Troubleshooting 7800 GTX

[Blackspeech]

So witch it to combined and see what happens! Also have you updated to Sp2 yet?

I have switched already and it has made it a little more stable with the reading staying the same as mentioned earlier rather than 11.77.

I updated to SP2 and no difference. Except that my DVD drive stopped loading things up. So I took it off again.

Also gonna go to maplins for a 20 to 24 pin converter.

[RavenNight]

Since you seemed to have anrrowed down the problem to the PSU, I'd recommend replacing it with a more powerful model, a 580W Hiper is a very reasonable £60. As far as that second PSU goes, by all means try it though I'd be very wary of rleying on a no-name PSU.

[Dav0s]

Since you seemed to have anrrowed down the problem to the PSU, I'd recommend replacing it with a more powerful model, a 580W Hiper is a very reasonable £60. As far as that second PSU goes, by all means try it though I'd be very wary of rleying on a no-name PSU.

im convinced that this isnt psu, but id like to see the result when he changes

[Blackspeech]

Opened up the case and checked the connection to the card. It seemed fine but pulled it out and then reconnected it. Fired the machine up and no Sentinel warning. Checked in the Asus Probe and it is recording the same 11.84 voltage.

So maybe the lead was loose or something. However, the while there now appears to be no issues I am still puzzled as to why I ended up with 4 Bit Colour and low res in the first place.

To me this is pointing at the motherboard and I am wondering when the error is going to occur again. It took three weeks for it to appear first time around.

I am still going to update Chipset and BIOS tonight as a precaution.

Davos, with yours still not working what do you intend to do?

[RavenNight]

I'd assume you got the 4bit and crappy performance because the power cable was loose and the power delivery a little unstable. Because the GFX card didn't have enough power it couldn't use a lot of its potential, resulting in weird outputs.

[Blackspeech]

I'd assume you got the 4bit and crappy performance because the power cable was loose and the power delivery a little unstable. Because the GFX card didn't have enough power it couldn't use a lot of its potential, resulting in weird outputs.

Could be. But when the problem first occurred the PSU cabling seemed fine. It is only upon getting the card back from Scan and reconnecting that the problem with Sentinel appeared.

From memory Davos' card was getting powered through the bus and he had the same issue as myself.

[RavenNight]

Hm... what PSU is Davos running?

[Dav0s]

im still gonna have to wait for a new mobo mate, ive tried reconecting mine in the other slot aswell. i have an antec nepower 480w, 12v is solid at 11.9

[RavenNight]

I remember we had a new batch of monitors a while back and we ended up getting one which would only display B&W, there was a fault with the electronics inside the monitor itself, have you tried another monitor?

[Blackspeech]

Davos,

I saw your post on the other thread. What gives? How did you find out it was the motherboard - did you swap to another?

[Dav0s]

yeah using another mobo, all fine.

was defiantely the motherboard...i have an rma confirmed with ocuk, hope it goes ok :S

[Blackspeech]

Wouldn't hold your breath - it may be just a weird glitch on compatibility.

Did you keep the same DFI or go to a different route?

Mine is running fine now - like sh*t off a shovel in fact.

I was thinking as well that although the AGP slot is now supported on the 7800 range, surley it must be better to have as PCI-Ex slot as this double the speed - well theoretically.

I did read somewhere about PCI-Ex only running at 8 speed at the moment.

[Dav0s]

cant be a compatibilty glitch, it ran fine for ages

im on a cheapo gigabyte board atm

pcie runs at ful speed...but doesnt utilise full bandwidth, so it isnt much of a performance increase over agp atm

[Blackspeech]

And here we are 8 months later and the problem is back again.

Amazing, ran antivirus check (Kaspersky), PC switched off after running. Turned it on again later and only 4 Bit colour. Also now the screen is black and white box reads:

Out of frequency 33.75KHz 53.7Hz.

The machine is currently running an XP Restore Point................

[Blackspeech]

System restore took a long time, but did nothing. Suggests a hardware glitch to me. Anyway, when I get the opportunity later I will remove side and have a poke around. Maybe a loose cable or something.

Update - disconnected main power cable and then reconnected. Working again.

It would seem that these cards are very sensitive to power variances, the PC itself switched on last night, but a slight movement on the cable and the problem appears. The cable, felt as though it was properley connected before I unplugged it.