Diagnosing a Video failure 6800GS/Asus P4V800D-X

[Steve W]

About 6 weeks after installing a Gigabyte 6800GS (PCI-E) video card onto my
ASUS P4V800D-X mobo I started to get an intermittent failure.

On boot up, the black BIOS splash screen is streaked with white horizontal
lines, making the bios screens difficult but not impossible to read. I
have upto date licenced XPSP2 on the machine and that starts up but again
the screen is corrupted, always to bad to be usable but legible enough to
see Windows has started without error. Starting in safe mode has the same
corruption to the image.

I swapped the card out for an older AGP card I had to hand and that worked
fine. But then so did the 6800GS when I put that back in the system...
then after a couple of days same thing again.

Next time I simply reset the machine during the BIOS startup a couple of
time and the fault went away.

I was about to send the 6800GS back to the supplier, but googling around
seems to suggest this could be a mobo issue. (sending the card back gets a
test charge and two way carriage charges if no fault found)

Any thoughts on how to nail the source of the problem? BTW the Mobo came
from one supplier and the 6800GS from another.

Other than this, the set up works great.


Config of machine is

450W power supply
DVD reader
DVD Writer
250G SATA
Audigy 2ZS SoundBlaster
1GB Corsair XMS RAM
Intel 2.6GHz processor

TIA

Steve

 

[Dave]

About 6 weeks after installing a Gigabyte 6800GS (PCI-E) video card onto
my ASUS P4V800D-X mobo I started to get an intermittent failure.

On boot up, the black BIOS splash screen is streaked with white
horizontal lines, making the bios screens difficult but not impossible to
read. I have upto date licenced XPSP2 on the machine and that starts up
but again the screen is corrupted, always to bad to be usable but legible
enough to see Windows has started without error. Starting in safe mode
has the same corruption to the image.

I swapped the card out for an older AGP card I had to hand and that worked
fine. But then so did the 6800GS when I put that back in the system...
then after a couple of days same thing again.

Next time I simply reset the machine during the BIOS startup a couple of
time and the fault went away.

I was about to send the 6800GS back to the supplier, but googling around
seems to suggest this could be a mobo issue. (sending the card back gets
a test charge and two way carriage charges if no fault found)

Any thoughts on how to nail the source of the problem? BTW the Mobo came
from one supplier and the 6800GS from another.

Other than this, the set up works great.


Config of machine is

450W power supply
DVD reader
DVD Writer
250G SATA
Audigy 2ZS SoundBlaster
1GB Corsair XMS RAM
Intel 2.6GHz processor

TIA

Steve

Sounds like a weak power supply. Older video card wasn't drawing as much
current. Newer one might be right on the edge of what the power supply can
handle. -Dave

 

[Chris Hill]

About 6 weeks after installing a Gigabyte 6800GS (PCI-E) video card onto my
ASUS P4V800D-X mobo I started to get an intermittent failure.

On boot up, the black BIOS splash screen is streaked with white horizontal
lines, making the bios screens difficult but not impossible to read. I
have upto date licenced XPSP2 on the machine and that starts up but again
the screen is corrupted, always to bad to be usable but legible enough to
see Windows has started without error. Starting in safe mode has the same
corruption to the image.

I swapped the card out for an older AGP card I had to hand and that worked
fine. But then so did the 6800GS when I put that back in the system...
then after a couple of days same thing again.

Next time I simply reset the machine during the BIOS startup a couple of
time and the fault went away.

I was about to send the 6800GS back to the supplier, but googling around
seems to suggest this could be a mobo issue. (sending the card back gets a
test charge and two way carriage charges if no fault found)

Any thoughts on how to nail the source of the problem? BTW the Mobo came
from one supplier and the 6800GS from another.

Other than this, the set up works great.


Config of machine is

450W power supply
DVD reader
DVD Writer
250G SATA
Audigy 2ZS SoundBlaster
1GB Corsair XMS RAM
Intel 2.6GHz processor

TIA

Could be video card, mb or even psu. If the psu isn't enermax, Antec
or another wel-known good brand, I'd probably try replacing it first.

 

[Steve W]

Could be video card, mb or even psu. If the psu isn't enermax, Antec
or another wel-known good brand, I'd probably try replacing it first.

Thanks guys, I'll pop in a new supply as an easy thing to do (I want to add
another Hardrive so it sounds a good investment anyway). The current one
was just in the case I bought (and I did buy a cheap case...)

Steve