a7v8x video card problem

[Ministry of silly walks]

Hi all! Please apologize my poor english...
I'm experiencing a big and strange problem with my video card, but it
could be related to the motherboard (a7v8x). I'll try to the describe it as
precisely as possible.
My system is: amd 2400+, 512 mb ram, geforce4 mx 440; no overclocking since
I'm not a gamer. It worked perfectly since the last two years.

Last week, while I was working, my monitor (a 1-year-old Samsung
Syncmaster) suddenly became black, as in standby mode (green led
flashing)... but the machine continued working normally. After reboot it
remanied black.
I connected a second monitor; it worked for 20 minutes then it shutten down
again as described.
Now I cannot resume the monitors from stanby even if I connect them to
another pc, so they must have been "fried".

I tried with a third old monitor, and it seems to work, but occasionally I
experience one of these problems (that could happen after 5 minutes or
after 3 hours):
- the image disappears and then re-appears in few seconds;
- the image disappears and doesn't come back (but the pc continues
working); after reset, I hear 3 beeps like the machine doesn't recognize my
video card, so I have to remove it form the AGP slot and then plug it in
again;
- pc resets randomly but after reboot screen remains black (I have to turn
it off and wait some minutes)
- the machine (mouse and keyboard) stops responding and the image freezes,
(once happened while I was in BIOS) !!!!

Voltages and temperatures seems to be ok according to Asus Probe; RAM is ok
according to Memtest; refresh rates and resolution are set to standard
values.
It seems a video card fault but I wonder if a bad video card can result in
these symptoms (and could really damage my monitors). Can it be a mobo/agp
slot problem?
It is a random problem too, so it's difficult to identify it.
I'm really stuck since it's the first time I experience something similar,
and I can't test other video cards.

I hope you can help me. Thanks in advance!
M.

 

[Paul]

Hi all! Please apologize my poor english...
I'm experiencing a big and strange problem with my video card, but it
could be related to the motherboard (a7v8x). I'll try to the describe it as
precisely as possible.
My system is: amd 2400+, 512 mb ram, geforce4 mx 440; no overclocking since
I'm not a gamer. It worked perfectly since the last two years.

Last week, while I was working, my monitor (a 1-year-old Samsung
Syncmaster) suddenly became black, as in standby mode (green led
flashing)... but the machine continued working normally. After reboot it
remanied black.
I connected a second monitor; it worked for 20 minutes then it shutten down
again as described.
Now I cannot resume the monitors from stanby even if I connect them to
another pc, so they must have been "fried".

I tried with a third old monitor, and it seems to work, but occasionally I
experience one of these problems (that could happen after 5 minutes or
after 3 hours):
- the image disappears and then re-appears in few seconds;
- the image disappears and doesn't come back (but the pc continues
working); after reset, I hear 3 beeps like the machine doesn't recognize my
video card, so I have to remove it form the AGP slot and then plug it in
again;
- pc resets randomly but after reboot screen remains black (I have to turn
it off and wait some minutes)
- the machine (mouse and keyboard) stops responding and the image freezes,
(once happened while I was in BIOS) !!!!

Voltages and temperatures seems to be ok according to Asus Probe; RAM is ok
according to Memtest; refresh rates and resolution are set to standard
values.
It seems a video card fault but I wonder if a bad video card can result in
these symptoms (and could really damage my monitors). Can it be a mobo/agp
slot problem?
It is a random problem too, so it's difficult to identify it.
I'm really stuck since it's the first time I experience something similar,
and I can't test other video cards.

I hope you can help me. Thanks in advance!
M.

Modern multisync monitors measure the Hsync and Vsync frequencies,
and the monitor should disable the output stage if the frequencies
are incorrect. It could be your video card is producing a signal
with a very high Vsync.

Old monitors can be damaged by out of range signals. They can be
fried, so what you are seeing is possible. A video card can damage
an old monitor.

Your debugging results seem to suggest the video card is at fault,
so that is what I would replace first. It could turn out, that
something the motherboard feeds to the video card is bad, but
you'll only find that out when you try another video card.

Paul

 

[Ministry of silly walks]

Il Thu, 18 Aug 2005 04:20:59 -0400, Paul ha scritto:

Your debugging results seem to suggest the video card is at fault,
so that is what I would replace first. It could turn out, that
something the motherboard feeds to the video card is bad, but
you'll only find that out when you try another video card.

Thanks for the suggestions.
I must say that in the last two days the problems became more frequent: in
fact I wasn't able to pass the login screen of Windows XP (as soon as I
typed the password, the system rebooted and the monitor went into standby
mode even during post - I had to turn it off for a few minutes)

I finally tried the video card on a second pc (with a differen motherboard)
using Windows 98 and it resulted in the same sympthoms (reset and monitor
in standby) just after showing the desktop, even if less systematically -
eg. one or two hangs on ten tests, but maybe it depends from the different
OS.

I tried a second video card in my pc and tested it for a couple of hours
and it seemed to be stable.
As a last test I plugged my Geforce and Windows crashed again.

Now I'm wondering if my Geforce was damaged "itself" or by another pc
component, like wrong voltages (even if Asusprobe says all is ok) or faulty
agp slot or something else...

thanks and bye!
M.

 

[Ministry of silly walks]

Il Thu, 18 Aug 2005 04:20:59 -0400, Paul ha scritto:

Old monitors can be damaged by out of range signals. They can be
fried, so what you are seeing is possible. A video card can damage
an old monitor.

I must add to my previous reply that the first "fried" monitor was a
Samsung Syncmaster with only 1 year of life.
It is strange that it was damaged.
It is also strange that the old monitor I'm currently using continues
working despite all the problems given by the video card.

It looks like that the card has -the first times- given "very" out of range
signals that have fried the two monitors, and then "normal" out of range
signals that the old monitor has correctly managed.
It would be very strange... but would it be possible?

M.