KD7-RAID (its been mentioned before), it'll only run in PCI mode (but at least it isn't freezing)

    Just before removing that GeForce 4 Ti4200, it was freezing every few seconds playing a video file using Windows Media Player Classic. So, it was getting worse, because it started nearly two days ago, but only when trying to play multiple video files at once, or trying to play a DVD with hardware acceleration enabled in PowerDVD.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    danball1976 wrote:

    I just noticed that one of the power amps (the little black square with three legs, left side, top, next to a capacitor) was kind of dark colored around the solder pad. In fact, the back edge of the board around the area of the capacitor, and power amp is discolored (darker than the rest of the board), and the capacitor's top is buldging.


    Probably going bad to already GONE bad(not yet fatal, but damaged when you see that and performnace probs). Power supply circuitry, not card only. The multimodal PNY's I have run like 1.58 V-1.625 V in lowvoltage compliant mode, exactly half of 3.3 V at pure nominal 3.3 V near enough. Sound like the 3.3 V supply circuit is getting overloaded, that would do this.... Bad ground would do this also.... Radeons can run on closer to 1.5 better. BUT, near as I can tell you have a bad power circuit on that board. The combo of two things you are telling about in quote is circuit component failure, both have to do with low power legs. In the LONG run, figure on a new board, shorter run, unless you can replace your power components, ditto.

    So, probably lower voltage than your PNY likes, and possible undervoltaging on the 3.3 legs out to the video, or an under-capacity supply circuit.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited May 2004
    Danball, one thing I remembered from buying a PNY Verto GeForce3 Ti200 vid card 3 years or so ago was their warrantee policy on their vid cards, so I went and checked it out. They still warrantee their vid cards for life, so if you still have access to your invoice or you bought it from Newegg where your past invoices are still on record to where you can print the invoice for it up, you can RMA your vid card if there are no obvious alterations done to it. You would then have a spare vid card for emergencies like this or could use it to build another box with for a second, spare computer (folding of course ;) ).

    Just a thought I had to help you out. :)

    BTW, here's a link to their warrantee policy.
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited May 2004
    Well, unfortunately, I bought it from BestBuy in Wichita Falls, TX when I was at Sheppard AFB, and I no longer have the receipt.

    Alsp. I never turn in those warranty cards that they put in the box.

    I've attached the power output from the power supply from my Enermax EG365P-FC(V) (if that matters)
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited May 2004
    Well, also, in the BIOS, the AGP Trans rate setting for 2x/4x/8x is not there and is replaced by DBI Output for AGP Trans. Any clue what that is?
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    danball1976 wrote:
    Well, unfortunately, I bought it from BestBuy in Wichita Falls, TX when I was at Sheppard AFB, and I no longer have the receipt.

    Alsp. I never turn in those warranty cards that they put in the box.

    I've attached the power output from the power supply from my Enermax EG365P-FC(V) (if that matters)

    Does your BIOS have a PC-Health section??? You might want to check that section against the MBM 5.0 readings. The MBM 5.0 readings are within PSU norms.

    Power circuitry on motherboard is what I was thinking. Something to keep in mind-- Good PSUs supply RAM, Video card, and CPU and in some cases both bridges out of one larger pool of the PSUs capacity-- 5 volt load can be part of this draw on a below 12 Volt pool. Overload any one of those, or surge the PSU, you will get transient overload and underload cycles propagating-- surges and heat directly destroy, underloads more disable until normal voltage is normalized. Overload more than one of those functional things listed above, the 3.3 Volt will randomly float more. Right now, those voltages are good, but I would crosscheck with BIOS monitoring values also, see if anything is more than 5% different than MBM. If they cross-check over more than several randomly timed checks over a day's time, look more inline within computer from PSU itself for issues.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    danball1976 wrote:
    Well, also, in the BIOS, the AGP Trans rate setting for 2x/4x/8x is not there and is replaced by DBI Output for AGP Trans. Any clue what that is?

    I think the BIOS is trying to tell you it is doing the equivalent of automatically setting and syncronizing the AGP rate to card-- BIOS thinks current new card is good enough and talks to this BIOS well enough to be able to do that. In my boxes, I leave AGP rate set to auto unless I am troubleshooting things. I would say for now, leave that alone as it is for a few days, see what else is up with computer.
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited May 2004
    I enabled it, and it made Windows boot up 3x slower (but still run fast)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    danball1976 wrote:
    Well, unfortunately, I bought it from BestBuy in Wichita Falls...and I no longer have the receipt...I never turn in those warranty cards....
    The sole purpose of warranty cards is to enrich marketing databases. The warranty is valid whether or not you returned a card; and yes, a warranty is legally binding. Registration is simply provides marketing data. The card's serial number is proof of manufacture date. You may not even need a sales receipt. I'd call Nvidia and see if they still honor the warranty without sales receipt. Hard drive makers don't give a whit about sales receipts, as is also the case with most motherboard makers.
Sign In or Register to comment.