video card issue

B

Benny

{too weak}{Black Mage}
FC/Active Member
I've spent about 10 hours over two nights trying to fix this bitch of a problem and I've gotten more or less no where. Maybe someone here can help:(.

I bought an AGP nVidia GeForce 7800 GS and installed it. Got the latest drivers, blah blah. Tried to run Vanguard, upon trying to load char selection, instant system restart. FFXI, same thing. *DXDIAG* same thing. So I removed the drivers, installed slightly older one, now the games don't crash my computer (yay), but they come up with a black screen, or else some other solid color over graphical components. Dxdiag runs. However, the Direct3D tests that consist of a rotating cube with the DirectX logo have only a rotating cube with white sides on it for all three tests.

Now here's another weird piece of data. If I disable AGP acceleration in dxdiag, the first, and only the first, Direct3D test runs correctly. The other two still show a white cube.

I've tried a ton of different nVidia drivers including 93.71, 91.47, 84.21, and 78.01 which refused to install for some reason. I've downloaded and run MS's official DX 9.0c version, though I don't believe it reinstalled the components over the current DX install. I did have an ATI card in before this, which I've heard causes problems, but I used a driver cleaner in safe mode to remove what it was able to of the ATI drivers. At this point my last straw I'm grasping at is that DX somehow got corrupted...........


Any ideas? This reeeeeally sucks over here.

-benny
 
Uhh....

What's your PSU rated at? (watts)

If this a new card with an older PSU, it will drag your voltage down on the CPU and cause the reboot.

This is one of the first things to check with newer cards and older PSU's.... Sounds like you've done near damn everything else.

(atleast you probably installed the card correctly... ask fodder about Moldex Y connectors!)
 
If trying to forcibly re-install directx fails I'll get a new power supply and try it. Thanks Aa. This is so depressing, lol. I hate hardware.

-benny
 
I quickly looked around at some tech articles, they are saying a minimum 400W System PSU (12V current rating of 20A or more).... I personally run a 600W PSU in my newest machine which uses PCIExpress video, runs with no problems. The latest AGP card I have is a 9800 XT Pro in another machine, that has some age on it now.

Let me know how it turns out... Without acutally seeing the machine itself, this is my best guess.
 
Oooh. Good thought Aang. The PSU could cause the reboot. I'm not sure why the other problems would occur after the change in drivers rather than it being another reboot but it is still a valid possibility. Perhaps the drivers tweaked it to regulate the draw and back off if it sensed low voltage.

I can say that I've got a 420W PSU in Sass's machine with a 7800GT a DVD Burner and a single Hard drive. I know the 7800's will run on that power for sure. I would honestly expect you could work pretty safely at 380W assuming you have a single optical drive and a single HDD.

If you have adequate power, you'll probably have to dick with the drivers and directX more. If it were me. I'd back up my files and do a format reinstall if I suspected DirectX was borked though. It may be the quickest solution to a "normal" running system.

There is one other possibility though. The GPU could just be borked. IIRC the 3 rendering happens seperately from the standard 2d rendering for the OS, so there is a potential for you to have issues with just those chips. Any chance you could throw the card in your roomies system to see if it explodes his machine too?
 
Well, before you run out and buy a new power supply, at least check the wattage on your current one first.
 
is it a blue screen or just a complete restart? Honestly, the power supply is the most likely culprit, as the bios is what controls those insta-restarts and if it's detecting low unstable voltages toward any components it'll just drop the power. Check your cables too. Check to see if the heatsink is seated over you cpu well.

Things to look for in your new power supply:
about 18 to 20 amps on the 12v rail, definately need dual 12v rails
at least 75-80% efficiency, to keep those electricity bills down and reduce the amount of heat produced
active cooling with a 90-120mm fan
if you're like me, and hate a rat's nest of cables, look for something modular. Some brand names that offer really good PSUs: OCZ, Antec, Seasonic, Enermax, Silverstone, Coolermaster.

One you might be interested in:
http://compare-prices.tomshardware.com/items/12872027
 
Unplug PC, open case, clean all the kitty hair out of the fans/heatsinks with canned air - don't let the fans spin while you blow air on them or risk exploding capacitors. I know you have cats so this is the first thing I'd do.

Also, pull your vid card, clean the contact traces with a clean dry no fuzz type of cloth. Reseat it. This may help too if you have a connection in the agp slot not quite right that wigs out under load.

Plug PC back in, monitor voltages via BIOS. If any of the voltages are out of spec consider a new PSU. Start windows, fire up 3dmark at the same time you have mbm or something monitoring your voltages so you can see any dips/spikes in voltage.
 
expanding on what fodder said, you can also use a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol to clean the contacts.
[SIZE=-1]mbm.livewiredev.com/ - motherboard monitor
futuremark.com - 3dmark
[/SIZE]
 
Cat hair is the devil! Btw with your box running make sure your GPU fan is spinning. Mine was not a few weeks ago and bard songs would freeze my PC after a few hours. That led to me blistering my finger on my vid card heatsink.
 
My laptop is having similar problems, though mine restarts after playing FFXI a while, not when loading the game. I'm relatively certain that it's due to overheating, but I can't figure out how to open the damn thing up to clean it. :/
 
I just bought PCI E 7800 GS and had to upgrade my power supply to get card to function properly. Cant remember the exact errors I was getting but sounds the same.
 
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