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Would this be a Video Card problem?

B

Bennyb

2[H]4U
Joined
Dec 31, 2002
Messages
2,556
My new system ( 3200+ , DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D Socket 939, X800XL) has been acting up recently. Occasioinally I get lockups, restarts all that fun stuff. Tonight I was in the middle of playing a game when BOOM, both my screens go white with vertical colored lines on them... I have done NO overclocking, my cpu runs in the mid to high 30's on full load...

:confused:

Is it time to RMA this videocard?
 
Borgschulze said:
I know this sounds rediculous but do you have the power cable plugged in?
Click to expand...

It doesn't have one. I thought it would, comming from a 9800pro myself. Looked all over the card and found nothing. Is this card suposed to have a power connector?
 
It is a power hungry card, I think it would have one...

Just read the article here at [H], and it says it does not have a power connector, very odd.
 
digiram said:
What kind of power supply is running your rig?
Click to expand...

Antec NeoPower ATX 480W Power Supply

:confused:

System locked up again, but the VPU recover kicked in and restarted the card before I had to restart the comp.
 
Definitely SOUNDS like what you see when overclocking too much. I've a question, just what are you doing when it crashes? Might it be Doom 3 perhaps? I seem to recall hearing a bunch of people with ATI cards complaining that Doom 3 was running with artifacts with their cards set to stock settings. My belief was that this was due to ATI not testing them hard enough since Doom 3 is apparently using stuff nothing before it used.

If it's not that, I guess it has to be power. I have no idea about the reliability of Antec myself, though it sounds like a fairly high-end one by the name of it.
 
Nazo said:
Definitely SOUNDS like what you see when overclocking too much. I've a question, just what are you doing when it crashes? Might it be Doom 3 perhaps? I seem to recall hearing a bunch of people with ATI cards complaining that Doom 3 was running with artifacts with their cards set to stock settings. My belief was that this was due to ATI not testing them hard enough since Doom 3 is apparently using stuff nothing before it used.

If it's not that, I guess it has to be power. I have no idea about the reliability of Antec myself, though it sounds like a fairly high-end one by the name of it.
Click to expand...

It is crashing with World of Warcraft, and Jedi Knight II: Outcast :p Weirding me out. I've seen what overclocking does and this is VERY similar to it. The only thing I haven't notices is artifacting. It just Locks up. Tomorrow I will install the newest drivers (5.5) and see how that works. If this continues I think I may RMA the card because SOMETHING is wrong with it.
 
Got to be power related then. My video card makes the system just simply reboot when I play games with the GPU overclocked past 386 or so unless I do the voltage mod (which seemed to screw up my memory somehow -- yes, memory, don't ask me because I sure don't know.) It runs fine for a while, but, eventually finds that it just doesn't have quite the power it needs to keep going.
 
Any suggestions as to how I should go about fixing this problem? I'm not to familiar with this computers BIOS, so are there any settings I may be overlooking?

I am having trouble seeing how this card isn't getting enough power, my PS is more than sufficient to run my computer...
 
Well, first up is the obvious issue that that card's lack of a power connector automatically limits it's abilities to stabilize the power provided to it from the system and it's entirely at the mercy of your board to keep it stable. My guess would be that your best bet is to start by testing just to see if you can stabilize things by removing all things not 100% required (for example, copy the game cd to your HD as an image and use Daemon Tools to play the game or use a no-cd crack, then unhook your DVD/CD drive. Heck, while you're at it, take out unnecessary cards such as any capture cards or whatever you may have. Even USB uses a tiny amount, so things that don't need to be plugged in might be removed.) Also, you said you weren't overclocking, this applies to the CPU and all too, right? If not, set them completly to stock long enough just to test things out.

The idea of all this is to maximize power and stability long enough just to see what happens. If it still crashes/locks up, then I'm either mistaken or the problem is a lot harder to fix than that. If this sort of thing is enough to stabilize the power, it may be that that power supply just isn't very good (problem is, they love to sell you with their ultra-high wattage ratings, but, it's actual power output, not maximum theoretical output that matters in real life.)

EDIT: Yes, or borrow one from a friend that you know is stable. ^_^
 
its possible not enough juice from the powersupply. if you could borrow a powersupply to do it.;)
 
Hold on here guys !!!
Lets see, that MB and CPU compo draws a fair amout of power by themselves, add to that 4 HDDs, 1 burner, not to mention various fans to keep things cool now throw in a hungry vid card into the mix!!
Now I don't know about the rest of you guys, but yuppers I can see where you could easily be running out of power ! :(
 
Theoretically 480W is enough. In practice, it'd have to be a good power supply or that 480W means nothing. (I know nothing about Antec.)

Try my idea of minimizing power draw and see what happens. If it works, it may well be necessary to change that PSU after all.
 
The powersupply is top of the line for anyone who doesn't know. I have no PCI cards so I'm really not sure what it could be... The powersupply should be MORE than enough... i mean seriously... 480 watts....

Edit: I could try and take my old powersupply and use that to run the 4 harddrives...
 
It's 480W maximum peak output under 100% perfect conditions and probably even then for a split second.

It's called marketing hype. People know they need more power these days, so, companies sell you a power supply promising a lot of power when, in fact, it isn't necessarily able to produce what it claims at all. Even the best power supplies will never provide 100% of that wattage. Actually, what's most important is finding one of a good enough quality to keep the voltages stable, but, the marketing hype doesn't mention that... Now, I don't know specifically about Antec, and I'm not going to speak down about them just because I haven't been happy with the one or two antec products I ever had in the past, after all, many people will tell you ThermalTake isn't good, yet this power supply does amazing things with my dirty lines (crappy old house, it can't be helped.) So, you just never know sometimes.

Unhook all the HDs but the one you need and see what happens. No harm in just trying is there? It won't blow up on you or something. ^_^ The fact is, that card's lack of a power plug is putting you in a bad position for automatic troubles. It's a card that needs a lot of power, but, it doesn't have the extra stuff it's supposed to have to help ensure that power is provided.
 
Too much heat buildup? Maybe try blowing out the dust from the fan and heatsink on the card?
 
This may also seem odd, but is this the series where they moved to floppy power connectors?
 
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzAw

Looks like it had the possibility for one, but, one isn't there. The picture looks to me like some model that this PCB was based on was meant to use the floppy rather than the bigger molex connector though.

Might be like those really old Radeon 9600 Pros where you could solder in one and get better, smoother overclocking. That is a reference card in that article though, so maybe any newer ones and those produced by other manufacturers will lack that thing. Plus, it could be like my 9600P where the holes are there, but, they aren't really wired up to anything.

I've never played around with any newer radeons, so I don't know what happens, but, if they are any like these geforce cards, they'll refuse to even let the system come up if they need a power plug plugged in and it's not. Mine even makes a god-awful noise that scared the living daylights out of me the first time I forgot to plug it in. (Thought my system was fussing that I damaged the CPU or something.)

Bennyb, be sure to try unplugging extras just once. I know the PSU promises a lot of power, but, the problem is that it's going to be hard for the video card to get any stability out of any less than a rock solid PSU since it doesn't have the extra plug.
 
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