Possible DOA on my refurbed Gainward GF4-Ti4200

[techwanabe]

Just tried installing a refurbed Gainward GeForce4 ti-4200 128mb Golden Sample in my computer listed in the sig. Got absolutely no picture when trying to boot up with the new card. Took it out and reseated it, same results. Put my old trusty Radeon LE 32DDR back in and it works fine as always. Kind of looks like New Egg shipped me a dud. What do ya'll think... time to call them and get an RMA? I think there is a 2 week return policy so I don't want to waste much time.

 

[Schadenfroh]

do a lil more research, you are placing a 1.5V card into a 3.3V agp slot, there might be a incompatability

 

[techwanabe]

So this AGP card is not compabitble with my ABIT ST-6 motherboard?

I'll do a little more research before RMAing this thing.

 

[Schadenfroh]

never mind. abit says that 1.5v cards are compatable with it. so RMA the thing

 

[techwanabe]

Thanks Schadenfroh,

The post beep(s) and start-up sounds of my computer sounded "normal" to me when trying the thing out. I would have been surprised if a mobo this new would take most modern AGP cards.

 

[Boobers]

I bought a refurb Gainward TI4200 64Mb Golden Sample in December. It ran fine (300/600) until last Monday, when in the middle of a game the monitor shut off and the monitor power indicator turned from green to orange. Rebooting produced the same result: The computer would post and seem to boot fine, but the monitor light stayed orange.

I pulled the card and noticed the two 1000uf capacitors near the analog monitor port had puffed up and burst, leaking a small amount of dark brown goo. I emailed Gainward Taiwan, but after a couple of days with no response I removed the faulty caps and replaced them with higher quality pieces (the originals were 16V, replaced with 35V). I reinstalled the card and it works fine now.

Right after I did that, Gainward Taiwan told me to contact Gainward USA, and they came through with an RMA number for me. I'm not sending it back, as it works great now, but if you want to RMA your card through Gainward, send an email to:

support@gainwardusa.com

 

[cockeyed]

There were bad capacitors on many of the Gainward Ti4200 cards. A web search should turn-up many hits re: this problem. Usually the screen would go pink or the picture would be a bunch of wavy lines. Gainward USA has been replacing bad boards if contacted. Some people do their own cap replacement as you did. I have a Ti4200 Golden Sample and so far so good; only the fan has crapped out in 10 months.