Hello. I have run across the first computer problem that I cannot fix. I've been building computers for 10 years, and in that time I've dealt with almost every problem imaginable, both hardware and software, but this one has me stumped.
I have a video card here (Gigabyte [nvidia] 8800 GTS, 320mb) that has stopped working. It was working perfectly one day, then the next day I woke up and there was nothing. I tried turning my computer on and all the lights and fans came on for about 1 second, then turned back off. I started by taking all unnecessary items off the board, so that it was just CPU (heatsink/fan), VGA card, hard drive and keyboard/mouse. Same thing. At this point, I was thinking PSU issue, so I went and got another PSU, hooked it up to the motherboard, double checked connections, and the same thing happened (lights for a second, then back off). So I went and grabbed another video card (8600 GT), put it in and it worked flawlessly. I put the computer back together, leaving the 8600 GT in place and it ran fine for a long time. Recently I built another new computer, so I figured I'd give the 8800GTS another try with a different motherboard/psu/CPU combo, but the same thing happened... system kicked on for a second, then back off. So I took the vga out of the pci-e slot and hooked it up to a power supply by itself to see if the fans/lights would work, I jumped the power supply and the same thing happened... the psu fired up for a second, then kicked itself back off, even though it was hooked up to the 8800GTS by the 6-pin connector (which, on a normal card, would have caused the fans to spin up on the GPU).
So I searched frantically for anyone else having this problem and found nothing really like it. I saw a lot of people who had obvious PSU, CPU, motherboard or other hardware/software issues, but none that were similar to my own problem.
I know that these 8800GTS are pretty notorious for having cracked soldering joints, which caused problems such as computers not booting and people had been "cooking" them to get them to work again. I figured "what the heck, it's already dead anyway", so I stripped it down as per the instructions, cleaned it all up, then popped it in the oven at 385 for 7 minutes. Still nada.
Now, I know that half of you are thinking "my god man, that's an old video card, stop being such a cheapskate and buy a new one!", and I can see the logic there, but it's not about buying a video card anymore, it's about the ONE computer issue that has hounded me for over a year and I refuse to admit defeat at this point in time. So, it's basically being stubborn.
Ok, the system I had it in originally was an Asus P5K Deluxe WI-FI, with 2gb of OCZ DDR2 pc2-8500 RAM (2x1gb), Q6600 (both overclocked and non-overclocked, depending on my mood), Western Digital Raptor 74gb 10k HD and an OCZ 750W PSU.
I tried it in a similar system with an MSI P6N Diamond motherboard, 2gb of Patriot DDR2 (2x1gb), a different Q6600 and a western digital 250gb SATA hard drive. 600W OCZ power supply.
The latest system I tried it in was the Asus MA89GTDPro/USB3 with AMD Phenom II X6 1090T, 4gb of G.Skill DDR3 RAM and numerous hard drives, 1000W Enermax PSU.
I have looked over the whole thing with a magnifying glass to see if I can see any issues, and I see nothing out of the ordinary. The gold pci-e "fins" at the bottom are clean and unscratched, there's no obvious problems with the board or the components, visually, so I'm just really unsure what the issue could be at this point.
Before you ask, I've never taken a bath with the card and used it as a supertanker to haul around lesser GPUs (although it is ridiculously large and would probably float very well due to all the plastic). Afaik, the card has never been exposed to direct sunlight, water, solvents of any kind and with the exception of the "oven trick", it's never even been exposed to high heat. I did not overclock it, no overvolting, no serious gaming (some world of warcraft, perhaps), no 30-day furry donut contests or anything insane like that.
The fact that it won't post leads me to believe that it's not a software issue (duh), so we can throw out all the driver talk. It's not a PSU, CPU, RAM or Mobo issue, at least not that I can figure out, since all these motherboards work flawlessly with other GPUs. So, anyone got any ideas?
Honestly, I wish i could offer some amazing prize for the person who comes up with the solution, because they deserve it, but other than dog biscuits and frozen pizzas, or very old PC hardware (athlon xp days), I don't have much to offer. The one thing I can offer is to join your seti team, if you have one. I have several computers that crunch seti units non-stop, although that's not much of a prize. You will, however, get my eternal, heartfelt thanks for helping me beat this GPU in a battle of wills.
