Could this be anything other than a faulty card? tech help needed please!

W

-wolfe-

n00b
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
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I have an AGP 6800GT, and I'm getting a weird and annoying issue with it.

At random times, I'll hear windows (xp) make the "new hardware found" sound, my screen will flick black for a second, but I won't see any hardware wizard, or info balloon in the system tray. I can *sometimes* make it do the same thing by loading up the display properties, although it's far from repeatable. I hear the sound also when the computer returns from standby, although I can't verify that at this point it's not some other piece of hardware coming back online.

I've tried - unplugging extra hard drives, optical drives and fans to try and see if it's a PSU issue. Tried the latest Nvidia drivers, the latest Nvidia BETA drivers, and also the latest non-official BETA drivers. I've checked that the card is seated correctly and securely, and it's not overheating either. I've completely reinstalled also, but the problem still persists.

It's all at the stock clock speeds too, and I don't get lockups when playing any games.

My system is:
P4 Northwood 3.2
intel i865GLCLX mainboard
Geforce 6800GT
1gb RAM
40gb ATA hard disk x 2
160gb SATA hard disk
optical drives X 2
QTEC 350W power supply

If anyone has any suggestions at all as to what might be the cause of this issue, I'd really appreciate it, I'm out of ideas :(

Thanks very much in advance.
 
If you had another card in before this one, did you use the driver cleaner utility to make sure all the old drivers are gone?

If that is not the case check to make sure that your motherboard BIOS are up to date.

Also a visit to Windows Update couldn't hurt.
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

I haven't had a card before this one (on this installation of windows), My bios is up to date, and so is windows.

I've tried reinstalling also but didn't fix the problem.

As far as the PSU goes, I've run my system with the bare minimum of components (only one hard drive, no opticals, no case fans etc. but I still had the issue. I have no instabilities either which is odd, but then again I don't know what other symtoms I'd see if my PSU was too low.

Thanks again for the suggestions.
 
I would try using a card with low power requirements (like an old geforce 2 - it's always good to have a spare around), or swapping in a larger power supply. I think I found your PSU manufacturer's website (http://www.qtec.info/products/product.htm?artnr=13993), and got the following specs:

+5v = 30A
+12v = 15A
+3.3v = 14A

Perhaps someone else can say if this is enough?
 
Hmm thanks for that, I'm not sure what power requirements this card has. Although I'm not experiencing any lockups etc. as I believe is sometimes the case with an inadequate power supply.

After a week waiting for an email from tech support, they've suggested I uninstall the driver, and reinstall it in safe mode.... :( doesn't look like I'll be getting a whole lot of help there unfortunately.
 
Well, just tried the card in an AMD system, with a 400W power supply and same problem.

Looks like it's the card, but anyone have any idea as to whether it could be a driver/windows issue? I'm leaning towards hardware issue because it's sporadic.

Any more help would be massively appreciated on this one, I've searched the web countless times but can't seem to shed any light on this problem at all :(

thanks.
 
i was gonna say upgrade the power supply, but looks like its not that. wierd.
 
Can you RMA the video card? It seems like you've isolated the problem. Best to send it back to the manufacturer; they have better resources to figure out what's wrong with it than you do.
 
Strangely, I've been testing it out on another monitor for the last day or so, and haven't seen the problem occur nor be able to reproduce it. The monitor I'm using now is an LCD but with regular d-sub connector, the old monitor was a CRT one.

Is it possible that the monitor could have developed a fault that would be apparent in this way, or is it unlikely? Or even could it be that the card may be faulty in how it detects monitors even!?

many thanks again for the help.
 
Well, tested it with a different CRT monitor and still get the issue. Thought it was perhaps refresh rate related as the LCD runs at 75Hz vs 85 on my CRT's. Backed the CRT screen down to 75, even tried 60, but still get the problem.

Any other suggestions? no matter how far fetched I'd be appreciative!

