Damaged GF2 MX400... please give it a look and give me your opinion...

[daywalker]

I think that my GF2MX400 gave its last breath yesterday. It couldnt display resolutions above 640x480 and 256 colors on win WinXP or WinME. And everytime i reinstalled its drivers, i was getting a black screen everytime windows was starting up. The same also when i was trying to raise its resolutions above 640x480. Man i will never overclock a video card again...

Now i took the card out and installed a PREHISTORIC S3 Virge PCI video card and EVERYTHING works fine. No lock ups, no error messages and no black screens what so ever... Also the temperatures on my CPU and motherboard have dropped significally. The CPU (AMD Duron 1Ghz) from 48C has dropped to 46C and the mobo (Asus A7A-133) from 34C to 32C. The AGP settings in my BIOS are also correct so i really dont think its a motherboard problem. Is it possible that my card's overclocking (from 133 to 150Mhz without any additional cooling) made the memory banks go nuts eventually? Whats your opinion?

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

It certainly looks like your Video card is dead..

You've reformated (sounds like you did, but asking anyway)?

Did Windows just start up in 640x480 one day or something? Or did it black screen on your when you tried to install the drivers?

Anyway, it sounds like its dead. I still don't get why people overclock their cards for barely noticeable improvements. 3DMARK is the bane of all gamers..)

 

[chickendinner]

rma it! life time warranty right?

 

[Bozo Galora]

oops. thot he said GF4MX400

 

[daywalker]

<< It certainly looks like your Video card is dead..

You've reformated (sounds like you did, but asking anyway)?

Did Windows just start up in 640x480 one day or something? Or did it black screen on your when you tried to install the drivers?

Anyway, it sounds like its dead. I still don't get why people overclock their cards for barely noticeable improvements. 3DMARK is the bane of all gamers..) >>



LOL... formatting you say? 7 TIMES I FORMATTED MY DISK AND 7 TIMES I INSTALLED BOTH THE OPERATING SYSTEMS... enough said.

The black screen was when i tried to install the drivers and when WinXP was starting to boot. Also black screen was appearing everytime WinMe were booting... Black screen was ALSO when WinXP were booting for the first time using its OWN set of drivers that worked PERFECTLY 2 days ago. Again enough said...

Yup... card burned to a crisp...lol

 

[daywalker]

<< maybe sumthin else


Gigabyte has officially advised that their cards bios dont set up enough voltage to initialize the GF4 cards.

They have put up a new series of bios updates. MSI and ASUS has now chimed in with similar.

Your prob could be voltage supply (PSU)/ and or voltage distribution/regulation on mobo.

to test - take out all PCI cards, CD's/CDr's, leave booting HDD only, one stick ram see if it works. >>



Nope, i highly doubt it. My BIOS is updated in its latest version. Also the card was working fine for 2 weeks. I dont think that the voltage got suddenly a mind of its own and burned the card do you? And i do have one stick of ram (256MB 133) and a 350W power supply. And REMEMBER that i overclocked the card without any additional cooling. Worked ok for a few days and suddenly it got bananas...

If it was a voltage issue then the WHOLE mobo wouldnt work at all.

Well its ok... I ll get a GF4...lol

 

[Jman13]

Shouldn't be fried...when a Vid card chip gets too hot, it just locks up, it doesn't fry itself. Not to say that your card isn't dead, but I HIGHLY doubt the 17MHz overclock killed the card. If you weren't getting lockups in games, or artifacts, your card was ok with the temps. Sure, over time, it may decrease the card's life, but probably not by this much...plus it wasn't a huge overclock. The If you'd gone up 100MHz or something without testing, you'd probably fry the chip, but not after it's been working fine for a while. That said, you could likely get a replacement card if the thing is still in warranty. I don' t think that's wrong because the likelyhood of overclocking being the cause of the problem (if it persists after resetting to normal speeds), is very unlikely.

 

[MemnochtheDevil]

I'd say it would sound like a fried card to me. One of the dangers of overclocking, it doesn't happen very often but you can just have a dead chip. (Sounds like your video card was generating a decent amount of heat in your case too, maybe an extra fan for some more ventilation?)

