Stoopid question...

[Jim]

Ever since I installed my Prophet GTS 32mb in early May my computer is touchy as hell in an odd way. It's stable as any machine Ive ever had EXCEPT if I need to open it up to install or whatever to the machine. When I put it back together I always have a hard time getting a signal to my PF790 monitor. I usually end up grabbing the plugin at the vidcard connector and wiggle it slightly and all seems well till the next time I move the case elsewhere to work on it.

Once I just left it on the floor and slid the side off and did whatever I had to do and tried it before I screwed the sides and top on. It booted fine, as I was sliding the side carefully back into position (puter running) it rebooted on its own. Almost acted like it has a short somewhere making weird things happen. This behaviour NEVER happened with the tnt2u I had in there before.

I started having other problems with the video (corruption sometimes on cold boots after sitting for several hours) so I figured I'd RMA it and all my problems would disappear when I installed the new GTS. Wrong. Same trouble, had to wiggle the connector to finally get it to send a signal to the monitor.

Could it be I have a bad cable? (Stock cable that came with the Viewsonic)

Could I have a weird short in my case somehow? Its an Aopen HX08 with a 300w Sparkle power supply running an Asus P3B-F BX mobo. If so how can I troubleshoot it? I was very carefull when I built the machine but Ive seen stranger things happen with motherboards shorting out. I used the 4 (or was it 6?) copper standoffs supplied with the case. The holes they are aligned with on the mobo are all surrounded with metal so Im pretty sure its ok, otherwise I would have major problems instead of this nagging irritation.

Anything else I should look for?

Nothing is overclocked btw.

Thanks.

 

[Argo]

Try puting your old card in there, and see what happens.

 

[squirrel dog]

Also look closely at where the card seats in the mo/bo.It should be down deep and at the same level all the way across the bottom.Make sure the metal tab isnt pushing the card up where it screws into the case.

 

[Menelaos]

Try grounding the case by connecting a wire going from the case to a big piece of metal, without the side panel. If you get the same problem you get when attaching the side panel, you know what causes it. To solve the problem put some tape on the touching edge of sidepanel (eg. on the topside) and reattach the side panel. I doubt it will work, but it is worth the try .

Menel.

 

[NakaNaka]

I doubt this is the problem but if it was stable before the Video Card install, its not the cable. Since you have to plug your cable into the monior port that came with the video card, the port could have some problems. Try what the others said, if that doesn't work call Tech or return it see if you can get a new one.

 

[Jim]

It appears there is a known cold boot issue with all Geforce DDR cards including the GTS. I found this page while searching the usenet archives at Dejanews:

http://www.insanehardware.com/articles/nvidiacompatible.htm

Man whatta pisser. I RMA'd the original after talking to Guillemot tech support and still the same problem. The tech was fully aware of my machine specs so he should have mentioned this to me.

Bastards.

 

[dennilfloss]

Mmm. Does that mean that, having an early revision P3B-F, I should refrain from buying a GeForce2 MX?

 

[Jim]

Mine is a recent rev of the P3B-F.