Dead 8800?

[nath]

Howdy,

So I switch on my computer today and I start noticing a couple of graphical glitches in 3d games - moments later, total system halt.

Reboot and when I get in to windows and get an NV4_DISP.dll bluescreen.

Reboot and try a game again, same tearing and moments later a full system crash.


I'm assuming my card is completely dead - thank fuck I've got 2 months left on my warranty. Can anyone shed any light on what might have caused this? I don't overclock (the card is a BFG factory overlocked unit though) and my system is adequately cooled.

I'm trying to hold back the desire to chuck my PC through the window so any information would probably alleviate some of this rage

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jonty]

Hi nath

Have you tried updating your drivers and making sure everything is up-to-date? It's a simple suggestion, but it often helps. I've never owned a BFG card, but I do recall their support is quite generous, so hopefully they'll take care of you.

Kind regards

 

[nath]

Yup, I'm on the latest nvidia drivers (non beta). My pc now doesn't even boot past the log on sceen, just locks up there. On the phone to BFG support now (7 minute queue I'm told). Hopefully they're as helpful as you say :S

 

[Clown]

I recently got that on my laptop. Not quite a bluescreen, but whenever I loaded my computer Vista would complain about it. Incidentally this only started happening when I uninstalled my old drivers, rebooted, then used Driver Cleaner which deleted that .dll - Reinstalling my drivers or rolling back the drivers didn't help. I had to use a disk image to restore it to how it was.

It's all fine now though.

Vista *cough* Ultimate *cough*, Forceware 174.12, nVidia 8400GT

P.S. BFG support is fantastic. I sold my card on to Sockstuff here, which be destroyed by trying to put a new cooler on it. They replaced it under their lifetime warranty thing.

 

[nath]

I was reading that the lifetime warranty requires you to register within 30 days. Is that right or just a recent addition? Don't remember anything about that when I bought it and I can't see any stuff in the box that says that.

I'm on XP (you should be ashamed of yourself clown ) and I can't see how it'd be a driver issue given all that tearing and that it just started today, yesterday it was fine.

I managed to get through and the absolutely miserable sounding american girl said she'd send me the details of where to return the card via e-mail, not received anything yet but hopefully this ordeal will be resolved shortly. Stuck on my laptop right now which is running XP with 128mbs of ram. It is not pleasant.

 

[Kryten]

Nath, a chap I know on IRC has had identical issues *from new* on the factory overclocked BFG units, and thankfully for him BFG have been most helpful. He found that they actually ran perfectly fine at the 8800's stock speeds.
It'll certainly be worth chasing up - BFG are apparently rather good with their service and quite quick at it.

This chap though, bought one from new - got glitches and crashes, wasn't amused. Downclocked it, even considered keeping it at stock speeds (despite the BFG unit being stock overclocked) - sorted out an RMA (to an address in Wales) and the replacement was identical. He's now asked them for a bios for the card at absolute, non OC speeds, he doesn't want the hassle.

Wondered perhaps if it was more an issue with other hardware in the system but it's not exactly a slouch. Not long after hearing about that, I heard something about bad batches of cards from BFG too.

Worth keeping in mind.

 

[nath]

Thing is this has happened after about 10 months it working fine, so it's less likely that it's a faulty batch. I'm still waiting on the RMA email to tell me where to send the card - I tried calling again 3 hours later (they said it'd be half an hour) but was in a queue for about 15 minutes before the line went dead. I'm now chasing things up via email to see if I can get anywhere. Not sure I wanna faff about with underclocking it - I just want them to get it working again asap.

 

[Clown]

Haha, Socky had to send his to Germany or something stupid. He had to wait about a week to get one back though.

 

[nath]

Oh ffs. I'll have to buy some cheapo PCI-e card in the meanwhile if that's the case. Lameoo.

 

[Kryten]

If you get stuck, I can throw a cacky ATI X1300 your way for a tenner - one of those dual head cards therefore also requires a dongle to plug a standard screen into the back.

 

[nath]

Oh that's great Kryt - I've received an email back from BFG and things are moving along. I'll let you know if I need it.