New graphics card broke Ut 2004...

Mick · Post by **Mick** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 9:54 pm

I bought myself a geforce fx 5900 today, and it's great playing with better graphics... for between 10 seconds and a couple of minutes when the screen goes black and the computer locks up.

Anyone know what's going wrong?

TKATK · Post by **TKATK** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 10:01 pm

got drivers?
maybe your comp is overheating,check ventilation,cooling?

neolith · Post by **neolith** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 10:33 pm

TKATK wrote:got drivers?
maybe your comp is overheating,check ventilation,cooling?

If you checked for all that and it's still not working, then it might be your gfx card ram.

MassChAoS · Post by **MassChAoS** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 11:13 pm

yes, it could be any of the above mentioned

-the card ram could be defective (or the card itself)
-you could have bad drivers
-the system could be overheating (given that you say its between 10 seconds and a couple minutes, this one probably has the least chance as the culprit)
-some other hardware conflict

does the system lock up only when playing ut2k4 or any other games?

Mick · Post by **Mick** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 5:22 pm

Well, I've done some testing and found that ut2004 causes problems fairly quickly as you start a game. I think it may be doing it mostly in when I'm in a fight, but it could be random (it doesn't take long for a bot to find you in death match).
Doom 3 does the same thing, again within a short period of time. Half life 2 lasted nearly 10 minutes before it came up with an error saying the monitor couldn't understand what the graphics card was telling it.
These are probably the most graphics intesive games I have, so that could be a factor.
The crashes themselves alternate between completely locking up, restarting the computer on its own after about 10 seconds of a black screen, or freezing for a while, then going back to windows but still having the black screen.

The drivers are up to date, so it's not that, and I'm running the computer with all the fans going and the side of the box off. It could still be overheating (the back of the card felt hot before the crashes) but if it is there's nothing more I can do about it.

TKATK · Post by **TKATK** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 5:38 pm

had the same on my old comp,theres nothing you can do short of hardware swapping

jb · Post by jb » Tue Jan 11, 2005 7:24 pm

It almost sounds like a bad card. Can you get an RMA and have the company send you a replacement card?

MassChAoS · Post by **MassChAoS** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 5:15 pm

Actually running with the cover off may be hurting you... if you have two case fans making air flow thru the case from front to back, you should be okay with the cover on. But from your descriptions, I'd say the card is bad or overheating.

MassChAoS · Post by **MassChAoS** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 5:16 pm

Oh, and using up-to-date drivers is not always the best idea. I've had two or so cards that would only work properly with the original drivers that I got out of the box.

Mick · Post by **Mick** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 9:58 pm

Thanks for the advice everyone, but I took the easy option and took it back to the shop. I've now got a radeon 9800 pro now which is working fine.

jb · Post by jb » Wed Jan 12, 2005 10:20 pm

Mick wrote:Thanks for the advice everyone, but I took the easy option and took it back to the shop. I've now got a radeon 9800 pro now which is working fine.

yea

SideWinder · Post by **SideWinder** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:03 pm

wow, i almost got that card, good thing i stuck with nVidia

jeditobe1 · Post by **jeditobe1** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:18 pm

uh.. nvidia was the one he had problems with...

SideWinder · Post by **SideWinder** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 7:19 pm

uh-oh...