6800 GT Woes

beltani

n00b
Joined
Nov 12, 2004
Messages
3
Thinking I was long overdue to get ready for the next-gen games, I decided to blow a wad of cash and spring for a new rig. $1200 later, the fun's just begun. I went with the Leadtek 6800 GT in conjunction with a DFI Lanparty UT NF3 250GB mobo, a Clawhammer 3200+, and Thermaltake's 480W Silent Purepower PSU. Assembled it all last friday, only to find severe artifacting / video corruption when I booted into the BIOS. Since then, I've tried everything.

I flashed to the latest mobo BIOS, tried playing with my AGP voltage, disabled AGP Fast Write, tried different AGP aperature sizes, and unplugged everything but the mobo and VGA. The artifacting is present at the Leadtek boot screen, the DFI boot screen, in the BIOS, and even into windows. It's not a driver error, as the artifacting is present even without a HD plugged in. In fact, when I *do* install drivers, I lose the video in Windows. The kicker is, the card works fine on a friend's rig. My 12V line is running @ 11.89 which is acceptable. I also don't have much in my rig, only 1 HDD, 1 Optical, the VGA, a FDD and the mobo - nothing my PSU shouldn't be able to handle. The only thing I haven't tried is another video card on my rig to see if my AGP slot is bad. In the meantime, though...

HELP!?!
 
::update::

It's not a case of a bad AGP slot, as other cards worked fine. However, they also didn't require 12V connections, which means it sounds like I have a classic case of "bad PSU." Any thoughts?
 
If you can find another good PSU or borrow it from a friend, test it to see if it is the case. If yes, just RMA your bad one.
 
Either PSU, or video card. Try unplugging unnecessary things, like optical drives, etc, and undervolting and downclocking the CPU to see if the problem goes away. Alternatively, you could try the video card in someone else's computer, and see if it behaves the same way.

Edit: read that it works fine in another rig. Then, it's either the PSU or the board... also, try fiddling with your ATX power connector; sometimes a loose one will undervolt things. Also, try borrowing your friend's PSU to see if that will fix things. If not; the board is borked.
 
Does anyone else have this problem or know the answer?? I just received my leadtek a400gt Wensday and I have the same exact problems as beltani. I did everyting too. I presumed it was a bad card. I was just going to rma it tomorrow (Friday), but only if I have to. I would love to know if it was the power supply for sure. Here are some pics of the artifacting.

Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3

Edit: An old radeon 7000 works perfectly in my computer. I also reduced the oc on my cpu to stock

antec sonata, sempron 3100+ [email protected], chaintech vnf3-250, 512mb pc3200
 
Did you ever find a way to make your stuff work? I also have a Leadtek 6800 gt and a dfi lp nf3 250gb, and I get crazy screen corruption all the time. I tried flashing to another video bios, but that didn't help either. I'm about to try a different bios on my motherboard. Let me know if you found anything.
 
That power supply is absolute crap... I built a system with that once and the fans and lights in the system went dim and slowed down when gaming. I bet the one you got doesn't even have clean enough power to provide. The tech support from them was non existent, so I returned it to the egg.
 
I JUST WANT MY NEW $400 VIDEO CARD TO WORK! *SOB* :eek: My hardware monitor says that my psu is putting out 11.39 volts on the 12 volt line, I wonder if that's what it could be. :rolleyes:
 
There was a bad batch of Chaintech/Leadtek cards that were manufactured back in October. All of those cards had problems, and you may have received one of those cards. I figured all of those faulty cards would be off the market by now, but I guess not. I would RMA the card before you worry about the PSU.
 
If your psu is failing to put out at least 11.8v on your low demand system I would definatley RMA that too...
 
For reference, I have a leadtek 6800gt myself, got it back in July or June I believe. My first one had bad ram, i could boot to windows, but do anything even close to being 3d (like opening a window or clicking the start menu) and corruption city. Anyone this one now has the ultra bios with 1.4v, 425/1180 clocks, with the rest of my system eating lots of juice. My case has 7x 80mm fans and my cpu has a 92mm tornado on it. 4x hdd's 2x optical, my cpu at 1.75v and ram at 2.85. running prime95 and rthdribl my 12v rail was between 11.96 and 12.08, usually at 12.02....its a 480w antec trueblue, which is the truepower one just with blue leds in it. I would say rma the power supply, it should have more than enough juice for your setup, unless the silent series is seriously hurting in the amps department. Checking newegg, the tt has 18amps on the 12v rail, mine has 22, so that should be more than adequate to run what you have. no way the 12v should be below 11.8, ever.
 
Damn, looks like I need a new power supply. Mine is now going between 11.2 and 11.4. It's only like a year old. I hope it is just the power supply and not the video card too. Anyone have any suggestions for a psu that isn't ridiculously expensive? :mad:
 
Check the PSU forum. Read the first sticky. Dont skimp, why are people buying $400 cards, $300 proccies, $300 worth of ram on a $200 mobo and expect a $30 to keep it all in check?

Like trying to run your bmw 7 series on 89 octane, stuff will work, but it will ping and hesitate.....

For $75 you can get a reliable one, perhaps as low as $60.
 
Unfortunately, I ended up rmaing the video card and the new one works perfectly. Although, with you volts your powersupply might be the problem too.
 
The more I overclock the card the more likely it is to become completely corrupted and freeze, sometimes the comp restarts when I have it clocked above 430 mhz. I think it is looking like the power supply...
 
Back
Top