New 7900GT causes goofy BIOS, etc

[Mike]

My existing system (about 1.5 years old):

Biostar 6100-M9 MB
AMD 64 3000+ CPU
2x 1GB RAM

removed my existing video card (nvidia 7600GT), used just onboard video
for a few weeks.
Bought a Biostar 7900GT card off of ebay. Installed it, and it is not
working right. From the first boot into BIOS, there are weird things,
like: some characters in the BIOS selections are differnet colors, and
some of the characters are wrong (show a 'N' instead of a 'g'. Just a
few wrong letters on each screen. I think that the wrong letters stay
the same with each reboot.
Windows boots fine, I had removed the old driver, installed the newest
from nvidia. Now, any time the screen is displayed all black, there are
several pixels lit up. I can see a few dozen pixels in the Windows
background that are the wrong color, or black.
Tried playing a game, Halo, and it plays well, except there are weird 3D
streaks running through the game. Game has had some problems crashing, too.
I updated the BIOS to try to fix... no change.
The 7900GT has an extra 6-pin power connection. I did not have one, so I
made one (3 12+V, 3 COM). Works the same with and without this
connected. It detects when it is not connected, and tells me it has
slowed the card down to protect it. Fine.
Any ideas?

-mike

 

[Peter van der Goes]

My existing system (about 1.5 years old):

Biostar 6100-M9 MB
AMD 64 3000+ CPU
2x 1GB RAM

removed my existing video card (nvidia 7600GT), used just onboard video
for a few weeks.
Bought a Biostar 7900GT card off of ebay. Installed it, and it is not
working right. From the first boot into BIOS, there are weird things,
like: some characters in the BIOS selections are differnet colors, and
some of the characters are wrong (show a 'N' instead of a 'g'. Just a few
wrong letters on each screen. I think that the wrong letters stay the same
with each reboot.
Windows boots fine, I had removed the old driver, installed the newest
from nvidia. Now, any time the screen is displayed all black, there are
several pixels lit up. I can see a few dozen pixels in the Windows
background that are the wrong color, or black.
Tried playing a game, Halo, and it plays well, except there are weird 3D
streaks running through the game. Game has had some problems crashing,
too.
I updated the BIOS to try to fix... no change.
The 7900GT has an extra 6-pin power connection. I did not have one, so I
made one (3 12+V, 3 COM). Works the same with and without this connected.
It detects when it is not connected, and tells me it has slowed the card
down to protect it. Fine.
Any ideas?

-mike

Used card???
Had you completely uninstalled the old NVIDIA drivers for the 7600 (and for
the onboard video), and then installed the latest NVIDIA drivers for your OS
for the new card?
If not, you should consider doing so.
Hope you got some kind of written guarantee from the eBay seller, because if
the driver uninstall/install doesn't square it away, you may well have a
faulty card.

 

[Benjamin Gawert]

* Mike:

My existing system (about 1.5 years old):

Biostar 6100-M9 MB
AMD 64 3000+ CPU
2x 1GB RAM

removed my existing video card (nvidia 7600GT), used just onboard video
for a few weeks.
Bought a Biostar 7900GT card off of ebay. Installed it, and it is not
working right. From the first boot into BIOS, there are weird things,
like: some characters in the BIOS selections are differnet colors, and
some of the characters are wrong (show a 'N' instead of a 'g'. Just a
few wrong letters on each screen.

The error you describe usually comes from bad gfx memory which means the
card is toast. I'd test the card in another system if possible and if
the error persists contact the seller for a refund.

Benjamin

 

[Mike]

Yeah, I have a similar system that I need to swap it into. I, too,
suspect a bad card.
Thanks!

-mike