New 6600GT - Problems, What am I doing wrong?

[dzadzi]

Quick update...

I've experienced lock-ups with HL2 and Doom3 (just wanted to test those again to make sure) it starting to look like an RMA to me.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Every bum chipset I've seen on the 6600GT (and there's been a lot of them) have been freeze-ups with EVERY 3D application... you're the first to report freeze-ups with SOME applications, which is odd, but IMHO, a good card should work with EVERY program without jumping through hoops to get it to run right.

If you're having as many problems as you are stating, in my opinion you should wash your hands of the situation, stick your Ti4600 back in the system and RMA the card for another one... I had to do the same thing with my bum BFG 6600GT and go back to my FX5900 while I awaited a second 6600GT... since I got the 2nd card I had no problems at all.

My vote is bum chipset, stop messing with it and just RMA the thing!

 

[lavaheadache]

Dude Im having a similar problem now with an Athlon 64 system with a radeon 9600xt that Im building for a friend. Major screen corruption in Farcry(cant even make out the screen) Freezes in Doom 3after like a minute of playing. I finally tried switching the card to agp 4x and that "fixed" all the problems.I also disabled fast write. I know the card is not defective because it works in my system with no problems. Im not sure whether your card is pci-e or not so Im unsure whether this will help or not.

 

[dzadzi]

Last techie @ BFG told me that he's pretty sure the lock-ups are caused by the "fast write" option being enabled on my AGP. Claims that the symptoms I've been experiencing are usually related to this.

He wasn't sure how/if I could diable it on my mobo (ASUS P4P800 SE), so he suggested I call asus and ask them, and to follow-up with them.

meh

 

[rise]

i'd defintely check the bios as i said before you rma it. you said you wanted to check under every stone, then hit the bios.

i don't have your exact board, but its an asus and i had to email them a couple times. they're not real quick but are pretty good. or call them, i just had trouble getting thru on the phone and i wasn't in need of a quick response.

but the bios are fairly easy, just don't change anything if you're not sure. kinda like the registry. but you might find some thins not set in there correctly that are causing some problems, especially as you just flashed it.

 

[kmmatney]

I share your pain. I tried to upgrade a Ti4200 to an AGP 6600GT last week, and spent 4 days trying to get it stable. No matter what I did (5 different drivers, new PSU, tried in another computer, etc..) it just wasn't stable. My old Ti4200 had no problems whatsoever. I finally RMA'd.

You shouldn't have to jump through hoops, upgrade BIOS, reinstall windows, etc... just to get a frickin' video card working. In my case, I have an Nforce1 based motherboard, so I'm hoping that the age of my motherboard will not prevent me from upgrading.

Have you tried your card in another computer?

 

[hi5]

are u feeding ur monitor from the PSU.

Ur lucky cause ur windows is detecting the card.

What happened with my Ti 4200 was that windows and driver werent even detecting an NVIDIA based card.

I checked later and my Device ID was astonishingly different.

After modding the BIOS i finally got my card detected.

As far as i know, there must be 3 problems with ur system.

1. Heat-up
2. PSU insufficient (install ASUS Probe and run games and quit to check voltage rails)
3. Any BIOS problem or may be installing some AGP drivers in Windows(not the Nv drivers)

Hope that may help.

 

[Wolfshanze]

You shouldn't have to jump through hoops, upgrade BIOS, reinstall windows, etc... just to get a frickin' video card working.

Amen to that.

For all you folks who disable BIOS features or turn off fast writes or lower your AGP speed to AGP4X... YOU ARE SETTLING FOR LESS THEN WHAT YOU PAID FOR

The 6600GT WORKS WITH AGP8X... IT WORKS WITH FASTWRITE... IT WORKS WITHOUT HAVING TO JUMP THROUGH HOOPS OR DISABLE BIOS OPTIONS.

If your 6600GT doesn't work with the above features, and/or you have to turn them off to get stability at the cost of performance, YOU HAVE A BAD OR PARTIALLY BAD CARD AND YOU ARE SETTLING FOR LESS THEN YOU PAID FOR.

Why aren't you all RMAing your card to get one that works as it should?

dzadzi, I am convinced you have a bad (or partially bad) card. Something isn't right with it. RMA the sucker and be done with it... get another card. A GOOD card/chipset will run stable and fast right out of the box (assuming you have the proper drivers installed and plug in the power connector).

Stop jumping through hoops to get the card to work, and whatever you do, DON'T SETTLE AS OTHERS HAVE BY TURNING OFF SPEED FEATURES LIKE FAST WRITE OR SLOWING DOWN YOUR AGP BUS... the 6600GT DOES WORK with fast write and AGP8X, if it doesn't your card is screwy!

Just get another card. That's what I did, and my problems disapeared overnight with a new card.

 

[Acanthus]

Try running the 6600GT with the power from a clean rail, dont share it with anything. (if possible).

 

[dzadzi]

OK,

Time for an update. Tech number 3 @ BFG finally agreed that there was something wrong with the card. Suggested calling the store where I purchased it on Monday, if they wouldn't exchange it, I would have to RMA-it. Well, they agreed to swap it at the store - yahoo!

So, since I installed the new card (10 minutes ago), I tried a few of the most problematic games and low and behold no apparant problems.

No 4X AGP, no disabled FastWrite, etc...etc...

If things change I'll let you know.

For everyone that helped me - a big thanks!

