we learn our mistakes at an expensive price

Well, as you may know i posted a few days ago asking for assistance with a problem i was having. I have since talked to a friend about it, and we tried a couple of things to see if we could find the exact problem. He said well it definately sounds like a vid card or power supply or both. I think we pretty much eliminated the power supply, i checked voltages and all seemed normal except for -12V was reading -13.469v. I changed power supplies and it went down to -12.568v. Not sure if this was really a difference, but after changing the powersupply I was still getting the same problems.

I have modded my ti4200 with a volcano 9 HSF, and ramsinks (not epoxed on, just thermal tape) Basically my problems were, in windows, if i opened something that would give me a box, like my computer, I could click and hold on it to move it around, and it is VERY VERY choppy. I also reinstalled my OS just to make sure that wasn't part of it, but still having problems.

I was getting problems even in the bios screen too, such as random lettering being white or black, or blue colors. SO i thought, well let me take the ramsinks of the vid card just to make sure nothing is wrong there. After removing the ram sinks carfully, the problem got even worse. There are now Randomly place multicolored blocks (mostly red) all over the screen. So i think modding my card actually is slowly killing it.

Does this sound like a vid card problem? Or power supply or both?? I just want to make sure of the problem before i go buying parts i really can't afford right now.

Thanks!

Sounds like your Vidcard is overheating... That would cause the corruption....

I'm not too sure about the choppyness.. That may be part of it.

I know my CPU is like overheating but only my games crash sometimes...

A vidcard overheating would cause some problems you described.

sounds like it's dying.....

Try to check the parts in another rig. Do you have a spare/friends PSU you could use to check your rig? When it is running, feel around the card and see if it is getting hot.

well i think the mod screwed up the card, probably the weight of the Volcano 9 epox on to the GPU.

ashenfang said:

well i think the mod screwed up the card, probably the weight of the Volcano 9 epox on to the GPU.

Click to expand...

I thought you said it wasn't epoxied on? Trying getting another video card (some cheap 32mb card or so) to test whether you have a vid card issue. Just make sure it is agp also because you never know. The agp slot could be damaged. Little rare but it does happen.

He said the ramsinks weren't epoxied on.

I bet the card is on it's way to dying. I'm not sure if the actualy weigh of the V9 could kill a video card in that manner though, as long as it was supported properly and the card didn't become seriously bent out of shape

My friend one day started to get the same thing you got. Messed up lettering and the boxes even in the bios. I checked out his computer and I knew it wasn't the software so I opened the thing up to discover his fan had died. This was on a GeForce 256 a long time ago. The GeForce 256 have crappy fans. Anyways I touched the card when it was on and it was hot as heck. I let him barrow my old TNT2 for a while and I took home the card and looked at it. I put an old fan I had laying around on it so the cooling was good as new but when I tested the card it was still getting the boxes. It was permanently damaged. I hate to see the death of good hardware. Even back then when the GeForce 256 was so new. Now I don't care lol. After looking at the card some more I seen some of the circuit board a little melted. Meaning the circuitry not as sharp and detal. Kinda had that melted look. Can't say I blame him for nVidia putting crappy hs/f's on their first GPU. Also my Ati Radeon 7200 died around the same time his did. Altough it had way better cooling than his did. I think it died from ESD on my part lol. You will get over it like I did twice.

This may sound somewhat odd but is your videocard being weighed down? If so that MIGHT be your problem. I used to have a problem with my videocard being weighed down and if it was pushed down too far when i would go into bios or during post the text would be changed a bunch of weird ways etc. What I did to give my card some support is broke a cheap mechanical pencil in and kept breaking it smaller till it was tall enough to support the card then stood it up vert. under the card w/ the end of it sticking into one of the holes that goes through the card.

You might try to add some pressure on the heatsink towards the GPU, some of them solder balls beneath gpu might lost contact. If it has this will still be a temporary solution since it will loose contact later anyways due to oxidation. While you are at it, support the vidcard! Don't let it hang in the AGP slot with that HSF on!