Jman13, it does happen that after you overclock a card/chip it can just die, without showing the normal artifacts and errors. It's rare and most likely the chip or memory would have failed eventually but an overclock can accelerate the process.

I think its one of the risks that is understated to most newbies who tweak their systems (under the advice of many experienced members). If you overclock you should be prepared to destroy your video card/cpu and you may not be able to return/RMA it. One of the good local shops here won't accept any cpu return that shows evidence of physical damage or overheating. They had to implement the policy after they got about 50-60 amd chips returned in a less than a month. Lots of crushed cores and burned chips from people OC or improperly placing heatsinks. One guy toasted 3 in a row and may have been individually responsible for the policy (nothing like being wrong and refusing to learn from experience :Q ).

If you don't have the ability to replace your hardware, you should think long and hard before OCing. On the other hand, I like many others on this board view it as a great excuse to upgrade again.

Memnoch

 

[MemnochtheDevil]

Just read my post over and I wanted to clarify that I'm not saying daywalker is a newbie, he sounds like he's actually got a good handle on the situation and knows what he's doing.

I just wonder sometimes after the first thing someone gets after posting a questions about drivers for their new GF3 ti200 or GF2MX is a suggestion to OC it. It's a decision that some newbies don't think enough about.

Especially when their OC process goes something like, I'd like my cpu to run at 1.55 instead of 1.3, so I'll just set the fsb to 155 and reboot. Doing things in small increments and testing thoroughly are often overlooked, causing problems later.

Just wanted to clarify before I accidently stuck my foot in my mouth (not that I don't do that way too often as it is ).

Memnoch

 

[daywalker]

Thanks for your words Memnock. Its actually my fault for overclocking the card without any aditional cooling. I even set it up to 170Mhz and tested it with 3DMark 2001SE. But after every overclocking testing, i returned the card back to its normal settings. BUT... even in its normal settings i started to get increased case temperatures. We are talking about 49C for the CPU and 35C for the motherboard even in idle mode. I check my temperatures now that i have removed the card and they are 46C for the CPU and 32C for the motherboard. Its clear that my Geforce2MX started to generate large amounts of heat after my overclocking attempts that ended up with it crashing all the time and showing black screens. I now have my S3Virge installed and everything works fine.

But you are right Memnock, i am a newbie at overclocking. I was thinking of solutions to reduce my system's temperature, like making small heat sinks for the card's memory chips and install one more fan to "exhale" more air out of my case. So its actually my fault. I should of done those things before overclocking anything.

And yes i agree that there are many ways for a video card to die. My old Voodoo3 3000 started to freeze in every game and screen that i was trying to load. Same with my even older Voodoo1. And now this with my Geforce2MX... there are more ways for a card to die except the ones we know already... and thats a fact.

Ah well... all is ok now. I will buy a new Geforce soon and i will never overclock anything again. And my personal adviceQ\: Even if you see higher scores in 3DMark when you overclock your system, you DONT REALLY see any bigger difference in the games or applications. Except of course if you watercool everything and overclock your components to supernatural speeds...lol.

Anyway guys, thanks for all the help.

 

[dakata24]

haha. i think im the next one to fry my geforce card.. my gainward is stock cooled running at 255core/570mem. tried overclocking the core to 260, but had to back it down to 255... i did up my mem from 565 to 570.. (8878 up to 8915 3dmark2001se 1024x768x32)

 

[MemnochtheDevil]

I fell I should state my current system is a duron 750 @1000 and a Visiontek GF3 ti200 @ 220/500. I did take some time and care testing those overclocks but I still acknowledge that I am taking a risk. I just worry that some people read about certain graphics cards or cpus and think their guaranteed a level of performance with no problems.

I had problems with my old case not having enough ventilation, one intake and one exhaust weren't enough when I upgraded to the duron. I ended up buying an enermax fs-710, a great case. I know a couple companies sell the case under their brand with their power supplies in them. 2 intake, 2 exhaust fans and a 2 fan power supply dropped my case (mobo) temp about 5 degrees C. A bit loud with the stock fans so I got a bunch panflos. Just my personal experience.

Anyways, half the fun is in upgrading and taking all apart.

Mem