Thanks in advance to those of you who rack your brain trying to come up with a solution.
I have a video card here (Gigabyte [nvidia] 8800 GTS, 320mb) that has stopped working. It was working perfectly one day, then the next day I woke up and there was nothing. I tried turning my computer on and all the lights and fans came on for about 1 second, then turned back off. I started by taking all unnecessary items off the board, so that it was just CPU (heatsink/fan), VGA card, hard drive and keyboard/mouse. Same thing. At this point, I was thinking PSU issue, so I went and got another PSU, hooked it up to the motherboard, double checked connections, and the same thing happened (lights for a second, then back off). So I went and grabbed another video card (8600 GT), put it in and it worked flawlessly. I put the computer back together, leaving the 8600 GT in place and it ran fine for a long time. Recently I built another new computer, so I figured I'd give the 8800GTS another try with a different motherboard/psu/CPU combo, but the same thing happened... system kicked on for a second, then back off. So I took the vga out of the pci-e slot and hooked it up to a power supply by itself to see if the fans/lights would work, I jumped the power supply and the same thing happened... the psu fired up for a second, then kicked itself back off, even though it was hooked up to the 8800GTS by the 6-pin connector (which, on a normal card, would have caused the fans to spin up on the GPU).
So I searched frantically for anyone else having this problem and found nothing really like it. I saw a lot of people who had obvious PSU, CPU, motherboard or other hardware/software issues, but none that were similar to my own problem.
I know that these 8800GTS are pretty notorious for having cracked soldering joints, which caused problems such as computers not booting and people had been "cooking" them to get them to work again. I figured "what the heck, it's already dead anyway", so I stripped it down as per the instructions, cleaned it all up, then popped it in the oven at 385 for 7 minutes. Still nada.
Now, I know that half of you are thinking "my god man, that's an old video card, stop being such a cheapskate and buy a new one!", and I can see the logic there, but it's not about buying a video card anymore, it's about the ONE computer issue that has hounded me for over a year and I refuse to admit defeat at this point in time. So, it's basically being stubborn.
Ok, the system I had it in originally was an Asus P5K Deluxe WI-FI, with 2gb of OCZ DDR2 pc2-8500 RAM (2x1gb), Q6600 (both overclocked and non-overclocked, depending on my mood), Western Digital Raptor 74gb 10k HD and an OCZ 750W PSU.
I tried it in a similar system with an MSI P6N Diamond motherboard, 2gb of Patriot DDR2 (2x1gb), a different Q6600 and a western digital 250gb SATA hard drive. 600W OCZ power supply.
The latest system I tried it in was the Asus MA89GTDPro/USB3 with AMD Phenom II X6 1090T, 4gb of G.Skill DDR3 RAM and numerous hard drives, 1000W Enermax PSU.
I have looked over the whole thing with a magnifying glass to see if I can see any issues, and I see nothing out of the ordinary. The gold pci-e "fins" at the bottom are clean and unscratched, there's no obvious problems with the board or the components, visually, so I'm just really unsure what the issue could be at this point.
Before you ask, I've never taken a bath with the card and used it as a supertanker to haul around lesser GPUs (although it is ridiculously large and would probably float very well due to all the plastic). Afaik, the card has never been exposed to direct sunlight, water, solvents of any kind and with the exception of the "oven trick", it's never even been exposed to high heat. I did not overclock it, no overvolting, no serious gaming (some world of warcraft, perhaps), no 30-day furry donut contests or anything insane like that.
The fact that it won't post leads me to believe that it's not a software issue (duh), so we can throw out all the driver talk. It's not a PSU, CPU, RAM or Mobo issue, at least not that I can figure out, since all these motherboards work flawlessly with other GPUs. So, anyone got any ideas?
Honestly, I wish i could offer some amazing prize for the person who comes up with the solution, because they deserve it, but other than dog biscuits and frozen pizzas, or very old PC hardware (athlon xp days), I don't have much to offer. The one thing I can offer is to join your seti team, if you have one. I have several computers that crunch seti units non-stop, although that's not much of a prize. You will, however, get my eternal, heartfelt thanks for helping me beat this GPU in a battle of wills.
Thanks in advance to those of you who rack your brain trying to come up with a solution.
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