Need help with *possibly* video related problem

[Arathorn]

Specs:
Abit IC7
P4 2.53ghz
Mushkin 512mb PC2700 ram
Antec True 480
Hercules Digifire 7.1
Promise RAID card
Netgear LAN

TDK burner and Samsung DVD-ROM
3 Maxtor and 1 Seagate Hdds, variety of sizes with 2 of them in RAID

My Geforce 4 Ti4200 just died. *I think*

I started getting artifacts everywhere , in the BIOS post , little red dots all over in windows, lots of big triangles and crap all over in UT2003, etc etc etc .. This started probably around a month ago in very small amounts and steadily increased until it caused the pc to lock up and become unusable. (One month ago is also the same time when I replaced some generic PSU which came with my case with this Antec, I’m wondering if this is related?)

I put the 4200 in my old Sony Vaio pc to test it and the symptoms followed with it.

So I sent my 4200 on an RMA trip back to eVGA on Friday, not back yet, but ..
I retrieved my Kyro 2 from the Sony as it used to be my “old faithful,” but now I seem to be having problems with it ..
It is completely unable to render anything. I have tested UT2003 which won’t open and Warcraft 3 freezes within seconds. (although I can alt-tab out and close them) and I can’t even see the molecules in folding@home =/ . The second time I open Warcraft 3 all I get is very colorful lines flashing all over the screen.

On a side note I recently replaced that annoying Abit fan-eq with a passive Zalman heatsink (the blue one) about a week ago and just a few minutes ago I realized that top right clip has popped off. I don’t know how long it was like that but I will try to fix that tomorrow with the paperclip trick I’ve read about.
Also, I just checked out the thermal paste on the Kyro 2 and it looks pretty nasty. I think I’ll put in some ASIII tomorrow.

I ran a few searches through the forum for dead , dying video cards etc .. came up with a few ideas to try such as unplugging the power from the motherboard for a few hours , resetting the CMOS, flashing the BIOS, removing and reinserting the battery .. but these are more oriented toward a dead motherboard it looks .. (But worth a try anyway) Anyway I have the motherboard unplugged now and I will leave it that way overnight. I reset the CMOS before but it came up with some errors about not wanting to load windows or something but I’ll figure that one out tomorrow ..

I haven’t yet tested my video card in the Sony but I will do that tomorrow , if it works fine then I will try all my components in my old SOYO p4x400 board.


My friends haven’t been helpful except that something is killing my video cards. Which brings me to another point , I have a Radeon coming in the near future and right now I’m afraid to use it. (BTW this is the second time I rma’d the 4200 the first one died with no apparent cause as well ! Both times I had put on that Thermaltake copper heatsink , I wonder if this could be causing something?)


It seems like every week something more happens and it’s starting to greatly bewilder me. And I’m wondering where that little clip flew off to.


ara

[JimmyG]

Regarding:

"I retrieved my Kyro 2 from the Sony as it used to be my “old faithful,” but now I seem to be having problems with it ..
It is completely unable to render anything. I have tested UT2003 which won’t open and Warcraft 3 freezes within seconds. (although I can alt-tab out and close them) and I can’t even see the molecules in folding@home =/ . The second time I open Warcraft 3 all I get is very colorful lines flashing all over the screen."

It is possible that you have not completely uninstalled the Geforce 4 drivers before installing your Kyro. I would completely remove the video drivers and start over with the Kyro.

As for the mobo or PSU killing your Geforce, the only thing I can think of is a bent pin in the AGP slot. Take a magnifying glass and look at the socket. All of the pins should be perfectly parallel and the same depth as all of the others. Look for missing pins. If you find a problem there, you can try to repair the pins with an exacto knife as a tool to manipulate the pins. However, I think if you find this type of problem it will be cheaper in the long run to buy a new mobo.

As for the PSU being the problem, I doubt it, but you can check your voltages with a digital voltmeter (you can get one reasonably cheap at Radio Shack). They should all be within a tenth or two of rated voltage.

Good luck!

[dreammmatt]

it isnt his motherboard (not as far as i know --> I am one of the friends) because he has done two mobos now - - a Soyo p4x400 or whatever that piece of $hit was called, and his new IC7.

Edit: His house supposedly is haunted though, so, lol...mebe there are supernatural forces at work here...lol

[Arathorn]

I have formatted and everything since replacing the Geforce 4 with the Kyro 2.

it isnt his motherboard (not as far as i know --> I am one of the friends) because he has done two mobos now - - a Soyo p4x400 or whatever that piece of $hit was called, and his new IC7.

I'm pretty sure I had my newer Abit board before my first GF4 died. (I could check on that)

[Arathorn]

A few updates ..

I just got windows back up and installed SP1 and all the main drivers .. Quake 3 runs, but I'm not sure about Warcraft 3 as it keeps asking for a cd so I probably need to reinstall it , but it also says "Warcraft 3 was unable to initialize DirectX". I checked in the dxdiag's video tests and the Directdraw tests pass but the Direct3D tests say ..
"Failure at step 8 (creating 3D Device): HRESULT = 0x80004005 (generic failure).

I'm going to try the Kyro 2 in the Sony again.

*Edit* Kyro 2 works fine in the Sony ..