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To Repair Or Not To Repair?

S

Seekermeister

Golden Member
I guess it's no big thing, but I noticed that where my previous two graphics cards were described on the first bios screen, the 6800GT only get a blinking cursor. The card is installed properly and shows in the Device Manager, so how do I get it to display on powerup?

While I'm asking such "important" questions, I went through the other graphics settings in the bios that I could find, and another question arose. There is an option for AGP 3.0 calibration cycle, which is disabled. Should I enable it? What does it do?
 
Well, that screen dump is from the video card's onboard BIOS when it goes through POST. If you aren't seeing anything, then I guess it doesn't write anything. Maybe there's a register setting or something that you can get to through Coolbits or Rivatuner.

Not sure about the AGP 3.0 calibration, but it sounds like the sort of thing I would leave off as long as everything else is working.
 
Hmm, if it comes from the video card's bios, does that indicate that there is a defect or problem of some kind? As far as I can tell, it works okay. I did some Googling since I first posted, and all that I could find about the calibration cycle was mostly posts on other forums, but I did find one article that said if the card was 3.0 that it should be enabled to avoid problems. I checked the PNY specification sheet, and it uses the "3.0" alot, so I'm guessing that it should be enabled. I'm going to try it and see what happens.
 
I enabled the calibration cycle, and I can't see any change for better or worse. I thought that it might have an effect on the bios screen display, but it doesn't. So that question remains.
 
Forgot to mention that I had a 6800GT, and it wrote to the screen during POST. But I think it depends on how the OEM configures the video BIOS. Mine was a PNY Verto.
 
Mine is a PNY also, so I guess that means that something is wrong. I vaguely recall reading something about flashing the bios on a video card. Do you have any experience with this?
 
My 6600gt gt would write out, as would all my 3DFX cards. None of my ATi cards would though. I always figured it was manufacturer preference wether or not to put up anything.
 
>> do you have any experience with this

Not beyond reading about it. Never seemed worth it to me to get whatever small advantage the tweakers thought they were getting.
 
Markbnj,

The only reason that I asked about the flashing, was because I thought that it might solve a problem. But I went to PNY, and I found nothing there to download, be it firmware, software or drivers.

I did install Coolbit via a reg file that I merged, but I started having some problems, even though I didn't tweak anything. I'm getting artifacts across the desktop wallpaper. When I first noticed it, I refreshed it and most of it disappeared, but the artifacts returned and wouldn't refresh away. So I rebooted...the artifacts disappeared, but as the desktop was finishing loading, it blinked black for a second, like when changing resolution, and the start menu wouldn't appear. I rebooted again, and it seemed normal. I would uninstall Coolbits, but I don't think that is possible with a reg merge. Now, I'm wondering how to tweak it to solve those problems.
 
Hmm, you shouldn't have gotten artifacts just from installing coolbits. All it does is tweak a registry setting to make additional advanced settings available in the nVidia control panel. If you didn't use those settings to crank up core or memory clock speeds, and I assume you didn't, then it definitely would not cause artifacting. I think you have something else going on here. Might be a good time for a 7600GT 🙂.
 
Since this is an AGP system, I think that you meant a 7600GS. But, since I just bought this card, I'm not going to buy another...especially that one, because it has a lower performance than the 6800GT.

You may be correct, and it may just have been a coincidence that the artifacts appeared immediately after installing Coolbits, but I have never believed in coincidences. The artifacts may have appeared without Coolbits, but the card had ran perfectly for the first 3/4 of a day that it had been installed. The artifacting has not reappeared since I rebooted, so it may just have been a fluke...I don't know.
 
Well, this card went just went south. I sent the seller this message:
There is a problem with this video card, and I want to return it to you. The problem started as described here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=27&threadid=1971754

When I went to sleep last night, it seemed okay, but when I awoke, the screen was filled with snow. I rebooted, but was never able to reach the desktop again, because after the logo screen, it went to snow again, and automatically rebooted to a black screen. Since I was able to see the bios screen, I thought something might have gone wrong with the OS, so I booted into another Windows OS. This time it strugggled to the desktop before rebooting like before. I went back to MCE and tried Last Known Good Configuration, but that acted as before. I reinstalled my old 6200, and everything returned to normal.

There is something seriously wrong with this card, and I do not want it. How shall we proceed?
Click to expand...

I guess that I'm stuck with the old 6200 until this gets cleared up.
 
Good luck with it. It sounds like the card may have been overheated in the past (I'm guessing it was a used card, but if not then maybe it is just flawed). Hopefully the seller will make good.
 
The seller has been sending me PMs claiming that I used Coolbits to overclock the card. I attempted to explain to him that I was simply checking it out, as you suggested, and never tweaked anything. Then he started in on my comment asking about flashing the bios, though I explained both in the thread, and in the PMs to him, that I never even found a bios, much less having used one. He has called me a liar, saying that I was trying to make a fool out of him. It appears that the only fool would be me, if I continued arguing with him. I do not know if the card was overheated before, because I asked him in the beginning, if it had ever been overclocked, and he said that it hadn't. But then he was the second owner of the card, so I guess that he taking the first owner word for it. I am new at buying anything second hand on the forums, but this will probably be the last time.
 
Sorry you had such a poor experience. I haven't bought any second hand gear either, so I can't offer any insight. I don't think I would be comfortable with a 3rd-hand graphics card, but then if you got a good deal it was probably worth a shot.
 
I gave $110 for it, which would have been okay, without the problems. I'm wondering what it would cost me to have PNY repair it? I have the original receipt, but the seller did not know if it was ever registered or not, so I would probably have to pay for it out of my own pocket. I would prefer to spend a little more than have to deal with this guy any more.
 
I changed the title of this thread, because it is no longer a matter of any kind of homebrewed fix. Does anyone know what is involved in having the factory repair a video card out of warranty? If they fixed it, would they guarantee anything?
 
I got to wondering, when I thought about buying a 6800 Ultra, the seller advised me that it was a 2 slot card. I thought that meant that it physically required the extra space. However, after reading an article about AGP Pro cards, they required the extra space for air circulation. I asked the seller of the 6800GT, if this was a 1 or 2 slot card, and he said only 1. Since it was mentioned that the problem with this card could be from overheating, I would like to know if it was caused by overcrowding it?
 
"Two-slot card" generally means that the cooler physically takes up another slot alongside the graphics card, meaning that it is tall enough to prevent another PCI card from being inserted.
 
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