Geforce 6800 help

[wizzzzzuk]

Hi,
I just bought an "untested" Geforce 6800 from Ebay, when I start the pc the screen has a checkered appearance, and the machine slows down to a crawl.
Does this mean that the geforce is knackered, or would reflashing the bios sort it out?
Serves me right for being a cheapskate .
Thanks.

[Agent]

"untested".....Ebay.

Its almost certain to be a dead card mate.
The checkers in my experience are always a hardware fault, i have never see a software issue cause it. Ever
Does it happen pre-OS ?

The only fixable hardware fault that comes to mind is if somone has flashed the BIOS and tried to unlock any extra pipes it has. You can download somthing like rivatuner to check this. You can then try to reflash the BIOS.

Check the heatsink has good contact with the GPU and RAM (if needed).

[wizzzzzuk]

Yeah it happens pre-OS, in fact it happens pre-POST when the video card information appears in the top left.
My thought was that someone may have tried to unlock the extra pipes (but in hardware rather than Rivatuner).
The checkers themselves are not like any I've seen before, a pattern of 16 fills the entire screen, whereas any I'd seen before with other cards had hundreds of little ones.
Heatsink semms to be seated properly.

[chuckskull]

Find a copy of the original BIOS and flash it. If that doesn't work you've probably been sold a duff card.