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Graphics Cards - 2/2/2009 12:07:39 AM

06 Maestro

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From: Nevada, USA
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I have had some puter difficulties over the past month-it is now official; my NVidia 7800 GT is kaput. I am running an older 7600 which I dug out of another machine right now-after the game I'm heading to the store.

I'm looking for some suggestions for a decent GPU. I don't want to spend what required for the top end card, but 256 MB and up with a decent rep. Any ideas are welcome.

Post #: 1

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/2/2009 12:52:33 AM

Scott_WAR

Posts: 1020
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121268

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127382

(in reply to 06 Maestro)

Post #: 2

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/2/2009 3:41:13 AM

Arctic Blast

Posts: 1168
Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro

I have had some puter difficulties over the past month-it is now official; my NVidia 7800 GT is kaput. I am running an older 7600 which I dug out of another machine right now-after the game I'm heading to the store.

I'm looking for some suggestions for a decent GPU. I don't want to spend what required for the top end card, but 256 MB and up with a decent rep. Any ideas are welcome.

Actually, some of the newer NVidia cards have had their prices drop through the floor...the 8800GT and 9600GT can be found for very low prices as they push the new 'big cards' they're putting on the market.

_____________________________

Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily.

(in reply to 06 Maestro)

Post #: 3

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/2/2009 3:58:19 AM

06 Maestro

Posts: 3989
Joined: 10/12/2005
From: Nevada, USA
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I decided on the GT 9600-got it already. It was 149 at Best Buy-I had two discount cards so it cost 89 bucks

I think I will be happy with this one. The cooked one was a 7800 GT.

Thanks for the advice-I'm off to installation duties.

(in reply to Arctic Blast)

Post #: 4

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/2/2009 3:08:43 PM

Kuokkanen

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Joined: 4/2/2004
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Make sure your PSU can handle the load!

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MekWars

(in reply to 06 Maestro)

Post #: 5

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/2/2009 6:32:40 PM

06 Maestro

Posts: 3989
Joined: 10/12/2005
From: Nevada, USA
Status: offline

Too late Matti! She's loaded and sailing again.

This new card has DDR3, whilst my system is DDR2-from what I understand (uh oh) that is not a problem. My power supply is more than adequate-so it should work. My multiple display controls are currently "non mission capable"-rather irritating, but perseverance shall overcome...

Its working great on one monitor now.

(in reply to Kuokkanen)

Post #: 6

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/3/2009 1:18:46 AM

madgamer2

Posts: 1235
Joined: 11/24/2004
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I am currently going to be changing my Mobo&CPU to a AM2+&the fastest FX 2core CPU,
Along with 4GB DDR@ RAM. I currently use an 8AN SLI Premium Mobo& XP 4400 x2. I am going to put off changing the video cards for three reasons.
1. I have 2 7950GT eVGA K0 cards in SLI but having a water cooled system any change of video cards would require changing the Danger Den water cooling card jacket coolers which will be expensive.

2. I am going to wait for windows 7 (+1 year?) to change video cards because the video card requirements may change by then.

3. I am considering going to a 1 card setup as I am not convinced that 2 medium priced cards will out preform 1 top of the line. I alsom have to buy the cooling jackets for the video card(s) which will be costly.

There is also the chance that the new 10.1&10.2 cards may NOT be backward compatible because the card Manf. want to force us to buy new equipment. I don't think this will pan out. I am running XP Pro and don't want to change my OS till Windows 7.

Kt sounds like you got a good deal on the new card so good luck

Madgamer

(in reply to 06 Maestro)

Post #: 7

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/3/2009 8:07:28 AM

06 Maestro

Posts: 3989
Joined: 10/12/2005
From: Nevada, USA
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My new card works great-there are several noticeable improvements. It's too bad that it did not take care of the primary problem. My system frequently does not boot up-not even a chance to get into bios. There have been many symptoms that led me in every direction. One of the DVD drives stopped working (even though the device manager says its good). Other than that it runs great if it will start.

I've gone so far as to buy a driver alert program-it did nothing to help. I've checked all connections (almost all) and reseated everything. I am starting to think it may be a bad cable or reaching even further, perhaps the cmos battery. This machine is barely 4 years old-these problems should not have occurred. I have considered doing a reformat, but that might be a waste of time-and with a raid 0 system, it tasks my technical abilities.

I too am holding out for Windows 7. I might have to take this thing to a shop.

(in reply to madgamer2)

Post #: 8

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/3/2009 3:26:00 PM

Scott_WAR

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Joined: 2/24/2005
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Anytime you have a problem thats been traced to harware and is intermittent its almost ALWAYS the motherboard.

Honestly I would reformat BEFORE I started buying hardware. Much cheaper.

(in reply to 06 Maestro)

Post #: 9

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/6/2009 2:53:15 AM

Armygrognard

Posts: 24
Joined: 2/23/2008
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quote:

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro

My new card works great-there are several noticeable improvements. It's too bad that it did not take care of the primary problem. My system frequently does not boot up-not even a chance to get into bios. There have been many symptoms that led me in every direction. One of the DVD drives stopped working (even though the device manager says its good). Other than that it runs great if it will start.

