I have recently been seeing some intermittent errors with my Nvidia GeForce 6800 GTO card. Occasionally when I power on or restart the computer, nothing will be displayed on the screen. The monitor will default to low power mode, and the PC refuses to boot. There are four diagnostic lights on the back panel of the case, and the light code indicates 'A possible graphics card failure has occurred.' This is a Dell Dimension 8400. If I power down the computer and power it back up again, eventually it will boot into windows, although it can take anywhere from 1-5 tries.
Once I am into windows, I don't have any problems. There are no BSOD's, lockups, crashes, artifacts, etc. Everything is fine.
Also, I am rarely ever able to recover from hibernation. Usually I will get to the screen where the white bar is filling up. The bar will fill all the way up, but then nothing will happen after that. If I reboot the computer, it will then load windows without issue (unless the problem described above happens, in which case it may take several tries before the PC will actually boot) but my screen resolution will be extremely low, and it will appear as though I have no video card installed. If I reboot again after this, everything will be back to normal (again, it could take several reboots due to the issue described in the first paragraph).
I first noticed these problems a few weeks ago. No hardware changes have been made to my system in over a year. I am using the latest nvidia drivers.
I already tried taking the card out and reseating it. Unfortunately I do not have another video card to try in place of this one. The warranty on this computer has already expired, so Dell won't be able to help me on this.
This problem really has me stumped. Is there a detailed diagnostic utility I can run on the video card to try and determine exactly what the problem is?
Once I am into windows, I don't have any problems. There are no BSOD's, lockups, crashes, artifacts, etc. Everything is fine.
Also, I am rarely ever able to recover from hibernation. Usually I will get to the screen where the white bar is filling up. The bar will fill all the way up, but then nothing will happen after that. If I reboot the computer, it will then load windows without issue (unless the problem described above happens, in which case it may take several tries before the PC will actually boot) but my screen resolution will be extremely low, and it will appear as though I have no video card installed. If I reboot again after this, everything will be back to normal (again, it could take several reboots due to the issue described in the first paragraph).
I first noticed these problems a few weeks ago. No hardware changes have been made to my system in over a year. I am using the latest nvidia drivers.
I already tried taking the card out and reseating it. Unfortunately I do not have another video card to try in place of this one. The warranty on this computer has already expired, so Dell won't be able to help me on this.
This problem really has me stumped. Is there a detailed diagnostic utility I can run on the video card to try and determine exactly what the problem is?
