Bad AGP Card, or bad AGP Slot? Need help...

[Kamridian]

(Full system specs will be posted after message)

Recently my AGP card was giving me some trouble. Graphical glitches, symptoms of overheating. (Although, if the PC was bumped, or jarred, or if the card itself was lightly tapped, these blocks of glitched graphics would move, disperse, or vanish, but the only way to fully clear it up until this point was to restart once or twice which would usually clear it.)

At this point, though, after 5-6 restarts one of two things were happening: Either the glitched graphics would not go away, or, the minute the PC received the slightest bump (or bump to the card, did a lot of testing around) the graphics would immediately glitch up, and cause a crash.

So, I popped it out, did some maintenance, (found out main heatsink/fan wasn't making proper contact.) Got everything back together, and put the card back in.

System won't boot. Does primary startup beep, cd/rw, dvd-rom spin, lights blink, monitor engages, but shows nothing but a blank screen, and system stops there, won't fully boot up.

Removed card. Powered up system. Startup beep, cd/dvd check, floppy check, hard drive engaged, and by the sounds (you get to learn em after a while) system booted properly.

Upon reinstallation of the card, same issue. No full boot. Up until I removed the card to work on it, it was fine. (Fine in the sense the system WOULD boot with it in.)

Now, it's very possible that in removing the heatsink and fan and cleaning/reapplying heatsink compound to the GPU, I COULD have scratched it, but there's no real way to tell without extremely close examination.

It's also possible that the card was much more overheated than I thought, and had accumulated much more damage than I presumed, and was breathing it's last, and simply died, and was already dead when I did the maintenance on it. The fan had recently been making a lot of noise, and may not have been cooling the card properly.

What I'm asking here, is to find out if this sounds more like a bad slot, or a bad card. (I'm doubting bad slot, but this is new to me, I've never had a graphics card burn out on me.)

I figured I'd find out before I buy a new graphics card only to find it was the slot. (Which I'm hoping it's not, because the slot was fine right before, and has been fine for some months, and through two different cards.)

Thank you in advance for advice. (No, I don't have any other agp cards to test.)

AMD Athlon XP 2400+
MSI K7N2-Delta-ILSR
Two 256 meg sticks of Mushkin Cas 2 ram, dual channel
Soundblaster Live 5.1
Chaintech Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4200 128 Meg graphics card. (the card in question)

[Jeauba2]

The only way your going to find out for sure is by popping in a new card. The most reasonable conclusion is that the card is bad. However, depending on the length of time that has transpired between the time that the card started to crap out and its eventual demise, its possible that the slot could have been damaged if there were any current flow problems involved. Considering that the computer worked and booted up before you did the "maintenance" on the card, and did nothing to the agp slot. My money is on the card being toast. My advice; find someone with a card that will let you test your slot before you spend any money yourself. And NEVER EVER throw away your old working cards they can be real life savers!!

[alex zorrilla]

I would guess either bad card or loose card. It could be that the card looks like it is well seated, but it is slightly misaligned.

--Alex

[Kamridian]

I tried reseating it, and fiddling it around a few times already. No change.

[alex zorrilla]

Hmmm, could be bad card, then. I agree with everything Jeauba2 said.

[Kamridian]

Well, my friends are all the type that buy "box" PC's, that come pre-made, with integrated stuff, so, I have no choice but to get a new one. Thanks for all the advice though. Considering everywhere I've posted this story gets an "ewww Chaintech" response, and the fact that this card is only about 4-5 months old, should make you pick other than Chaintech for your hardware.

[alex zorrilla]

I guess you could always try getting a warranty replacement, either by contacting Chaintech's support site or the place you bought it from. I don't know what their warranty policies are, though.

Unfortunately, I don't think that the maintenance you did on the card will help your case. You may be able to convince them that the problems caused you to perform the maintenance, as opposed to the other way around, but it may be an uphill fight.

--Alex

[Shogun44]

I'm currently experiencing the same problem. What was found to be the solution? I'm betting on GPU and not the MOBO but who knows. Weird thing is I can do a 3d03 benchmark and have no probs, which makes me think its a physical issue, unfortunately I don't have a back up card. or system to cross check. Any indeas?

[alex zorrilla]

Originally Posted by Shogun44

I'm currently experiencing the same problem. What was found to be the solution? I'm betting on GPU and not the MOBO but who knows. Weird thing is I can do a 3d03 benchmark and have no probs, which makes me think its a physical issue, unfortunately I don't have a back up card. or system to cross check. Any indeas?

What type of problems do you have, then? Weird graphics, random artifacting, etc.? Does anything in particular seem to cause it, like certain games, or does it seem to be totally random? Do you get the corrupt graphics only in Windows? Do you get them in Safe Mode or VGA Mode? How about in the BIOS?

--Alex

[Shogun44]

Okay strange..first reply didn't take...

Anyway here's my speil. Oh thanks for the quick post.

I get red graphic glitches in windows, they also occur during the "Dell Powering up bios screen, (they're blue then) they also sometimes occur during 3d "03 benchmarks. Basically they're small red "rombus shaped" spots in squared patterns.
They sometime go away with a gentle tap/or flex to the GPU....I know I know sounds like Han solo repair but it works. However if they haven't appeared yet you can give the table top a good wack and nothing appears.
I'm thinking they're not due to loose connections

I also will get full black outs but without the check signal warning. Sometimes it recovers from these, sometimes I get full reboots or dead hangs.

When it does glitch it interferes with mouse/screen functions too. As well as screen refreshes.

I've done a full rebuild, contact/seating checks, MOBO out of case included.
I suspect the GPU because right before it occured it sounded like fan had a slow/hard spool up and I think it cooked the chip a bit. I've got a large fan blowing directly on the GPU right now just in case.

Most of my probs sound exactly like the first posting from Kamridian except my system will boot but I never know when the glitch will occur. Theres no telling. I can run 3D "03" without a hitch and while typing email I'll see "red"

PIII 1ghz
PNY Ti4400 clocked to 4600
Intel D815EEA non onboard video

[alex zorrilla]

Is there any way you can underclock that graphics card? If you can, try underclocking both the GPU and the graphics memory and see what happens.

[Shogun44]

I have brought it back to 4400 speeds. I'm gonna try some timed "no extra Fan" tests and see what happens.

[Shogun44]

Okay, found an old Ati Mach64 PCI card, To think this once was a hot card out of a 286/386 system, oh the old days. Looks more like something for my classic truck and not a pc...anyway threw it in and still had some tiny bits of glitch right before XP opens, but it may have been card.

Took a brief road trip to a fellow gamer who had an old MX440 and threw it in........tada! no glitch no crash and scored a whapping 118 on 3d 03 !!

Good mobo, bad GPU due to poor fan. Time to send Thermaltake a thank you email.

Half life 2 here I come!

Now I have to wait for my secret shipment from ATi.

Thanks for the help.