PNY Geforce 4 Ti 4400 problem

[MoonWolf]

I’m having a bit of a problem with a PNY Geforce 4 Ti 4400 I have. I recently acquired it and decided to test it just yesterday. I put it in and everything worked great with my CPU and the card at stock speeds… it made it through 3dmark scoring an 8490 (not too fast) with my CPU FSB at 133 mhz. I then restarted and jumped the CPU to 150x12.5 for an overclock test. The card was still at stock speeds but I got a fatal error in the middle of the second 3dmark game. I tried playing UT2003, BF1942, and Homeworld. All the games crashed very quickly and took me back to windows stating a fatal error. I reinstalled the 30.82 drivers (I haven’t been able to get the latest ones, my cable modem is down) and tried again. Same results. What puzzles me is that it worked fine with my CPU at stock 1600 XP speeds, and did not work when I overclocked to 1875 MHZ.

Is it the drivers, or something else?

-Wesley

[mbentley]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
I’m having a bit of a problem with a PNY Geforce 4 Ti 4400 I have. I recently acquired it and decided to test it just yesterday. I put it in and everything worked great with my CPU and the card at stock speeds… it made it through 3dmark scoring an 8490 (not too fast) with my CPU FSB at 133 mhz. I then restarted and jumped the CPU to 150x12.5 for an overclock test. The card was still at stock speeds but I got a fatal error in the middle of the second 3dmark game. I tried playing UT2003, BF1942, and Homeworld. All the games crashed very quickly and took me back to windows stating a fatal error. I reinstalled the 30.82 drivers (I haven’t been able to get the latest ones, my cable modem is down) and tried again. Same results. What puzzles me is that it worked fine with my CPU at stock 1600 XP speeds, and did not work when I overclocked to 1875 MHZ.

Is it the drivers, or something else?

-Wesley

so when you drop the fsb back down it works fine? just making sure that is what you are saying. i had two pny geforce 4 ti 4400's and both of them had memory that went bad.

[MoonWolf]

Yeah... Thats what happens... whats going on?

[mbentley]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
Yeah... Thats what happens... whats going on?

hmm... sounds a little fishy... i would definitely consider rma'ing the card back... especially after what happened to me. don't take any chances modding it because nothing will help it. the chips just seem to die. all this happened to me when running stock with good air circulation. my temps were good too... nothing above 32 C or so...

one more ? was the card in a retail box or was it bulk? just curious because mine was bulk...

[MoonWolf]

The card runs great on my friend's computer, but it is a Duron 1ghz, stock. I think I will just sell it if I cannot get it to work. I cant RMA or return it. How is it possible that the chips have gone bad even though the card still runs with mine and my friends computer as long as they are not overclocked?

-Wesley

[MoonWolf]

Actually, I think I'll give the card another chance when I get the newest drivers. My card, which has been nothing but a blessing so far has crashed several times in 3dmark and other games ever since I tried out the PNY.

I hope everything is alright.

[mbentley]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
The card runs great on my friend's computer, but it is a Duron 1ghz, stock. I think I will just sell it if I cannot get it to work. I cant RMA or return it. How is it possible that the chips have gone bad even though the card still runs with mine and my friends computer as long as they are not overclocked?

-Wesley

oh, i understood that even when returned to stock speeds that you got the crashes... the card just must not like the higher fsb. then i suppose either try turning the fsb down until it doesn't crash.

[The Coolest]

It might either be your FSB or the power, try to run it 12.5 x 133 but stay with the same vcore and other settings, and see if the problem repeats. If it has gone away it is possible that the card can't take the FSB or the RAM has been OCed too much, if the problem still exists then it is propably a power issue, or heat. As the GF4 puts a lot of heat, check you CPU and GPU temps (if possible).

[typhoonmike]

Might seem to obvious or just stupid but when you upped the FSB did you remember to check the AGP setting so that it was still running as close to spec as possible? Not sure how many options you have for changing setting but at 150fsb and 1/2 AGP setting you'd be running at 75mhz. Maybe the card just can't take being out of spec as well as some of the others.

[MoonWolf]

I dont think my motherboard ever modifies the AGP in any way...

[kiljaden5]

I think it might, you can test this by setting the FSB at 166 and drop the multiplier so you still get a relatively same overclock on your CPU and then try running games...

my video card does something similar when the AGP port is clocked higher, I get artifacts at low video card overclocks so I had to lower my fsb from 170 to 166 and i was able to get a faster OC on my vid card and overall I gained 100 3DMard points so having a slightly slower cpu and a more OCd card improved my performance by a lot

unless your motherboard is a nforce2 which locks the PCI and AGI clocks, you'd have to try the different FSB settings to be sure its not that...

[MoonWolf]

That brings up another question:

Could this higher AGP speed actually burn a video card out? My friend had a video card that burned out for seemingly no reason. He just restarted his computer one day and it would not boot correctly. He had multicolored lines going vertically across the screen... bios screen and all. His FSB was also at 150.

-Wesley

[Genocide]

My PNY Ti4400 also had some bad memory, but if it works at stock speeds its not the card i dont think, mine wouldnt even post properly, i had bad artifacts in bios and stuff.