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2 Ati Cards Broken!!!

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cubaxp

Member
Joined
May 4, 2004
Well I hope someone have 5 min for reading this story cause I really need it:

I have a really really good friend of mine, and he bought a used radeon 9500 np sapphire video card, and put it on this system:
- Motherboard: Aopen AX4B Pro-533 (Bus 533)
- CPU: P4 2.66 Ghz (Bus 533)
- 1 x 256 Mb DDR300 and 1 x 512 Mb DDR266
- 2 x 80Gb Maxtor HDD and 1 40GB Maxtor HDD
- A standard 300W PSU
- LG Studioworks 775n 17” Display
* All of this hardware has almost a year…
So, when he was using the sapphire card for 5 months, suddenly some day after buying a new LG 900B 19” Display, the card didn’t work anymore, the system doesn’t saw it. After testing the card on others PCs, we take the conclusion that it was broken.
So, now, I sold him a HIS Excalibur Radeon 9600 Pro Video Card in perfects conditions, and with no problems, with this hardware changes:
- Motherboard: Asus P4P800-VM (Bus 800)
- CPU: P4 2.8 Ghz (Bus 800)
- All the others are the same
After a month of normal and non intensive using (I mean no hard gaming use), the card stat to show artifacts, at any time, in the POST screen, in the boot screen and in windows, … conclusion: It’s broken…
Now I think, that something it’s wrong with this PC, I mean the new 19” display or the PSU because as I said before he changes de MB and the CPU.
So I need to know any opinion of anyone here I really need to help this friend…. Please help me!!!
 
Might be that his PSU is going bad or maybe a heat problem. Boot the PC up with most important stuff. Dissconnect (CD drive, floppy drives, all HDD except the ones you need to get into windows). Basically boot the pc with everything you need to run the pc and keep everything else off it to see if its a power problem.
 
Unless I missed it, I didn't see which PSU you were using?

Upgrading to a 19 monitor, should not cause the system to fail. You could also use a temp and voltage program to monitor the voltages being supplied by the mobo/psu, that will give you and idea if it is putting out too much or too less. No used video card is guaranteed to last any amount of time, could be luck of the draw there. :-/
 
The PSU is an Standart 300W with non-recognize brand, at my opinion is basically for using it with an HDD, a CD driver, a MoBo with audio and video onboard, and nothing else, I think...
 
cubaxp said:
The PSU is an Standart 300W with non-recognize brand, at my opinion is basically for using it with an HDD, a CD driver, a MoBo with audio and video onboard, and nothing else, I think...


Although 300 should be good for the cards you are using, a name brand sure helps!

I would just download something like mobo5 and see what it's saying?
 
Steven4563 said:
what have the AGP voltage settings been at im sure its only meant to be 1.5V

Grr... AGP voltage does NOT affect the video card. All it's shown to do is give a slight bump in voltage to the northbridge. And I mean very very very slight. It's a practically useless tweak and won't kill a card.
 
DocGiggs said:
Grr... AGP voltage does NOT affect the video card. All it's shown to do is give a slight bump in voltage to the northbridge. And I mean very very very slight. It's a practically useless tweak and won't kill a card.


Grr.....We don't know what it's giving out. And if it's too high? Then yes, that could kill the card.

I do agree with the overclock performance, since I was doing 600/440 on a 9600XT without any additional voltage.
 
cubaxp said:
The PSU is an Standart 300W with non-recognize brand, at my opinion is basically for using it with an HDD, a CD driver, a MoBo with audio and video onboard, and nothing else, I think...

I'm not quite sure what you are saying. But what I'm talking about is temperarly disconnect your cd drive and HHD drives except the one your OS is on so they don't use power. Just to see if your psu is strong enough to power your MoBo, CPU, RAM, HDD, and video card. (Basically illiminate all powered devices that are not crucial to running your pc(Just for testing purposes)).
 
But, what card If I have allready said that it's broken!!! It's the test you said the same If I use a Radeon 7000?
 
I'd have to go w/ the power supply angle that's being presented here. 300w is pro'lly far too weak for what he's doing.

Get him to try a higher wattage power supply. Somewhere in the 400w range, and see if that clears things up. The cards may be getting dirty power, or not enough power due to the low wattage of that no-name brand power supply. They may have also been surged, and that could cause damage to the card.
 
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