I've gone so far as to buy a driver alert program-it did nothing to help. I've checked all connections (almost all) and reseated everything. I am starting to think it may be a bad cable or reaching even further, perhaps the cmos battery. This machine is barely 4 years old-these problems should not have occurred. I have considered doing a reformat, but that might be a waste of time-and with a raid 0 system, it tasks my technical abilities.

I too am holding out for Windows 7. I might have to take this thing to a shop.

I agree with Scott_War in regards to the mobo. If you've checked the wires and hardware, consider looking at your capacitors. I had a system that was doing all sorts of funky things, and I was swapping out parts and finally reformatting. I finally looked at the capacitors and they were swollen and mis-shappen. Bought a new board and it solved everything.

(in reply to 06 Maestro)

Post #: 10

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/6/2009 3:08:51 AM

06 Maestro

Posts: 3989
Joined: 10/12/2005
From: Nevada, USA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Armygrognard
I agree with Scott_War in regards to the mobo. If you've checked the wires and hardware, consider looking at your capacitors. I had a system that was doing all sorts of funky things, and I was swapping out parts and finally reformatting. I finally looked at the capacitors and they were swollen and mis-shappen. Bought a new board and it solved everything.

I still do not have a definitive answer to what has caused that thing to fail. If I have to go through the trouble of replacing the MB I'm going to cannibalize the thing for other PC's. The only thing I might reuse is the card reader and the case. As far as I'm concerned, the best part of an Alienware is the huge fancy looking case. Too bad that they triple the price for the PC just for some shiny plastic.
Live and learn.

_____________________________

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

Thomas Jefferson

(in reply to Armygrognard)

Post #: 11

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/6/2009 10:27:24 AM

JudgeDredd

Posts: 8573
Joined: 11/14/2003
From: Scotland
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Scott_WAR

Anytime you have a problem thats been traced to harware and is intermittent its almost ALWAYS the motherboard.

Honestly I would reformat BEFORE I started buying hardware. Much cheaper.

Not true. I had an intermittent issue once, similar issue (not booting up), also not recognising the drives...turned out my power supply was porked.

I'm not saying your whole statement isn't true, siimply the bit about "ALWAYS" the motherboard.

(in reply to Scott_WAR)

Post #: 12

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/6/2009 1:04:47 PM

Hard Sarge

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Joined: 10/1/2000
From: garfield hts ohio usa
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yea but JD, he says almost always ?

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Post #: 13

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/6/2009 2:42:37 PM

leastonh1

Posts: 879
Joined: 2/12/2005
From: West Yorkshire, England
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro

My new card works great-there are several noticeable improvements. It's too bad that it did not take care of the primary problem. My system frequently does not boot up-not even a chance to get into bios. There have been many symptoms that led me in every direction. One of the DVD drives stopped working (even though the device manager says its good). Other than that it runs great if it will start.

I've gone so far as to buy a driver alert program-it did nothing to help. I've checked all connections (almost all) and reseated everything. I am starting to think it may be a bad cable or reaching even further, perhaps the cmos battery. This machine is barely 4 years old-these problems should not have occurred. I have considered doing a reformat, but that might be a waste of time-and with a raid 0 system, it tasks my technical abilities.

I too am holding out for Windows 7. I might have to take this thing to a shop.

The CMOS battery would never cause a boot failure, just incorrect system time. If it doesn't get to BIOS, I'd be looking at PSU first, then RAM and finally Mobo. Once you've ruled the first two out, also look at other peripherals. Unplug them all and then plug them back in one at a time and see if you can boot. It's extremely rare for the mobo to fail, but PSU and RAM are relatively common. Reseating RAM won't cure a hardware fault though. You need to check each stick individually and better still, use some from another PC to see if you can boot without yours in the PC. Reformatting won't help either as you're not getting far enough into the boot sequence to point to software problems.

We have thousands of Dell PC's in our organisation and had lots of issues with them booting intermittently and then shutting down and refusing to boot past BIOS etc. As Armygrognard mentioned, this turned out to be a problem with cheap components on the mobo and we found that some or all of the capacitors were failing. They start to balloon at the top to begin with and eventually burst. This is worth looking at because of the symptoms you describe.

_____________________________

2nd Lt. George Rice: Looks like you guys are going to be surrounded.
Richard Winters: We're paratroopers, Lieutenant, we're supposed to be surrounded.

(in reply to 06 Maestro)

Post #: 14

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/6/2009 6:06:51 PM

06 Maestro

Posts: 3989
Joined: 10/12/2005
From: Nevada, USA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jim_H

We have thousands of Dell PC's in our organisation and had lots of issues with them booting intermittently and then shutting down and refusing to boot past BIOS etc. As Armygrognard mentioned, this turned out to be a problem with cheap components on the mobo and we found that some or all of the capacitors were failing. They start to balloon at the top to begin with and eventually burst. This is worth looking at because of the symptoms you describe.

