Freeze-ups with 6600 card

[Paul Smith]

My four-year-old Radeon 8500 is slowly dying so I picked up a
secondhand 6600 AGP card on eBay. I don't really play games anymore
but I picked that one because it has dual-DVI and will be
Vista-compatible. Unfortunately I'm getting sporadic system freezes
with the card installed. I don't think it's a heat problem because the
nVidia temperature monitor is stable at around 67C at load. It freezes
under both Windows and Linux so it's not software-related.

I thought the fault might be with my PSU (400W) because it's a few
years old and I read the newer nVidia cards require more amps on the
12V rail than some PSUs can provide (mine is rated at 15A). But I
tested the 12V rail with my multimeter and it's rock-solid at 12.08V
+/- 0.03V before, during and after a freeze-up. According to the
eXtreme PSU Calculator** my system (Athlon XP) should only require
230W including the 6600.

There is no real pattern to the freeze-ups; when I first installed it
it was crashing 2-10 mins after bootup, now I can use it for hours or
just a few minutes. It's still running now after leaving it
downloading stuff overnight and giving it a good stress test***. So
before I contact the seller and berate him for selling a dodgy card,
am I right to think the card is definitely the issue and not my PSU or
motherboard?

Thanks - Paul

Complete system specs:
AMD Athlon XP 2400+
K7T266 Pro2 (MS-6380 v2.0) w/ 1 GB RAM
DVDR/RW & 1 7200rpm HD
XFX GF6600 128MB DDR Dual DVI (PV-T43K-NDF7)
SB Live! Value
Generic USB 2.0 PCI card
Zalman ZM400A-APF 400W PSU


* http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=3&code=015
** http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp
*** http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/

 

[Arno Wagner]

My four-year-old Radeon 8500 is slowly dying so I picked up a
secondhand 6600 AGP card on eBay. I don't really play games anymore
but I picked that one because it has dual-DVI and will be
Vista-compatible. Unfortunately I'm getting sporadic system freezes
with the card installed. I don't think it's a heat problem because the
nVidia temperature monitor is stable at around 67C at load. It freezes
under both Windows and Linux so it's not software-related.

I have a 7600 and for that 67C is quite high. While NVIDIA
only throthles at 110C, I think there is something wrong with their
monitoring. I replaced the cooler and experimented and I observed
problems in the 65...70C range. I did not dare to go higher after
that.

I finally replaced the original cooler (a noisy monster with bad
cooling) with a Zalman VF900-Cu (very quiet and very effective) and
the card now stays below 50C and has no stability issues.

I thought the fault might be with my PSU (400W) because it's a few
years old and I read the newer nVidia cards require more amps on the
12V rail than some PSUs can provide (mine is rated at 15A). But I
tested the 12V rail with my multimeter and it's rock-solid at 12.08V
+/- 0.03V before, during and after a freeze-up. According to the
eXtreme PSU Calculator** my system (Athlon XP) should only require
230W including the 6600.

The 6600 does not draw that much current.

There is no real pattern to the freeze-ups; when I first installed it
it was crashing 2-10 mins after bootup, now I can use it for hours or
just a few minutes. It's still running now after leaving it
downloading stuff overnight and giving it a good stress test***. So
before I contact the seller and berate him for selling a dodgy card,
am I right to think the card is definitely the issue and not my PSU or
motherboard?

Difficult to say. Unless you can re-create the problem in a different
computer, you cannot be sure. You shoudl try to bring the tehmerature
down though and see whether that helps.

Arno

 

[Paul Smith]

Difficult to say. Unless you can re-create the problem in a different
computer, you cannot be sure. You shoudl try to bring the tehmerature
down though and see whether that helps.

Hmm, thanks. Unfortunately I don't have access to another PC at the
moment. On the other hand it hasn't crashed for a good 24 hours now
and I've been playing games etc. So I might be okay for a while until
I can test it in another PC.

Paul