Bad Video Card???

[Pghpooh]

HI
I am in the process of building a new pc. The assembly is part way done. I have the system up and running with only the NIC and the video card installed. The system so far is as follows.

ASUS A7V133 BIOS VER 1005 (BOUGHT SEPARATE CHIP FROM ASUS TO USE.)
AMD 1.2 GIG CPU RUNNING AT 1.2 GIG. (BIOS SETTINGS ARE AT 133 FOR CPU AND RAM)
1 WESTERN DIGITAL 30 GIG 7200 RPM DRIVE SET AS A MASTER
1 WESTERN DIGITAL 20 GIG 7200 RPM SET AS A SLAVE
ACER CD/R-RW UNIT (Just as a cd rom. no burner software installed yet)
ATI ALL IN WONDER RADEON VIDEO CARD (with supplied drivers loaded. )
3 STICKS OF 256 MEG PC133 CRUCIAL CAS 2 RAM
WIN 98se
VIA 4 IN 1 INSTALLED. (LATEST VERSION)
PROMISE DRIVERS (LATEST VERSION)
ANTEC CASE WITH ANTEC 400 WATT P/S
4 FANS

Last night while using IE to look at a few web sites, and had Quicken going in the background, the monitor went black on me. A few seconds after it went black, the indicator light on the front of the monitor went from green to amber meaning no video input. There wasn?t any freeze or hang up or BSOD!!! Nothing. The monitor just went black. I tried to do a soft reset. It did not work. I had to do a hard reset with the reset button to get it back. The system booted and everything worked ok.

The failure happened 4 times in exactly the same way each time.
I've never had a problem with the monitor before on the old pc.
Also,, after the system rebooted, I checked the cpu temp and voltages using ASUS Probe. The cpu temp was 50 C. All voltages were within .1 or .2 volts of what they should be.
I checked the monitor connector on the back of the video card and it is tight. I didn?t check to see if the video card was seated properly. But, when I installed the card 2 days ago,, I made sure it was in right and tight.
As I think about the install of the drivers, there was one problem. During the install a message came up saying something about a certain dll not installing or being corrupted. Shut the install down and did it again and it went ok with no problems.

Could the video card be bad????

The video card was a "Open Box" bought from Best Buy. BUT the carton shrink wrap was never opened or cut in any way. Like it was returned unopened.

Is the video card bad???
Any and all thoughts and suggestions are needed!!!
Thanks
Pghpooh

 

[deadlock]

Your video card might be bad. It sounds like the signal is just shutting off and the card freezing the system.

I've come across plenty of video cards that freeze systems randomly, but so far none that also shuts down video signals.

I think your monitor is innocent. Plug in another card for a couple of days and see how things go.

Good luck.

 

[ksallen]

I had the exact same problem a while back with a ATI RAGE video card. Could it be compatibility problems with the VIA chipset? I hear ATI RADEON cards have some problems with via chipsets.

 

[larrymoencurly]

I'm about to give up on VIA chipsets because of all the memory and video problems I've had with them but not with Intel chipsets. I'm not saying that Intel is perfect, but at work the computer dept. says it spends much more time solving compatibility problems with each VIA based computer.

TNT2 Vanta AGP w/ VIA: OK
TNT2 Vanta PCI w/ VIA: blank screen

 

[Boobers]

ATI cards can be very finicky. Go to their website and download the latest driver. Driver installation order CAN make a difference. Completely remove the ATI video driver and software from "Add/Remove programs". Make certain the driver is set to "Std. PCI VGA". You may want to reboot to be sure the old driver is actually removed.

Install first the video driver (just the drivers, no other software, like MediaCenter or whatever), then manually install the VIA AGP driver v4.05c, then install DX8a. If the install progs give the option of restarting, choose "NO, RESTART LATER", and continue to install the drivers in the order indicated. When you are at the desktop, reboot.

If this does not work, I would assume that the card was returned to Best Buy as defective, and Best Buy simply re-"shrink wrapped" it and sold it to you. GO TO THE STORE AND GET YOUR MONEY BACK NOW! All Best Buy sells anyway is cheap, old crap. If you like cheap, old crap, go there.

Then, buy a good one (like the Leadtek Winfast Geforce 2 Pro 32MB - $132)from a well known online vender, like:

http://www.newegg.com

 

[Pghpooh]

Hi
A quick update!
Yesterday,,, I did some reading here in the forums.
Found a few similiar problems.
When I got home from work, I did 2 things.
First, I removed a stick of 256 meg ram. Anything above 312 ram messes up the v-cache. Not sure if this is the fix.
Next, I found my monitor was listed as a "default" monitor. I then set it up to see the Viewsonic monitor I have.
So far, puter has run for 6 hours on Thurs. night and 6 hours Friday night. No crash, no freeze, just smooth processing. Compared to my old P166 classic, I can now surf,, print documents, play games, etc. all at the same time!!!!!! LOLOL
On Sat, I am gonna reinstall the ram and see what happens.
Thanks
Pghpooh