Help - Video Cards Keep Dying

[Netxulf]

Hi all

After over a year of working beautifully, the Leadtek 6600GT AGP video card in my son's computer refuses to work in anything other than VGA or Safe Mode under Windows XP or Windows 98 (its a dual boot). This happened without changing anything (yeah, I know that everybody says that, but its the truth).
As soon as a higher resolution than VGA is selected, the monitor displays "No signal detected". The card says that the core is working at 100Mhz and the memory is at 600Mhz, but that may be a function of being in VGA mode? After troubleshooting (see below), I went and bought a Palit 7600GS AGP card. All was well in the world, then the ASUS 9550 AGP card in my daughter's PC did exactly the same thing 6 weeks later. It is currently running with an old Ati 8500 card.

I have had PC's since 1992, and have had ISA, VL-Bus, PCI, AGP and PCI-X cards of every description and brand. I have never had a video card fail before. I do not overclock the video cards. It is the depths of winter in Australia. Neither card was running hot according to the sensors or Mark 1 finger. What is going on here? Has anybody else experienced this? Could it be a BIOS problem, where the video card has for some reason deactivated the 3D core? Could re-flashing the BIOS help? If so, does anybody have a link to the Leadtek BIOS's/flash programs for their video cards, specifically the Leadtek Winfast A6600GT TDH 128M.


Thanks in advance

Brad

Extra details.
My son's PC: XP Pro SP2 with latest updates. AMD Athlon 2400+ ASUS A7N8X-X 1G Kingmax RAM, 80G Seagate HDD.
My daughter's PC: XP Pro SP2 with latest updates. AMD 1.4G Athlon ECS K7S5A 512M DDR RAM 80G Seagate HDD.

Troubleshooting the 6600GT. Tried a different monitor, same message. So I pulled the video card, reseated it. Same. I updated drivers from nVidia, then I changed drivers back to what came on the CD, then to the lastest from the card manufacturer. Same. Changed the power supply to a higher wattage one. Same. Put in an old Ati 8500 card. Worked perfectly.

 

[MarcVenice]

Sounds like the 6600gt just died, probably the same for the ati 9550, just coincidence they happened to die at the same time. Try the 9550 in your sons pc though, the pc where the 6600gt used to be in.

Oh and a reason as to WHY your videocards are dying might be because of unhealthy current. Perhaps your electricity provider delivers a lot of energy with spikes in it. Maybe the videocards die first because of this. Whose to say.

Or maybe your kids get annoyed at such slow pc's and kick them around a bit to often

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Sounds like the 6600gt just died, probably the same for the ati 9550, just coincidence they happened to die at the same time. Try the 9550 in your sons pc though, the pc where the 6600gt used to be in.

Oh and a reason as to WHY your videocards are dying might be because of unhealthy current. Perhaps your electricity provider delivers a lot of energy with spikes in it. Maybe the videocards die first because of this. Whose to say.

Or maybe your kids get annoyed at such slow pc's and kick them around a bit to often

Nah. That would kill the hard drive before anything.


Sounds like either power spikes or just coincidence.

 

[Netxulf]

Thanks for your thoughts. I could almost believe a power spike on the 6600GT cos it has a power feed direct off the PSU (but why wouldn't the mobo die), but the old 9550 is only fed via the AGP slot. Hence the mobo should die first.

 

[Netxulf]

:laugh: the kids each have a PC, their friends all have to share the one family PC, so they think they are very fortunate . A 1.4G Athlon is very fast for homework and MSN, which is all my 14 yo daughter uses it for, she has outgrown games. My 10 yo son isn't allowed to play DOOM style shoot 'em deads, and his 2400 plays Warcraft III and midtown madness perfectly. In fact, the 2400 boots faster than my new work laptop running Vista.

not convinced about power spikes, the 9550's are only fed through the AGP slot via the mobo.

But thanks for your thoughts.

 

[mruffin75]

Sounds like your son tried to overclock his card and screwed it, then a few weeks later decided to try again but thought "if I kill mine again, I won't be able to use the line "but I didn't do *anything*" again....hrmmm.....my sis's computer is just down the hall...."