Think with me....eVGA GeForce 6600GT issue

[WitchyOne]

Ok, got a brand new eVGA 128mb GeForce 6600GT card from Newegg yesterday. I stayed up until 2AM working on this thing and could not get it to work.

What happens:

I've got the latest drivers from nVidia installed. I take out my existing 5700LE, plug in the 6600GT, making sure to plug in a power dongle to the card (as is recommended). When I fire up my computer, the video will have severe issues....the BIOS boot text shows up skewed, some of the letters are randomly replaced by numbers and gray streaks. XP will start to boot, but there will be vertical blue lines on the black loading screen. As soon as it boots into windows, boom.....BSoD. I've tried this on 2 different systems:

System #1:
Biostar M7VIP mobo
VIA KT333 chipset
1 gig Kingston DDR2100
AMD Athlon XP1800+ Thorougbred @ stock speeds
80 gig Maxtor IDE HD, 7200 RPM
350w PSU/500w PSU swapped in
Windows XP Pro w/ SP1

System #2:
Biostar M7NCD-Ultra mobo
Nvidia nForce2 chipset
512 mb OCZ DDR2700
AMD Athlon XP2000+ Barton @ stock speeds
2x 80 gig Seagate IDE HD's 7200
350w PSU/500w PSU swapped in
Windows XP Pro w/ SP1



I've been beating myself up trying to figure out what's going on. I tried switching the PSU's between the systems with no luck, so I assume it's not either of my PSU's. The error is the same on both machines...the same BSoD.

This is the card: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814130220

Am I missing something simple? Help me out if you can.

 

[vnf4ultra]

Maybe you got a dud card?

 

[WitchyOne]

Maybe you got a dud card?

Bah! You weren't supposed to say what I was thinking


Got an RMA for it already and gonna send it back to see if that is indeed the problem. Suppose I was just hoping there was an easy fix, but for a dud card....RMA is the fix.

 

[vnf4ultra]

That was just the first thing that I thought of. I mean the pc worked before, and it doesn't now, so the only change is the video card. Assuming the card is compatible(your board should be agp for an agp card), then it must be a bad card.

 

[WitchyOne]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that it is an AGP card and both mobos have working AGP slots that support at least 4x. Suppose the replacement card will answer the compatibility question for sure, provided it to is not a dud.

Thanks for the extra brain power on this one vnf

 

[Tarkus]

It could be a weak +5V supply. Recent nVidia video cards don't like it when the PSU drops below 4.8V (maybe even 4.85V).

 

[mailpup]

How about trying an older graphics card driver? I see you installed the latest. But the latest isn't always the best. Take the 77.72 driver for instance. It appears to be causing all kinds of different problems. Try the 71.89 or older version.

 

[WitchyOne]

It could be a weak +5V supply. Recent nVidia video cards don't like it when the PSU drops below 4.8V (maybe even 4.85V).

Man, I'd hate for that to be the case with 3 different power supplies :/ At any rate, it's on it's way back and a replacement will be on its way to me in the next week. I'll keep that in mind though.

And as for the drivers, yeah I see that 77.72 messed up my video with the 5700, so I rolled back to 71.89. Once the new card comes, 71.89 is staying put.


I'll keep you all posted.

 

[springy101]

try setting your agp speed from 8x to 4x, that seems to fix lots of problems with newer cards.

 

[WitchyOne]

Sorry to rez a dead thread, but I did say I'd keep you all posted.

Had the new card about a week without any problems. So my guess is, it was just a dud card. Thanks!

 

[vnf4ultra]

That's good, in a way anyway. At least it didn't cost you much but time to fix the problem, although it stinks when you do get dud products, but it happens.

I'm glad you brought it back up, it's nice to hear the solution to a problem for possible future reference.