Leadtek 6800GT PCIe problem

[paras1te]

Guys, I have a serious problem, I just can't fix. I own a Leadtek PCIe 6800GT with 256MB DDR3 RAM. The card seems to work fine (no artifacts at all, as I've noticed on other forums that some Leadtek 6800GT cards had artifact problems). The problem is, that after a period of time, the LCD display goes blank into standby mode, but the system gives no sign of restarting. After I manually restart the PC, it works fine until the LCD goes blank again.

I've tested the system with Prime95, 3DMark 2003 and 2005, and none of the tests crash the system. All prime95 torture tests ran fine for as long as I let them (over nights), and 3DMarks completed succesfully without crashing the sys either. I play Quake4, and it works fine, so it's not that it only crashes in 3d mode under stress. The LCD usually goes blank when I'm in windows, surfin the net or whatever I do in the win environment.

I first noticed this problem when I was installing SP2 on a fresh winxp installation. The system restarted before SP2 completed installing (the blue screen didn't show up, it was set to automatically restart). After the reboot, the system told me, that "the problem for instability is probably Leadtek 6800 GT". The 2nd time the problem apeared was when loading the first level of FEAR (it always goes blank at the same time in FEAR, but randomly in windows).

I've tried just everything, plugging everything out so just MB/CPU/RAM/HDD/GPU was installed, still the problem appears.

My configuration:
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice
EPOX nForce4 4x motherboard
512 MB DDR400 TwinMos RAM
Maxtor HDD 40GB (old, but had no problems with it)
550W power supply
and the Leadtek 6800GT PCIe 256MB DDR3

Please help me, as I don't really know what to do. I was putting the blame on the PSU first (as it's a cheap 550W MAX PSU, not 550 true power output). But if it works fine under stress in quake4 and in 3dmarks, it's probably not the PSU.

Thank you in advance!

 

[paras1te]

Oh, I forgot: I got the latest official graphics and chipset drivers from nVidia, dx9.0c, Windows XP SP2.

I also updated the motherboard BIOS to a new version.

regards

 

[deathwalker]

I'll put on my thinking hat and repost...but...this does not sound like a graphics "card" issue.

 

[paras1te]

Yeah, please post just anything that comes accross your mind, because I really don't want to take the card back, leave it there waiting in line for weeks, and than getting the same card back, with explanation that nothing is wrong with it.

Thanx.

 

[deathwalker]

You know..it would be ez to tell you to go out and buy another PS..but..based upon the fact you do not seem to be having any problems in games and various benchmarking programs that just wouldnt make any sense. Im wondering if your system crash during SP2 install maybe didnt corrupt something. If it was my system I think I would go the reinstall route..reformat drive and reinstall windows. You should really also go out and get instructions for slipstreaming your SP2 into your windows xp install operation, that would prevent you from having to install it seperately after you OS installation. For grins before you do all this you might try uninstalling your graphics driver and use Driver Cleaner 2 to remove all traces of it and then reinstalling the latest drivers. I would bet that a clean install after format would fix the issue. But first ..find the instructions for creating a xp install disk with sp2 slipstreamed into it.

 

[paras1te]

After the SP2 installation crashed, I borrowed an SP2 integrated WINXP cdrom, and reinstalled the whole system (including formatting the drive). And the problem is still here, so I don't think there's a problem with my windows installation. The next step is putting everything out of the case, and assembling the PC on my desk (cpu, ram, gpu, ps, hdd), and than try again. If that doesn't work I'll try to work with another gpu. Any other suggestions?

What about BIOS settings? Are there any specific settings I should consider?

Besides from that, I really can't think of anything else.

Thanx!

 

[xalar]

This sounds very similar to a problem I've been having w/ my 6800GT, paras1te. My thread is located at..

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=32&threadid=1711258&enterthread=y

...if you come up w/ a fix, let me know.

 

[paras1te]

So you guys think that this is probably not a graphics card error?

regarsd

 

[cshmny]

I am having the same problem with my MSI NX6200TC-TD64ES. I sent it back and they said nothing was wrong with it and gave it back to me, so I sent it back to them again and they sent me a new one. I tried the new one and it does the same thing still!!!!!! Is it because PCIE is a fairly new technology?? Help!