Geforce 6800 upgrade problems

[Vae]

Upgraded to a geForce 6800 last Friday from a ti4200 and only had problems since then.

So if anyone can offer advice/suggestions on what to try on the following I'd appreciate it.

I'm getting several Graphical instabilities in windows none of which are consistent:

1) Flicking to a black screen for a second then back to windows but the graphics haven't updated and it takes them a few seconds to update at which point it'll soon flick to the black screen again. This repeats and it seems that the computer is tied up all the time and can't process any actions except slowly.

2) Gfx corruption when loading in. The windows loading screen shows some corruptions in places and then doesn't disappear properly when it should to reveal the desktop

3) Switching to a black screen once loaded when I try to do anything and doing nothing

4) I'm getting the dreaded error 132 in World of Warcraft which supposedly represents a memory problem but covers a multitude of problems and I fixed last time it happened by upgrading my motherboard (A7N8X-Deluxe) bios. I don't think it's a memory problem since all was working pre the gfx card upgrade. I will try Memtest later when I get home though.

I've tried both the original Nvidia Gfx drivers which came with the card which meant I got lockups in Wow and some gfx corruptions. I disabled my 2nd monitor (and unplugged it) but this didn't solve the problem so upgraded to the latest Gfx drivers which only seem to have increased the problem.

I've also upgraded the motherboard drivers to Nvidia's latest. Also adjusted some bios settings but I'm getting the feeling it all must be driver related but haven't managed to narrow it down. I don't think it's a memory problem as it was fine prior to the gfx card update.

Unfortunately I can't go back to the ti4200 as I managed to damage one of the components when removing it which pissed me of at myself royally as I'm normally utterly careful with everything.


Spec:
AMD 2800+
Asus A7N8X-Deluxe
2x 512Mb 3200 DDR
Geforce 6800

 

[Gengi]

Hi Vae,
It could be a faulty card from what you just described. When I built my last system, I would get similair issues, especially vertical lines on my system.
It was an XFX 6800GT I RMA'ed it and the new one never had any problems.
One other thing, the power supply, are you using the power only on the graphics card or is it shared with something else, I have read that the cards like to be fed from a supply of their own.

Later

 

[Gray]

Why hello...

Not been in here for ages, WoW has consumed most of my actual forum time which is i guess a good thing.

Ive had my 6800GT for exactly a year now, and for some unknown reason the past month has seen it having hissy-fits also. While in game i would usually crash, or lag so much that i would get a BSoD (nv4.disp file), or just have a black-screen flicker, ie, go off for a few seconds, come on, go off etc.

I do suspect it maybe heat related for me, one time it got so bad that i couldnt load WoW at all (Speckles all over main-menu, shocking graphic-lag). I had to sort that out by giving my PC a spring-clean of dust, i took out my Graphics Card and burnt my hand it was that hot :/ (Nvidia was showing that it was around 110ºC+ at one stage. Sometimes when resetting also i get the ill-fated "Commodore-Effect" just before the Windows-screen, and then everything is back to normal.

Kinda miffing me off its happening though, i have been looking to add an extra-case fan to the Window, but dont know if i should or not

 

[inactionman]

What is your power supply rated at, and who makes it? (Bear in mind that a crap PSU rated at 500W is only about 300W really). Looking at the old card and the rest of the system, it may not be delivering enough juice to the card (graphics cards didn't draw as much power back in the gf4 days!).

You really need a decent 350W power supply for a 6800GT

 

[Honza]

might be:
1. faulty card
2. weak PSU
3. overheating (which I don't think so... modern GPUs work on low frequencies in 2D, they should not get overheating problems)

imo this is PSU problem - since former card was Ti4200 I guess PSU is older and I bet it on about 250-300W range...