Possible GFX problem?

[Trash Man]

Hiya, I have been having a few crashes over the last week or so now. These can happen when I am doing anything on the computer from playing games to browsing the web. The computer will just frezee totally and I have to push the reset button. When it;s booting back up I will get the series of short bleeps and I get a message in my headphones saying something like "VGA test failed on boot" and I have to turn the computer off and on again before it will boot, resetting does not work.

Sometimes when it crashes I will lose singal to the monitor and sometimes it still displays the screen, I always get the VGA failed message on reboot tho. At first I thought it might be down to the heat, but I have Ati Tool installed and it shows in the log that the GPU never goes over 60c so I guess it's not a heat issuse. I was told that it could aslo be the chipset getting to hot, anyone have any thoughts on that?


So is my GFX card on the way out? Somtimes it's fine for 2-3 days and then other times it will crash 3-4 times in 2 hours. The card is a Connect 3D Ati X850 XT PE and not all that old, only just out of warranty

Thanks for any help or advice

EDIT: just had another lock up and after the reboot I got the MS error thingy up with this page http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=293078

I have the newest cat's on and they have not been a problem in the past.

[Trash Man]

Bump

Still having the same problem, some days are better than others. I have just reinstalled windows, along with all the latest drivers for the MB and GFX. Have no other programmes on here at the moment and I still have the lock up's

Anyone?

[kalniel]

Yeah, sounds like the cards on the way out to me - I had a similar problem with my gf2 ultra that seemed to stop it booting about 1 time in 10, with beep codes indicating the vga card was at fault. Dell confirmed it was the card and gave me a replacement. Can you try another card for a few days to confirm?

The only other thing to suggest is actually trying older drivers.

[Trash Man]

Yeah, sounds like the cards on the way out to me - I had a similar problem with my gf2 ultra that seemed to stop it booting about 1 time in 10, with beep codes indicating the vga card was at fault. Dell confirmed it was the card and gave me a replacement. Can you try another card for a few days to confirm?

The only other thing to suggest is actually trying older drivers.

I don't have a spare PCI-E card I can try. I don't think it's anything to do with the drivers, the problem started with a set of drivers that I had been on the computer for a fair while before the crashes started happening.

Looks like I am gonna have to spend another £300 on a gfx card then, was hoping this one would have lasted a bit longer

Thanks for the reply

[Magpa]

Looks like I am gonna have to spend another £300 on a gfx card then, was hoping this one would have lasted a bit longer

You won't need to spend £300 on a new GFX card - you should be able to pick up one the 1800 series for around £200 smackers, possibly less if you shop around a bit. You should even get a 1900 series one for £300 if ye have that type of cash wallowing in yer pockets.

Plus the majority of 7900gts are now around £200 for the basic editions....

[Trash Man]

You won't need to spend £300 on a new GFX card - you should be able to pick up one the 1800 series for around £200 smackers, possibly less if you shop around a bit. You should even get a 1900 series one for £300 if ye have that type of cash wallowing in yer pockets.

Plus the majority of 7900gts are now around £200 for the basic editions....

I'm a bit out of touch with things as far as GFX card's go at the moment. What is equal to what I have now? And how much better are the 1900 cards over my X850?

Cheers.

[BEANFro Elite]

I think you should aim at getting an RMA for now if you can as the X850XT PE is still a good card these days.

[Magpa]

Well I got a 790gt recently though it was a major upgrade from what I had.....fx5500 - don't laugh so I'm biased towards that but I'm relaibly informed from friend that what you have is indeed mighty fine.

the 7900 is lovely though.

[Trash Man]

I think you should aim at getting an RMA for now if you can as the X850XT PE is still a good card these days.

The card is over a year old now Is it still worth trying to get an RMA, or even getting it fixed.

I would order a new card today, but I want to be 100% sure it is the card first. I don't want to go and spend a lot of money on a card for it to end up being a problem with the MB.

[kasavien]

Are you certain it only has a 1 year waranty, i thought most came with 3 years, but maybe i'm mistaken, it may be worth trying an RMA anyway, you never know your luck. It would be hard to diagnose the problem as the MB or gfx card unless you have components to swap and test, unless you could try the card in a friends computer.

[kalniel]

The 1900 is very fast. It's equivelent to what the 850XT PE was in it's day, today. Frankly, it's overpowered for todays games.

Personally I would go for a cheaper mid-high range card, and put the money saved on it towards replacing the card in 1-2 years time, so something like a 7900GT or if you don't mind the noise a 1800XT. The difference over the old 850XT will be amazing and you won't have any problems with current and probably next gen games, then by the time games are coming out that are a problem for them, you'll have the money available to upgrade again.

[Trash Man]

Just found out some good news The Connect3D cards have a 2 year warranty

I have no way of testing the card on another computer and I also don't have another card I can test on mine. So shall I just return it and hope that it is the card?

[BEANFro Elite]

Yar, do that and mention that from your own testing it appears to be the GPU at fault.

[Trash Man]

Just incase anyone was intereste (doubt it ) the card was found to be faulty by Ebuyer and I am getting a full refund as they can't supply another card.

Must say I have heard a lot of bad stories about Ebuyer on here for RMA's, but they delt with this in 2 days, can't get much better than that.

Thanks for the help

[kalniel]

Glad to hear it