Need help, major problem with 6600GT

[Nlghtwolf]

I am having problems with my e-vga 6600GT PCI-E card lately. For the past few months i have seen a bit of flickering to a yellowish tint on my display especially when playing BF2. Just last night i was playing when my signal to my monitor cut out and my sytem began to reboot a few seconds later. When it began to reboot, all the text on startup was scrambled. I restarted and everyhting seemed fine, i even played BF2 for another 15 mins befor ethe same thing happned again. Except now when i start Bf2, everythign including the splash screen is garbled. I seems ot be producing the models, but all the colors are off and it looks like a puzzle. I drivers are updated, CPU and GPU temps are good, and no other sysmptoms that i can find, windows says its working properly. I ran mark3d and was not garbled, but it was only able to pull off 4 or 5 fps there, while my system normally should do at least 14 fps. Final scrore was only 1441 when my sytem shoudl be twice that. Someone mentioned it might be a power issue, which might make sense becasue i am still using the 350W PS that came with the case, which is about 2 years old now. Here is soem more info, please tell me what you guys think

OS: Windows XP pro (service pack 2)
Memory: DDR 400, 1gig total
Processor: AMD athalon 3000+
Mobo: Gigabyte, socket 939, PCI-E
Chipset: Nvidia Nforce 4
video card: e-vga Geforce 6600GT ( PCI-E)
sound: SB audigy 2

Thanks much!

[megawhompertoo]

Re: Need help, major problem with 6600GT

my computer was doing a very similar thing, and it turned out that one of my HD's was bad. that's not likely the cause of your situation, although the crash you mentioned could've caused data corruption(s) on the HD.

if it is your PSU, and your PSU caused the crash, then i'd be concerned about it screwing up the motherboard, gpu or other components. the PSU won't "cause" glitches--it's either on, or it's off--but it can damage components and cause exactly the kinds of things you're seeing.

edit: by that I mean this: "When it began to reboot, all the text on startup was scrambled."

That can be a bad, bad sign. Any unusual POST beeps?

[Nlghtwolf]

Re: Need help, major problem with 6600GT

Yeah it seems like a bad problem, but during post it beeps once as normal, and every time i start my system now it works fine until i fire up a grahpics intensive program such as BF2 (same problem on BFME2) and as soon as the screen switches over to the BF2 display res, it is garbled.

I really think is related to my graphics card. Whether it was started by the power supply which lead to damage of the graphics card, or jsut the card malfuntioning itself, the problem seems to be isolated to the display and i havent had any sytem reboots since the initial incidents, and even then it was only when my grahpics card was under a heavy load.

Also, i jsut got a response from evga, they say it may be power related, since a lock of power could definately caseu th erestarts, however my concern is that there is permanent damage done to the card now since the power issues began.

Thanks for the help!.. any other thoughts?...

[firezip]

Re: Need help, major problem with 6600GT

If you use overclocks try turning them off. It helped me

[megawhompertoo]

Re: Need help, major problem with 6600GT

I really think is related to my graphics card. Whether it was started by the power supply which lead to damage of the graphics card, or jsut the card malfuntioning itself, the problem seems to be isolated to the display and i havent had any sytem reboots since the initial incidents, and even then it was only when my grahpics card was under a heavy load.

Also, i jsut got a response from evga, they say it may be power related, since a lock of power could definately caseu th erestarts, however my concern is that there is permanent damage done to the card now since the power issues began.

All sounds reasonable. Best way to test would be to drop in a new gpu. If you're less ethical than I'd admit to being in a public forum, you could "borrow" a card from BestBuy, circuit city, or heck even Wal-Wart. Just charge it on a credit card, put it in your computer, and see if it fixes it, and return it later.

edit: and if that doesn't fix it, you could test a new PSU in a similar fashion, but only if you're less than completely and absolutely ethical all the time... :)

[Nlghtwolf]

Re: Need help, major problem with 6600GT

All sounds reasonable. Best way to test would be to drop in a new gpu. If you're less ethical than I'd admit to being in a public forum, you could "borrow" a card from BestBuy, circuit city, or heck even Wal-Wart. Just charge it on a credit card, put it in your computer, and see if it fixes it, and return it later.

edit: and if that doesn't fix it, you could test a new PSU in a similar fashion, but only if you're less than completely and absolutely ethical all the time... :)

yeah. thats what im goin to do, either the PSU or the graphics card is bad prolly and i wil have to replace one of em, fotunately my roomate has a 7800 GT he might let me swap out jsut to test, although i dunno if i wanna risk damaging it too..maybe the buy/return idea is better...thanks

[{TKM}MiK]

Re: Need help, major problem with 6600GT

A bit of a daft suggestion but I had a really similar problem with my 6600 then I realised that there was a power socket like the ones on the back of cd roms and hard drives so i pluged it in a it sorted it, if not it is def a power issue. go into your bios to check the temp of your card and processor.

[Painl3ss.NL]

Re: Need help, major problem with 6600GT

Whenever your graphics card starts rendering 3D it will use significantly more power. So although your gfx will trigger the problem, the actual problem is still the psu.

I'd try experimenting with another PSU if you can get your hands on one.

[Verzili]

Re: Need help, major problem with 6600GT

its the psu ,classic symtoms there of a old worn out psu.

get a new one asap.

[Nlghtwolf]

Re: Need help, major problem with 6600GT

So i jsut installed a brand new Allied 500W PSU, still have the problem...Although i think you guys are right in assuming that the original PS is to blame.

The one i was using before was only 350W, and a cheaper brand, and had to support power to my sound and video cards, mobo/processor, SATA hard drive and 2 CD drives, which im told is alot to power on the old PSU.

I have Im sure that the countless hours of running on low power has eventualy damaged my card permanetly. Therefore im pretty sure the problem is isolated to the card now, any additional thoughts before i go out an buy a new one?

[skikaz]

Re: Need help, major problem with 6600GT

after installing a new 6600 I started getting video problems, rebooting, and sound problems. Like you, I reinstalled game/drivers/installed a new 430w PS and still the same. after playing around with IRQs and XP tweaking, I set up a spare HD for bf2 only and now it runs great. P-2.4/1g mem/6600/80gHD