I appreciate all these tips-I'm making progress. I moved the carcass to the work bench in the garage and hooked up some old peripherals. Last night I reseated everything again including the system cables that weren't reseated before. I also took out the video card and RAM to look them over with a magnifying glass

. I also searched the MB for any sign of heat damage (but not the top of the capacitors-I'll do that later). There was no visible sign of damage. With everything reattached, i hit the power. This is were it got interesting-kept me up past 2:am.

I was amazed to actually see something come up on the screen. It was a list of all installed components, but with little patches of odd colors in several places. The cursor line was at the bottom, but I could not get it to do anything, so I did a manual restart. It looked like a regular start up, but I knew it would not work because of having removed the cmos batt-so I went into bios. I never wrote down the bios settings, so was going on a vague memory

. I knew the basic info for my machine, so was able to get everything fairly close. The default settings do not take into account the raid configuration, so there were multiple choices. With dumb luck I hit the right combination on the 4th try. One thing that was confusing me was that the dvdrw (top in the box) was identified initially by the bios-so I thought it was OK to leave it in the boot sequence. At some point I noticed that it was no longer list in bios-it is dead for some reason. So, moving the cd burner to the top of the boot sequence did the trick-It fired up.

I immediately went to the system log and it showed the two standard errors that I have been getting since mid December-print spooling and BCE--- for that damn Lexmark printer. Also I checked everything in the device manager-it all looked good except the DVD drive is not listed at all. The system was fully functional and running as it should be. About that printer; it started to act up the same time as as the DVD burner. I uninstalled that first (in December). After noticing the recurring errors in the event viewer, I followed some advice from a geek site to disable the print spooler and BCE---. A few weeks later I tried to reinstall the printer and it would not because of the print spooler. No matter what I tried, it would not restart-under any orders.

So in the current situation I have a functioning PC w/o printing ability (unless I can use the network printer-I doubt it), and it will not shut down the drives. Windows logs off and the screen goes black, but I have to push the power button to actually shut the machine off. It looks like I will have to do the reformat to fix a couple of these problems. Before I do that I will pull the DVD out and blow it out and reconnect it-who knows what will happen.

BTW, I bought this puter just about two months before the announcement that Dell was buying Alienware. I think the guys there knew it was coming and were slacking off. I don't recall if I mentioned this before, but the re-spawn disk (raid drivers and system on one disk) that I paid 40+bucks for was empty. I have drivers and the system on separate disks-so I will have to do this the old fashioned way. I think I'll do a workout first-blood pressure, you know.

Edit: Matrix Games Moderator: This thread should go into the Tech forum-I did not expect this to go beyond a simple question.

< Message edited by 06 Maestro -- 2/6/2009 7:07:44 PM >

_____________________________

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

Thomas Jefferson

(in reply to leastonh1)

Post #: 15

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/6/2009 7:18:21 PM

leastonh1

Posts: 879
Joined: 2/12/2005
From: West Yorkshire, England
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
I was amazed to actually see something come up on the screen. It was a list of all installed components, but with little patches of odd colors in several places. The cursor line was at the bottom, but I could not get it to do anything, so I did a manual restart.

Hmmm. I had something very similar happen to me a while ago and it turned out to be a faulty graphics card. It started in a similar way too, where the BIOS boot and DOS startup screens were showing odd coloured patches. I also had some weird lockups and blue screens in Windows. Eventually, the whole thing packed up until I installed a new graphics card.

Sorry, I didn't realise you had RAID running, so the BIOS settings are fairly critical. If I've read your post correctly, it is a Dell? In that case, do check all the capacitors.

The problem with the DVD drive could still be related to a PSU issue. I had a hard drive and CD-Writer hooked up to one molex power connector on my old PC. The PSU was a cheap one and I found that either my hard drive or CD drive kept coming up with very strange errors and failures at odd times. I replaced the CD drive with a spare and the problem continued. It was because when one drive was in use, it was pulling too much current from the PSU for the other drive on the same connector to work properly. Replacing the PSU with a more expensive (NOT more powerful) one worked a treat.

I can relate to the blood pressure after the week I've had!

_____________________________

2nd Lt. George Rice: Looks like you guys are going to be surrounded.
Richard Winters: We're paratroopers, Lieutenant, we're supposed to be surrounded.

(in reply to 06 Maestro)

Post #: 16

RE: Graphics Cards - 2/8/2009 7:11:31 PM

06 Maestro

Posts: 3989
Joined: 10/12/2005
From: Nevada, USA
Status: offline

With a little more tinkering time this morning I'm just about convinced it is the power supply. It was not able to boot up again, so I disconnected everything except the CD ROM and the two raid drives-and it started. It was running very good until I test started HoI-it froze.

I've searched many different help forums. As I have cleared the graphics card problem, it can be either the MB or the PS. It looks like a much better chance it is the power supply. Too bad that in bios it shows it putting out the correct voltage-perhaps academic.

The original PS is a 650 watt Silverstone. I'm am considering either a 650/750 watt Antec or Corsair PS. Both those seem to be well priced and have the long cables with plenty of connectors.

_____________________________

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

Thomas Jefferson

(in reply to leastonh1)

Post #: 17

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Graphics Cards