Recently I replaced my old NVIDIA 5500 Geforce graphics card with a friends old 5900 graphics card. Now at first everything was going great.

A few days later I tried playing Indigo Prophecy on my PC (Note: I already ran it beforehand after I installed the new card and everything worked fine). Soon into the game, strange green vertical dotted lines appeared on the screen. Eventually the game crashed. Afterwords, trying to open Indigo Prophecy yet again gave me the error message that my card was not directx 9.0c compatible. I checked NVIDIA's site, had double checked that I had the latest drivers, uninstalled the card, reinstalled, uninstalled directx 9.0c, reinstalled, etc. etc.

Now what really concerns me is that this doesn't just appear to be a graphics card issue. Now even my computer will refuse to start up at times. In fact sometimes the first boot up screen will have red vertical dotted lines (not green???).

So now it takes forever for me to even start up the computer to fiddle around!!! This is driving me crazy.

I have messed with dxdiag, but I can get no explanation for any of this.

Please if anyone can help me, it'd be very much appreciated.

Specs:
Windows XP Home Edition (Current Updates)
Pentium 4 2.40GHz
NVIDIA 128 MB GeForce 5900
512MB Ram

And someone mentioned I may have an outdated BIOS so I'm posting that as well...

Phoenix - Award WorstationBIOS v6.00PG

It sounds like your graphics card gradually went from a working state to being broken. Check if the fan is spinnning, it might have stopped while you were playing and the card might have overheated. If that's the case, it might have caused some permanent damages to your card. I've only joined the forum for 2 or 3 days and i've read several posts about GPU fans stopping due to various reasons such as dust.

If it isn't the graphics card, then it has to be another component that gradually died

I doubt it is your BIOS, since it didn't change when your computer went from fully functional to completely useless.

Maybe not enough power being given to the card? No clue! Don't listen to me, still learning.

Well it should be rather easy for you to establish weather you graphics card has been damaged or not.

Just try the old 5500 again and see if the issues are still there or not. If they are not then something has gone wrong with the graphics card and maybe you should send it back to whereever you got it from and ask for a replacement.

If the issues are still there you will require more help than I can give you, but al least you will know that your new graphics card was not the problem.

Well it obviously must be something with the graphics card, considering I put my old one in and it's working perfectly.

Any ideas on why this graphics card might be faulty???

BTW, some new details.

When hardware acceleration is maxed and when in dxdiag, the graphics card passes the three tests (all three are on and working properly).

However, when Indigo Prophecy (my experimental program in this case) is played and as I toggle the graphics the game instantly crashes when I change the settings to 1024 x 768. Otherwise, it takes a few minutes for it to crash.

Interesting enough, when I run dxdiag again, the third option in display is no longer highlighted and Direct 3d fails when tested.

Interesting...

And when I try to run Indigo Prophecy once more, the game doesn't open merely saying the graphics card is not directx 9.0c compatible.

Funny, since a graphics card that's supposedly worse can run directx 9.0c...hmmmmmmm

As I said the card must be faulty. Just return it and ask for a replacement.

Actually, according to http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/132 that card is not directx 9.0c compatible. It is only directx 9.0 compatible. That is not to say that the card won't work if you have directx 9.0c installed. It just means that if a game attempts to execute an instruction that is present only in directx 9.0c, the game will probably crash.

There is a chart (at the above site) showing that the fx 5900 uses directx 9.0 and the conclusions says
-=-=-=-
"As for the DirectX version, 8.1 means that the graphics chip uses the Shader 1.4 model and 9.0 means that the graphics chip uses the Shader 2.0 model. nVidia chips from the 6 series on are DirectX 9.0c, using Shader 3.0 model, feature available on ATI chips only from their X1000 series on."
-=-=-=-

If you're not convinced, go to http://www.nvidia.com/object/shaders_tb.html and a PDF will open. On page 14 of the PDF document, the chart says the fx uses pixel/vertex shader 2.0+.

I am guessing that Indigo Prophecy is attempting to execute an instruction present only in directx 9.0c (shader model 3.0, maybe?) and since your card does not support it, it crashes. However, I'm not too sure why dxdiag fully works before the game crashes.

yeah, same thing happened to a client of mine. When you play half life 2 the native directx is the one the card designed for.

You know I find this very strange, since I've already played Indigo Prophecy all the way through, several times I might add since it is a favorite of mine, on my 5500 graphics card which is registered for only being able to use 9.0. The 5900, a superior graphics card, should therefore by logical reasoning have no problem with running a game that a lower card can.

