what would scooby do

Went away from my PC to get a bacon sandwich, came back and the screen was corrupted with little flashing pixels etc. Rebooted and during boot whilst displaying text is 100% perfect. Whenever it gets to gui it goes all w4nky again. I have removed the card and reseated it, still the same. Is it time to get a better card (oh it may still be under warranty)
sysconf = windows 98se, athlon xp 2000 512mb DDR RAM, geforce 4 (gainward) ti440/128mb...

TIA

RichiW

Both me and my m8 bought our Gainward 4200`s at the same time, and we both suffer from this.The screen fills with pink/greeen/blue pixels and wont work again until you completely turn off the power at the mians

We both run XP, i keep up to driver updates (both gfx and m/b) where as he doesnt.

Rich.

what would scooby do

interesting huh - maybe it's heat related or something?. I've had this card for ages and this is the first problem I've had with it.

I'm going to leave it turned off for a while and see if it improves.

Turbo_Steve

Almost definitely your power supply not being up to the job.
I'd make sure your case cooling is up to par, and then make sure your powersupply is 300Watts or better.
Both are results of slight design flaws in the card, but these changes might help.

SilverSmith

I read somewhere there was a batch that had faulty fans, after some while they stop and the processor overheats and gets fried. Check if the fan goes round when the card is powered up... if not its new card time

RichiW

Nope, i have a OcUK case with loads of fans in it, including two massive 5" wide fans in the case its self, one at the top and one on the side blowing onto all the cards.So could be the 300w power supply in my case thats at fault.

However, my m8`s has just a couple of fans, and a 300w PSU so that rules the PSU out.

His will crash when he first starts a game up, then once he`s rebooted will be o.k. all night.Mine can crash at anytime, but again, once the pc`s been rebooted its always fine.

Wierd huh?

I definately think its a Gainward problem though.

Rich.

robski

Similar (ish) story

bought a new card as morrowind was a bit slow

found it made no difference at all

but now WC3 crashes ramdomly at times, just locks, not flashing, just looping somewhere I think

looks like the geforce 4s may be a little unstable

I did the updated drivers etc thing which seemed to help a bit, havent done the VIA4in1 maybe that will help

there are a few settings in the BIOS that would prob sort this out, quite a few people used to have problems with geforce2s and Athlon processors, BIOS settings sorted this out. Which reminds me, Ive probably still got mine configured that way.....

robski

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Geforce 4 cards are pretty stable with far less compatability issues than say the Geforce 2 gts etc, where they usually tended to pull more power than the bios was configured to send out, so the thing wouldn't boot. You don't need the manual power settings on the agp any more for the 3 or 4 series. I would say funky batch from Gainward, as I have 2 of thos cards that you speak of and zero probs, both running meatier psu's tho and know of 2 mates that bought them too and have zero probs.

Cheers,

Nick

[Edited by Mr Footlong - 12/15/2002 11:40:39 AM]

what would scooby do

I put the card in another pc and is deffo fooked.

Fan on the card is working fine, I think the vram may have gone sour.. not a psu problem as I have had the car for 6 to 8 months already. I'm going to send it back under warranty..

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Does you card have the Etrontech ram on it? If so, there have been many questions and complaints from Gainward users regarding this stuff

Cheers,

Nick

RichiW

umm, pass, and the pc is really awkward to get access to aswell.

what would scooby do

I can't see what RAM is on the card is the chips are covered with heatsinks..

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

ah, do you have a 'Golden Sample' one then? Sounds like it.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Here, have some really 'cough', really interesting reading:

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showth...hreadid=117552

covers a few probs with these cards I think, but the problems only affeat a fairly small number of cards.

Cheers,

Nick

what would scooby do

I do indeed have a "golden sample" - sounds like I'm at the doctors LOL - anyways Ultra/700 XP it is.. version 1 board

what would scooby do

LOL - just got back my warranty replacement and they have sent me a xp/750 back which is a TI4600 (I had a 4400)

It also came with a firewire card for some reason

DrEvil

Sorry to hijack the thread, but which Geforce 4 card should i buy?
I've got P4 1.3Ghz + 128Mb ram with a basic ATI Radeon of sorts, and am thinking about upgrading the card to an Nvidia version.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Sweet, Gainward sorted it direct? They seem to have been very good in this respect.

Cheers,

Nick

DominicA

Alex, ring me to discuss.... not too late tho!!

Fatman

I had something very similar. I was using a GF3 Ti200 'Golden Sample' and it wouldn't work with my EPoX 8K3A+ motherboard. EPoX couldn't replicate the problem and Gainward kept saying "update the drivers" and "make sure your power supply is up to the task" - then they stopped replying. I gave up and changed motherboard. The card works fine in the new board (EPoX N-Force 2). Apologies for the rambling semi-hijack, but I wish Gainward had done the same in my case!

what would scooby do

I bought the card through a commercial business supplier and they sent it straight back to gainward, turna around in 6 days so I aint complaining at that.

RichiW

I've just realised, after seeing this thread, that i havent had a 'crash' for ages now.Changes to my system at christmas been upgrading from a 300w PSU to a 420w PSU and a better CPU cooler.

I wonder if it was the PSU all along??