Problems with new BFG GeForce 6600 GT OC

[SunKitten]

My video card, a six-month-old ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, died on me a few days ago due to the fan not working on it. I'm still looking for my store receipt, so I can call ATI and have them replace it, but in the meantime I bought a BFG GeForce 6600 GT OC video card with 128 MB VRAM.

Anyway, after installing the card and powering up my system, I got an onscreen message that the card wasn't getting enough power and settings were being adjusted accordingly. Also, when I play Sims 2, there is a lot of lag (much more than there was with my Radeon), and there are annoying white visual artifacts on the screen at times. I don't know what is causing these problems, as the 6600 GT doesn't hook up directly to the power supply, unlike the Radeon 9800. The manual wasn't much help as it seems to be a "generic" manual not tailored specifically to the video card.

System specs:

ASUS A7N8X motherboard
1 GB RAM
Athlon XP 1800+ processor
GeForce 6600 GT OC video card with 128 MB VRAM
Windows XP Pro

The power supply is fairly small and I'm wondering if that could be the problem; being a university student, I don't have the money to drop on a 400-watt power supply right now, or a new processor.

Does anyone have any idea how to solve these problems? I'd appreciate any help I can get, as I'm not a computer guru -- my boyfriend suggested I post here in the hope of finding some answers.

Thanks in advance!
Sharon (SunKitten)

 

[BobDaMenkey]

Um, actually, it should hook into your power supply. There should be a molex connecter on the back of the card. Plug it in, it'll help a ton.

 

[MDE]

You do have to plug in a power cable to the card. Only the PCI Express 6600GTs don't need external power, the AGP version does.

 

[SunKitten]

Colour me embarrassed. As soon as I got home from work today I opened up the case and took another look at the card, found the connector on the card and my Y cable, and plugged it in. Booted up fine and I'm about to check how my various programs (mainly Sims 2) work with it.

Thanks muchly for your help!

 

[Megatomic]

Congrats. I love the easy fixes myself.

And welcome to AT forums SunKitten. Is your boyfriend a member here as well?

 

[SunKitten]

The artifacts are still there when I play Sims 2. I've updated the drivers to the newest ones from nVidia, but this card is not playing well with my system. There's no "insufficient power" message any more when I boot up, so I know it's connected properly to the power supply.

The next step is to replace the card with my old Radeon 9200 and take this card back to the store, and keep looking for my Radeon 9800 receipt so I can get another one shipped to me from ATI. My boyfriend would probably love to have the GeForce card, as his is older, and if I could afford it I'd save the card for him when he moves here.

 

[fstime]

Artifacts still...

Tell us the temp. of your card.

It should be in the Nvidia Control Panal.

 

[SunKitten]

It took a bit of looking, but I found the temp -- it's 57 Celsius (with Sims 2 running).

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: SunKitten
It took a bit of looking, but I found the temp -- it's 57 Celsius (with Sims 2 running).

If you can, download RTHDRIBL and watch the temp while it runs in a window. That way you'll get a true load temp reading.

 

[fstime]

57C is fine.

 

[SunKitten]

The temp got up to 65 C with RTHDRIBL running for half an hour. The only time artifacts appear is if I run Sims 2 or Sims 2 Body Shop; both make a lot of demands on the hardware. Maybe I just got a defective card? I suppose it's possible...

 

[MDE]

Do you have the games fully patched? If you haven't already, download the newest ForceWare drivers from Nvidia.

 

[Munky]

Usually when you get white dot artifacts it means the gpu is either overcklocked too far or is not getting enough voltage. If your motherboard has the option to adjust AGP voltage, put it up a little to like 1.6v, that helped get rid of artifacts when I oc'd my card.

 

[BobDaMenkey]

I've had The Sims 2 artifact a bit on me with my 6800GT. I just quit and restarted the program and they went away. Is there anyway you could post a screenshot of what the artifacts look like?

You could RMA the card, which would get you a new one, or return it to the store you got it from. It's a defective product if it's artifacting in games and you haven't tampered with it.

 

[SunKitten]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Congrats. I love the easy fixes myself.

And welcome to AT forums SunKitten. Is your boyfriend a member here as well?

Thanks for the welcome. My ex-boyfriend and I are no longer together, but I don't think he's a member here.

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: SunKitten

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Congrats. I love the easy fixes myself.

And welcome to AT forums SunKitten. Is your boyfriend a member here as well?

Thanks for the welcome. My ex-boyfriend and I are no longer together, but I don't think he's a member here.

thats too bad

 

[BillyBobJoel71]

wonder why the sims 2 amkes the temp go so high... i can play that on 32 mb integrated intel extreme 'phix and it runs fine. but my sister got artifacting a bit on hers with integ, so i restarted 3 times and it finally went away.

 

[AkumaX]

Originally posted by: SunKitten

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Congrats. I love the easy fixes myself.

And welcome to AT forums SunKitten. Is your boyfriend a member here as well?

Thanks for the welcome. My ex-boyfriend and I are no longer together, but I don't think he's a member here.

what ever you do, DONT post in the ATOT forum

 

[SunKitten]

Originally posted by: AkumaX

Originally posted by: SunKitten

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Congrats. I love the easy fixes myself.

And welcome to AT forums SunKitten. Is your boyfriend a member here as well?

Thanks for the welcome. My ex-boyfriend and I are no longer together, but I don't think he's a member here.

what ever you do, DONT post in the ATOT forum

I just came here originally to get answers about my video card... there's no reason for me to post in an off-topic part of the forum since I really don't know anyone here. And I would never post anything regarding my personal life here anyway; I was just answering the question someone put to me. My ex lurks in the AT forums.

And seeing as this is veering off-topic itself, I don't want to say any more about anything but video cards.

 

[bagorats]

I've had a similar problem trying to run a 6600 GT OC PCI-E in SLI mode. Artificats galore. The SLI system ran GTA-SA for a while and something bummed out- blue screen of death, then a terrible glitchy screen. I'm a bit worried that the cards are stuffed but I can't imagine why. I've tried updating drivers, re-installing windows, swapping the cards in/out single card. Nothing seems to help.

Anyone had any similar hear tearing experiences?

Bagorats

Gigabyte K8N Ultra SLI Motherboard
AMD Althlon 64 3200+ Processor s939
2 x 512MB Kingston PC3200 DDR
160 GB SATA Hard drive
Antec 500 Watt Smartpower 2 Power Supply
2 x BFG 6600 GT OC in SLI mode
NVidia 77.72 Drivers