 

[Wolfshanze]

dzadzi, happy to hear getting a new card solved your problem.

There's been a large batch of bad 6600GT chips floating around out there... the good news is, they're either bad or they're good, and you generally know within minutes of installing the card... you and I both received bad cards to start with, but our 2nd card is good.

Now that you have a working card, you can ignore all the advice to turn off speed enhancing features. Your card is good now... ENJOY!

 

[imported_humey]

PLEASE dont ever plug a molex into gpu from same line as hdds on, gee :Q

My ultra on box says min of 480watt psu and not sharing line with others ideally 2 sep lines to each molex (ultra has 2) but i got antec TP 550 so i use 1 line with supplied y connector that came with gpu

 

[Geminihank]

Hey There, Was having similar problems with my BFG 6600GT oc card.
Am using a 400 watt power supply,
athlon 3400+ 64bit
ecs 760-m motherboard
512MB ddr 400 ram
200gig maxtor hard drive

First problem I encountered was artifacts in game. Got rid of them by updating to driver v 67.66
Next problem I got was freezing and locking up after 10mins playing any graphic heavy game (half-life2 was a pain)
Tried all the driver updates. Currently on 71.80(seems alright)
Cause I have a SIS chipset I have to use at least 67.03 and since I installed them performance was dreadful scores of 7000 on 3dmark2001,but alas I updated the SIS chipset with Gant agp driversv1.19a.
Performance was back to normal scores of 18000+ in 3dmark2001 but alas 10 mins into half-life It would freeze. Decided to leave the side panel off my pc leaving everything exposed to the wonderful cool air in my room. half an hour of intense half-life'n at max settings and not a bother bar dodgy sound from crap sound card.Decided to put cover back on, 4mins later froze.
So it appears that these little buggers like to run hot.
Anyone having problems get rid of that side panel. Think I need to fit more fans or something or is it a fault with the card that its overheating like that,
Half-life settings are as follows.
res 1024 x 768 32bit,
all setting for texture quality and models are at highest.
anti aliasing at x4
anisotropic at x4
think thats it

still would an extra fan reduce heat enough to put the case back on

 

[Brooxy]

Hey everyone, just like to say im new to these forums but from I have seen you look like cool people .

I bought a BFG 6600GT OC AGP on boxing day after christmas for £100 from PC World :s. After a while of trying to get it to work and many calls of the BFG helpline etc. i found out that i had an insufficient PS (only 300w). Now i have had £190 pounds worth of work done on my pc including new mobo, PS and HD. But after all this is turns out it freezes after 5 - 10 mins on CSS and takes a while longer for Call of Duty but it can go up to 30 mins without freezing. As you can probably tell i am quite new to PC Upgrading etc. and i really dont want to do anything that i dont know what im doing (upgrading BIOS etc.). I think i will either take it back to PC World (lol) or either i'll have to RMA it depending on wether i have the reciept.

Also it makes me wonder about how PC World were selling BFG 6600GT OC's so cheap i mean £100 pounds is a good price right? I have seen non OC'ed cards for £140 from the cheapest place i know let alone PC World. Maybe BFG knew that 6600GT's had bad cores and were flogging them off cheap, who knows ? Anyone got any ideas ?

PS. My PC Specs are:

P4 2.53 Ghz 533 Mhz
1Gb dual channel PC2100 (Im gonna get crucial ballistix soon i hope )
7200rpm 120GB HD
BFG 6600GT OC
ASRock P4V88
500W QTech Big fan Power Supply

 

[imported_humey]

Welcome Scotland here, ive seen many BFG probs all over web forums not just your model, but im sure there is lots working to.

Try the gpu in a pals pc to see if its card to blame.

Kepp a eye on the Q-Tec as there cheap and nasty i had a 550 while ago sold as fans being themal controled and they werent and reviews showed gaps on board where parts could have been, so i got a Antec Trupower 550, Q-Tec now have triple fan 650watts with thermal controls fans but i know for fact it wont have the juice on the rails a good brand of 550 or possibly lower wattage ones will have.

That why the Antec TP 550 is like £90 and the Q-Tec 650 is £23 lol

 

[Brooxy]

yeah, i know wat you mean but for a 15 year old its alot of money for a £90 power supply. By the way i just finished a call of duty scrim and it didnt freeze or anything but there was a hgigh drop in framerates. Could it be that my gfx card is overheating, i heard that the BFG 6600GT OC has a tendency for overheating because the thermal paste on the gpu is very good or something of that sort. Could that be a cause of the problem or is it driver based ? I dont have any case fans and i think that could be the problem.....

 

[imported_humey]

They claimed to use artic silver 5 on the OC cards, may be ture or not no idea, heat and volts could cause probs yes.

Lots of peeps buy top price parts but will skimp on 1)psu and 2)ram
Both r major important and psu will make all act up if rails not strong, i know cost can be issue but top gpus need decent hardware to work with.

 

[Brooxy]

yeah i agree, but its rly hard to fork out alot of money for me, and considering that it cost me and my brother alot of money to get it done forking out for another psu isnt an option. If the psu does pack in its got a warranty lol.

Could the bad framerates be to do with overheating or insufficient power??

 

[LIVAN]

Don't buy the BFG 6600GT OC, World of Warcraft is freezing on me every 10 minutes after 9800XT did freeze once on me for 5 4 months on teh same game.