Abit Ti4200 Issues

[Aftathott]

Hullo,

Recently (4 weeks ago approximately) I upgraded to a Ti4200. I experienced great performance in most all games I played, but last week I decided to overclock it a bit. I have the 64MB version, so I have the faster memory. I increased the clock speed in increments of 5, and the memory speed in increments of 8. I ended up 280 and 585 respectively for clock and memory (I adjusted the memory more than the clock speed). I ran 3DMark tests ever others speed change and I had no problems with my final results. Anyways, yesterday I experienced a sudden monitor shutoff (went to standby). I restarted my computer and it came back up fine. Today, I have experience this problem multiple times. Every time it happened, I'd have to wait 30 seconds to a minute to turn my computer back on, as I'd get no display, and I wouldn't get any system beeps (not POSTing). I reset the card to default speeds moments ago, but underwent another incident. Upon coming back up from this one, I had chipped boot text. I went ahead and put optimal settings on in the bios (I had nothing serious changed, but did it anyways) and after the mandatory restart, it came back up fine. Upon coming into Windows I actually DOWNclocked the card speeds by 10 and 15 Mhz respectively. Now, I've been running fairly well for around 15 minutes. Here are my other system specs:

OS: Windows XP
CPU: Athlon 1Ghz (running at about 65C =/, new HS/F on the way)
MB: ECS K7S5A
Sound: SB Live Platinum 5.1
PS: Antec PP-303XP (model #) 300W
Memory: 384MB PC2100 DDR
Video: Abit Siluro Ti4200
Drivers: 29.42

Any ideas? The chipped text upon my last reboot worries me a bit, but it seems okay now. Knew this would be the best place for any answers, and I hope for any response. Thanks in advance,

-Afta

P.S. System idle temp is around 35C... and yes I know my processor running that hot with system speed that much lower is bad.

 

[mike9390]

How long did the card run overclocked? When you first had the problem did you leave the card overclocked or set it back to default? It sounds like you lift the card overclocked even after you started having problems. That is not a good thing to do. The card may now be damaged. You'll know if it is when the card doesn't work right at default speed.

Hey good luck,

Mike

 

[AnAndAustin]

Well that o/c should have been very safe for a 4200 using 3.6ns RAM (although it is more than feasible for a 4200-64MB to come with 4.0ns). It is very good you did things in small steps, I take it you tested thoroughly before proceeding to the next level though. In any case it seems some damage has been done, any o/c'ing always carries a small risk, it stresses components in ways they weren't designed or tested for. Setting back to defaults (or below) and running like that for a couple of days may be fine, if you still get probs then ensure you haven't incorrectly set anything in BIOS and that all leads are plugged in correctly (reseat them). Ideally try another gfx card in there, and a different monitor too. If it seems your card is messed up perminently then you might as well send it back to manu or retailer, it could be a problem/fault which unrelated to o/c'ing and as such you should still be eligible for a replacement. Best of luck!

 

[Aftathott]

It seems very real that when it rains... it pours. About 15 minutes after I posted the message, I went ahead and downloaded the 30.82 Detonator drivers. Install went fine, but when my system came back up I had a very noticeable bluish tint to me display. I took this as a driver problem (though I've never experienced one) with my NEC monitor. I went ahead and used the Windows rollback function to resort back to the 29.42s. I got a missing file error, so I cancelled the rollback, though it still completed for some reason (displayed 29.42 driver version). Went throught a mandatory restart and came back up fine. Went to download the full 29.42 drivers and had another display failure. Shut my computer off, again had to wait for around 45 seconds, and turned it back on. To my dismay, instead off the WinXP scandisk screen, I got a critical windows failure. Missing the system config file somehow.

Earlier yesterday I installed several critical windows updates from the Microsoft site, though nothing seemed effected directly after I completed their installs. Anyways, will attempt to repair tonight, but just thought I'd throw in an update.

-Afta