My head is spinning...

Are you using the exact same settings when you play with the two different cards?

*Edit - (10 minutes after initial post)*
I did some more searching and first, here are the minimum requirements for Indigo Prophecy:
-=-=--=-
* System: PC
* Operating System: Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP
* Processor: Pentium III 800 MHz or faster
* Memory: 256 MB RAM (512 MB recommended)
* Hard Drive Space: 2.5 GB free
* CD-ROM Drive: 8X speed or faster
* Video Card: 32 MB Hardware T&L compatible video card*
* Sound Card: Windows compatible sound card*
* DirectX Version: 9.0c (included)

*indicates that device must be compatible with DirectX 9.0c. Video cards that do not support Hardware T&L, such as the TNT or Intel series of chipsets, are not supported.
-=-=-=-

This got me a bit curious (since I never really look at minimum system requirements when I play games :haha: ), notice how it says "the device must be compatible with DX9.0c." Does that mean it has be to able to run with DX9.0c installed (instead of, for example, DX9.0), or does it mean that it has to support all the instructions that come with DX9.0c? Does there even exist a video card that has 32MB of memory and FULLY supports DX9.0c?

Anyone got any ideas?

I have contacted XFX who made my card and made an inquiry but who knows if they can help me since this was a used card from a friend who on longer needed nor likes NVIDIA...I may be developing the same mindset...

EXACT TO THE BACKBONES!!!

Hmmmmm do you think perhaps it may have something to do with the settings in my BIOS...

On that same site you listed iNoob, they suggest certain settings which I have only seen in my BIOS.

First off,this has nothing to with DirectX 9.0,v9.0c is just the latest version out.In one of your posts you mention screen corruption before windows loads,which means no drivers have been installed,so it has to be a problem with the graphics card itself.Have you checked that the fan is working.

Download Everest and open computer>sensor and post the GPU temp and the GPU ambient temp.

I checked if the fan was working when I had it in there, and it was working fine, nice rpms, but I have to reinstall the card to run that program. I'll post it later tonight, I am a college student so I need to get some work done before I do that.

Well guys, I think I figured it out. I contacted the guy who built my computer, finally. He told me that since I have a Shuttle shell (you know the small box type) and even with the fan built into my graphics card, there just isn't enough to cool the card down and it overheats.

Said he experimented on these types of computers and said that 5500s and 5600s are about the limit with these shuttles and 5800s+ usually overheat.

I told him the fan seemed to be working but he was pretty confident it was just overheating anyway.

So, that sucks but you know, I guess if I want to use that card I'm gonna have to put it in either a bigger shell or mod it for a wire mesh. A friend joked that I should put in liquid cooling, and I don't think that'll work on my paycheck lol. :monkey: :monkey: :monkey:

Congratulations. However, it seems to me that you are unconfident that your card is ACTUALLY overheating. Have you tried alt-tab'ing out of Indigo Prophecy to check your GPU temperature? I'd try that just to confirm.

Hey people, i have the same problem (currently).
the strange green lines coming down my screen after an appicaltion with some graphical need is played.
I found it happen to my FIFA 2006, Call Of Duty2 and Far Crzy,vid conferences.

I just wanted to make sure it was the graphics card and not DirectX 9.0c because to try and fix the problem i reinstall windows multiple times and it always does ok to start with. I was playing COD2 for about 6 missions before the lines came back so it sounds like it's using up somthing and running out of somthing for these lines to suddenly come up.

I am starting to think that it is either the CPU or the graphics card which is over heating. I have yet to try a different card to see if it's either one of them but my cpu usage state seems to be going into the red when the lines happen. I have opened up the case and have a big fan blowin into in reducing the graphics card temperature to 73 degrees but the lines still happen.

can anyone help?

73 Degrees Celsius?

Too hot, your card is overheating, and what you're seeing is called artifacting. Clean the heatsink, make sure the fan is still turning.

If its still not getting down to around 60 Celsius, you may have to take the heatsink off, clean it (with rubbing alcohol, to get the old thermal grease off) and then reapply the thermal grease (try artic silver, its the best, available at any computer enthusiast shop), only use a pea sized amount, just enough to cover the top of the chip.Then reseat the heatsink on the card, and test it again... 73 degrees is just too damn hot.

Also, you may want to try downloading ATITool, (google it) and reduce the clock speeds on your core/memory by 20Mhz each, that should result in it producing less heat, but not ding your performance too badly.