Just got a new Geforce 4. Having problems.

[Maniac9127]

So FedEx dropped off my new MSI GF4 Ti4400 yesterday and tried installing it today. I uninstalled the drivers for my previous card (V5), took it out, put in the Gf4 and booted up.

Win2k installed the drivers off the cd just fine, but after restarting the computer, windows started, but before I could do anything it just rebooted, and since then it's been rebooting randomly. At first I thought the card was defective, or my powersupply wasn't good enough (300w antec), but it works fine in safe mode.

I've tried everything I can think of. I tried installing the 28.32 drivers, but they wouldn't install, so I tried the 28.90 drivers. I tried AGP 1x/2x, turing off fast writes. Loading fail safe options in the BIOS. Taking out sticks of ram (2x256). Doing the hokey pokey and turning my computer around.

The odd thing is I think it sort of helped, the computer reboots less often (reletively). For example, now I can start up dungeon seige and play a game, before it would restart from just trying to start it up, or it would get to the menu and restart, or it would reboot at the intro movie. But the computer is still quite unuseable. It still reboots from everything and anything.

I also tried installing it on a different computer, but after I installed the drivers from the CD, win98 would crash at the boot screen.

So, is my card faulty? Did I do something wrong? Anyone have any idea on how to fix this, or should I just RMA it?

Thanks in advance.

Oh yeah, system stats are here

 

[PowerMacG5]

Try using the drivers from nvidia.com. If that doesn't work you might want to check your regitry for anything left over by your old card. Worst case scenario I reccomend doing a clean installation of windows and starting from scratch.

 

[rgowen]

I second the clean install of Windows. Mixing videocard company drivers is never a good thing as they always linger in your registry.

 

[Maniac9127]

I tried using the 28.32 drivers off the nvidia website, but they wouldn't install. The program ran and appeared to install everything but after it restarted windows was still using the standard VGA drivers.

I really don't want to resort to reinstalling windows. Such a chore. Doesn't windows 2000 have it's own uninstaller program that'll remove all the registry entries that a program installed? Are there any programs that will clean out the registry?

Thanks.

 

[Maniac9127]

Ok, so I got a spare drive that I had and tried installing Win2k on it (with the gf4). I booted off the CD and ran the setup stuff just fine, but when it restarted to run the install program it would reboot every time. So then I tried the same thing on another computer and it works just fine.

So now I'm guessing that the gf4 doesn't like something in my system. What could it be? The first system is this, and the second one is this. Could it be the AMD 761 northbridge?

Man, I'm really confused now.

 

[SCSIfreek]

Do you happen to have a USB HP Printer driver in there? If so try uninstalling your HP Printer driver then install you video card driver first. Hope It helped.


--Scsi

 

[Bozo Galora]

the single greatest reason for GF4 not running is multiple ram sticks and their interleaving can't correlate
the the data madness that comes from nvidia GPU. (chipset corelogic timing)
the second reason is that ram banks have voltage taps in pairs, so if you put two sticks adjacent, and the
geforce starts going nuts, there will not be enough voltage for a PAIR of side by side sticks to run efficiently

try this: a SINGLE stick of 256MB HIGH QUALITY RAM in slot nearest to CPU, if this doesn't work, up the
voltage on the ram till it does.

the third reason is PSU grossly inefficient - your 300W is not nearly enough. When in safe mode theres no
drivers - no 3D accelleration - no AGP

the fourth reason is PSU/mobo combo cant supply enough instantaneous voltage at bootup for bios to say
card is good to go.

Thousands of people all over the web are having these probs. The GF4 is a mess - basically NVidia chasing
performance numbers to the point of selling a card that doesnt work reliably for a great percentage of end
users - aggravated further if you run via chipset and 4 in 1's

 

[Maniac9127]

<< the single greatest reason for GF4 not running is multiple ram sticks and their interleaving can't correlate
the the data madness that comes from nvidia GPU. (chipset corelogic timing)
the second reason is that ram banks have voltage taps in pairs, so if you put two sticks adjacent, and the
geforce starts going nuts, there will not be enough voltage for a PAIR of side by side sticks to run efficiently

try this: a SINGLE stick of 256MB HIGH QUALITY RAM in slot nearest to CPU, if this doesn't work, up the
voltage on the ram till it does. >>

I tried taking out one stick of RAM, but it still kept rebooting. Plus the second system has 2 sticks of RAM and it works fine, tho they're only 128mb. I'll try increasing the voltage and with a fresh install of windows.

<< the third reason is PSU grossly inefficient - your 300W is not nearly enough. When in safe mode theres no
drivers - no 3D accelleration - no AGP >>

I was suspecting that untill I installed it in my other system, which has a 250w PSU. I wouldn't think a 250w Enlight would be able to out perform a 300w Antec from a 1030. I could try switching them.

<< the fourth reason is PSU/mobo combo cant supply enough instantaneous voltage at bootup for bios to say
card is good to go.

Thousands of people all over the web are having these probs. The GF4 is a mess - basically NVidia chasing
performance numbers to the point of selling a card that doesnt work reliably for a great percentage of end
users - aggravated further if you run via chipset and 4 in 1's >>

There's something else that doesn't make sense. First system has an AMD northbridge, and the second one does.

Oh well, I'll try some more stuff and see if I can get this thing to work.