Boot-time artifacts with AGP 6800GT

[FeathersMcGraw]

I've been happily running with a Leadtek 6800GT and an EpoX 9NDA3+ motherboard with an Antec TruePower 430 for the last couple of years, but it looks like the video card may have just decided to die on me. The video card memory check on POST is all but illegible due to character corruption/artifacts -- this continues with the EpoX splash screen and the device boot status display (if I use the Del key to boot to the BIOS menu, the menus are also completely illegible due to artifacting).

If I ignore all of the above, I can actually boot to Windows XP SP2 and things look almost normal (I believe there are still some artifacts, but they are minor compared to 80-column text mode), although eventually XP blue-screens and reboots (I have not yet been fast enough to pause the screen to see what the actual fault is).

If I boot to safe mode, things actually work reasonably (presumably because I'm running a VGA driver and not the NVidia drivers).

Considering that my hardware is literally obsolete at this point, I'd really rather not have to try to locate a new AGP card, but I'm not really in a position to build a new system at this point either. I've tried searching to see if there are any solutions to this issue, but it seems that most of the problems and proposed fixes are about specific levels of NVidia drivers, so these are probably not applicable in my case.

I'm wondering if anyone has any insights as to whether there are any BIOS changes I can make that might make this video card function, even at reduced performance (I can use an even older video card to set the BIOS, then swap it back out for the dying 6800GT). Some obvious candidates are items such as the AGP aperture, fast writes (enabled/disabled), sideband notification (?), AGP voltage, AGP 2x/4x/8x, etc. but maybe there are some less obvious settings that might also have an effect.

Another question is whether I can change/tweak the video card BIOS itself -- perhaps it might behave if slightly underclocked.

Suggestions/advice are welcomed.

[Edit: Changed summary]

 

[Skunkwourk]

Another user and myself had AGP Leadtek 6800GTs die on us in the past few months so its probably not salvageable. Mine was out of warranty, but he was still able to get a replacement for his. If you have documentation of your receipt if you bought it from an online e-tailer, you might be able to RMA it still. I decided to hold off on a new rig for a couple more years so I bought my X1950 to replace it.

 

[BassBomb]

Have you tried cleaning it out, reseating the heatsink?

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

I haven't actually tried redoing the heatsink yet -- the stock heatsink for the card is massive and I haven't quite figured out all the mechanical attachment points, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to remove it or not. I did check for accumulated dust (not too much, cleaned out what was present with compressed air) and checked to see if the fan was still operating (still running reasonably, although I didn't check the RPM rate via a utility yet). The card didn't seem overly warm at the time, but that's entirely subjective, since I didn't have a probe thermometer handy.

 

[Lithan]

An unstable gfx card causing BSOD is a new one to me. BSOD usually means memory sent the cpu something that made no sense. GFX doesn't really send anything that should cause that to cpu... certainly not in 2d.

I'd guess your mobo is having issues... if I had to try an narrow it down (shot in the dark really) I'd say northbridge, related to agp. The effect of this would basically be that agp slot is the source of your problem, pci gfx would work, but another agp card would give similar issues. Again, this is just the first place I'd look and may be way off base.

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

I actually installed an old AGP Radeon 9800 Pro and it displayed the POST splash image and the Windows desktop without issues. Not to say that it couldn't still be the motherboard if it's a problem that only affects AGP 4/8x and not, say, AGP 2x, but I'm not sure how I would make that diagnosis based on what I've observed so far.

 

[Lithan]

You've got the power jack on the card plugged in, right?
If so, then I'd plug the 9800pro in and do some gaming. If ya can get an evening of gaming in without any problems it's almost certainly the card.

ps. 9800pro is 8x

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

Okay, so the card is pretty likely gone, so the question is what would be a reasonable replacement that would provide equivalent performance to my defunct 6800GT at, say, a sub-$100 price point. The Radeon X1950 PRO seems to be pretty high-priced (probably due to availability), so right now (at least at Newegg), my options seem to be either Radeon HD 2600 PRO or HD 2600 XT cards from various manufacturers.

I'm primarily looking for something for WoW and assorted episodes of Half-Life 2 (I doubt my box is hefty enough for Bioshock, so I'm not really even going to consider newer games at this point). Right now I'm running a socket 939 Athlon 64 3000, so not overpurchasing GPU to the point where I'm CPU-bound is also a consideration.

As usual, advice/feedback is welcome.

 

[JACKDRUID]

6800 is about as far as you can go with AGP card these days...Anything higher would really cost you..

best is to upgrade your motherboard (4800x2 + motherboard for $49 at Frys.com) and buy a pci-e card.

 

[Lithan]

got a link for that mobo deal jack? That sounds like one of their B&M deals to me.

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

Just as an update, I used the Google Checkout $25 off coupon to pick up the Sapphire HD2600PRO from Buy.com for ~$55. No real framerate change in WoW, so I appear to be CPU-bound. But hey, at least I can read my POST screen again.

[Edit: fixed link formatting]