Gainward 6600GT

[CrazyPills]

I just purchased Gainward's 6600GT AGP video card for my system and am running into issues. I have reloaded all drivers and even replaced my power supply. Also the video card was tested on another computer system, where it ran just fine. On my K8V SE setup the card reacts very unstable and continually flashes to black, while stalling the computer and leaving graphical artifacts. Overheating does not seem to be an issue as the card is at stock speeds and reports normal temps. I have also tried lowering the AGP to 4x with sidebaning off with no effect. (the card is 1.5v) I was trying to see if there has been any reports of this type of issue with newer video cards, possible IRQ miss allocations, and other issues. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated in this situation.
Cheers

 

[Rage187]

fast writes possibly?

 

[Rogue 2]

I had problems w/ my XFX 6600GT when I tried "optimizing" my BIOS settings.. I only have fast writes turned on, most other settings disabled or otherwise backed off.. and it's stable as anything.
I basically reset my BIOS to all "safe" settings and turned one performance option on at a time and tried it out. Takes a long time, but it makes it pretty obvious which option makes the system stable. Of course, this is assuming the BIOS settings are making things buggy in the first place...

And also, not only my VGA/AGP settings, but my main memory settings as well...

 

[CrazyPills]

Yeah good call, my main memory settings are on auto I believe...I'll give her a whirl...
Cheers

 

[CrazyPills]

Iv been playing around with slowing my main memory, slowing down my Hypertransport, changing irqs...and Im not sure what to say on it anymore. The card works fine in safe mode, and reports an irq of 11....it looks to me on start up that a few other usb devices use this irq but I have no idea how to reserve this irq on my asus bios. The card still just flashes to black when you reach windows and freezes constantly. My old card is a 4200 so I dont really switch the drivers up when Im trying to fix this thing. (ver.66.93)

Would updateing my bios be a good idea? Im currently using ver 08.00.09 i believe. There is a newer one. Last time I updated this board I had to rma it, so Im holding back on updating.
Cheers

 

[CrazyPills]

Gainward's tech support told me to update my 6600's bios...which I did, with no effect! Any other ideas? Is there a way to make sure my old nvidia drivers arnt screwing around with the new?
Cheers

 

[SpazzyChicken]

I am also having a problem with my PNY 6600GT.

It freezes when playing any 3D game withing a few minutes. Sometimes even in windows!

I have been searching through forums and many other people are having this problem. I haven't been able to find a way to make my card stable. Sadly, I will probably take it back........

 

[Wolfshanze]

I cannot explain the original posters' problem, as it works in one system, but not another. This makes no sense...

... however I can comment on Spazzy Chicken's problem, as the same thing happened to me.

It is my personal belief that there has been a bad batch of 6600GT chips released by NVidia to its board partners. I have seen this as a widespread problem from an assortment of board venders, but always relating to the 6600GT (I think the AGP version in-particular), and always revolving around the "play a game or benchmark for one minute then freeze" problem.

As I mentioned, I had this EXACT SAME PROBLEM occur with my card (a BFG 6600GT OC), that I had mail-ordered... I got it in, ran all 2D just fine, but after running any benchmark or 3D application/game, the card would ALWAYS FREEZE after about 1 or 2 minutes of running.

I tried every driver update, every BIOS tweak, even putting the card in three differant systems... nothing I could do would change/solve the problem and it had the same problem in every system.

I scanned the net and found TONS of other people with similar problems and it seemed to be the 6600GT that was the culprit (various brand names). Anyways, long-story short, a few folks recomended stop toying with the card and stop trying to fix it, just realize you got "one of the bad chips" and return it for a replacement 6600GT... this I did... I got a new BFG 6600GT from the same store and low and behold, without a single tweak, it worked like a charm in my system running all games and benchmarks without a sweat.

LESSON?

A good percentage of 6600GT chips are faulty and will immediately fail on any benchmark or 3D game... if you get one of these, just forget trying to fix the problem, the chipset is bad and you should return and get a replacement... as I stated, the 2nd BFG 6600GT I got was fine and dandy! I am VERY HAPPY with my 2nd card!

 

[genghislegacy]

Interesting comment from Wolfshanze, now it does look like the case. I see more 6600GT problems than anything else in the forums.

 

[CrazyPills]

Wolfshanze,

Your totally right, in the end I just replaced the card through the store I bought it from. They couldnt explain it, but were happy to replace it. it ran fine on an older system they had which is confusing...Iv been reading that it may be the AGP bridge on these cards that may be causing the problems. The replacment card works great, and I wish I had just had it replaced right away.

Cheers