On a sidenote, anyone dealt with XFX tech support before, and have any suggestions for actually getting somewhere? I've called their premium rate "hotline", given all the details of my issue, and they said someone will contact you by email.. I'm waiting 2 days each time to get a one line response such as "update your driver" "update your bios".. It's frankly terrible and I'm getting nowhere. Any tips on that too would be great.
 
-wolfe- said:
I have an AGP 6800GT, and I'm getting a weird and annoying issue with it.

At random times, I'll hear windows (xp) make the "new hardware found" sound, my screen will flick black for a second, but I won't see any hardware wizard, or info balloon in the system tray. I can *sometimes* make it do the same thing by loading up the display properties, although it's far from repeatable. I hear the sound also when the computer returns from standby, although I can't verify that at this point it's not some other piece of hardware coming back online.

I've tried - unplugging extra hard drives, optical drives and fans to try and see if it's a PSU issue. Tried the latest Nvidia drivers, the latest Nvidia BETA drivers, and also the latest non-official BETA drivers. I've checked that the card is seated correctly and securely, and it's not overheating either. I've completely reinstalled also, but the problem still persists.

It's all at the stock clock speeds too, and I don't get lockups when playing any games.

My system is:
P4 Northwood 3.2
intel i865GLCLX mainboard
Geforce 6800GT
1gb RAM
40gb ATA hard disk x 2
160gb SATA hard disk
optical drives X 2
QTEC 350W power supply

If anyone has any suggestions at all as to what might be the cause of this issue, I'd really appreciate it, I'm out of ideas :(

Thanks very much in advance.
Click to expand...

Nothing really came to mine until you said 350 w psu. That is IMO really really weak. That might be the problem. It could be unstable.

Adam.
 
Read the entire thread...

He said he wasnt experiencing any symptons having to do with a weak PSU.He also stated that he tried it in another system with a higher wattage PSU and it had the same problem. He also got rid of the problem by using a different monitor (LCD instead of CRT).

And remember..................Watts dont mean jack.
 
What kind of ram do you have? Is it oced?

Oced ram can be unstable, bad ram can also be unstable and can cause all kinds of weird issues.

Try someones ram; see if that help.

Another thing; this is only a temperary solution but try loading the "fail-safe defaults" in your BIOS. If that works than you can isolate the problem by resetting one setting at a time in your bios.

I've had alot of ram issues and they tend to cause alot of problems.

Adam.
 
Thanks for the suggestion,

The RAM in my system is Kingston Hyper-X (have 4 sticks 256mb each).
It's running at stock speeds, the only setting I changed in my BIOS is the CAS latency, it defaults to 3, but the RAM I have is CAS2, so I set it to 2.

There are actually VERY few settings I can change in my bios, being an intel board and all, but I'll give it a shot, thanks for the idea!

Oh, not sure how reliable this is, but I downloaded a RAM tester program (runs from a dos boot disk) and everything checked out ok according to that. But like I say, I don't know how reliable those programs are.
 
I'm not to familiar with the 865G since I usually go with the PE version, but doesn't the G stand for graphics? If so, windows might be trying to initiate the built in graphics somehow. Did you check the device manager for any problems? These types of problems are why I could never be without a computer. They are just so rewarding aren't they? LOL! Good luck, at least your at the best place I know of to try and solve your problem.
 
Yup the G stands for integrated graphics, I'm fairly sure that the BIOS disables that if it detects a card in the AGP slot though, I'll check the BIOS settings though (going to back the memory timings back also) and see if there's anything there.

Device manager looks fine, I've even compared it before and after I hear the "new hardware" sound and nothing's added/removed.

Really do appreciate all the replies guys, thanks!
 
Dug around in the BIOS a bit, tried it with the ram set at CAS3, didn't help unfortunately.
Also tried turning "PnP OS" to off, but that didn't help either.

The only settings I have relating to the video adapter are AGP apeture size (set to 64mb) and "init primary display" which can be set to either PCI or AGP (it's set to AGP).
 
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