Is my 6600 fried? If it is then what caused it?

[DIoxyde]

Hey there, I'm hoping you guys can help me figure this out because I can't get a hold of the "24 hour, 7 days a week" BFG Tech support for the life of me, I've been on hold for hours both yesterday and today...

So anyways I purchased a geforce 6600 GTOC from BFG 5 months ago and until yesterday it worked fine. I was playing a game and my comp hard crashed. I thought that was kinda weird but I rebooted and the display was totally messed. There's lines everywhere and everything is distorted. I tried re-seating the card and the boot up screen was clean and clear so I thought maybe that did it...but when it got to windows everything was still totally messed up.

According to the NV tool that came with the card I've never seen the temperature of the card get very high at all. I assume the card is fried and can be deemed worthless, I just wish I could get a hold of BFG, and I'd also like to know what the heck did this? I should mention that I installed an e-mu 0404 sound card recently, I guess that could have had something to do with it? Any help at all is greatly appreciated, thanks.

Windows XP Intel Pentium 4 3.0 ghz with 1.5 gigs of ram.

Some screenshots for your viewing pleasure :

Desktop : http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2904/desktop8ot.jpg
6600 Settings Box : http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/4146/nv0ge.jpg
6600 Settings Box after dragging it : http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2721/nv26db.jpg

[agentkay]

What kind of PSU do you have? Maybe the load reached a peak that your PSU just couldn´t handle anymore and its why you had a hard crash. PSU related crashes can do anything, from no damage at all, to killing every single piece of hardware in a PC. Post your full specs though.

[DIoxyde]

Thanks for the fast reply.

PSU is an Antec 400w, I asked the guy at the comp store if that would be enough and he said specifically because it was an antec that it would be.

Ful specs below :

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 – 3.0E GHz w/1MB cache with HyperThreading, 800 MHz FSB

Memory: 512 MB DDR PC3200 (2 – 256 MB modules for dual channel efficiency)

Hard Drive: 200 GB SATA Hard Drive, 7200 rpm, 8 MB cache

Other Drives:
16X DVD-ROM w/customized bezel
16X DVD Dual Double Layer w/customized bezel
Memory Card Drive for CF Type I/Type II, MD, MS, MS Pro, SD, MMC, SM, and xD, MagicGate MS,
Floppy Drive
Motherboard: ECS 915G-M, Intel 915G Chipset

Port Connectors:
2 PS/2
1 Serial
1 Parallel
1 Video (VGA)
1 Line-in
2 Line-out (1 front, 1 back)
2 Mic (1 front, 1 back)
6 USB 2.0 (2 front, 4 back)
2 Firewire (1 front, 1 back)
Power Supply: 350 Watt
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition w/SP2
Devices:
Open 16x PCI Express slot
TV Tuner Card
56K Modem
10/100/1000 LAN
Onboard Video
Integrated Sound

[nV`andrew]

Strange...that psu is more than adequate in powering that system because an antec smartpower 400w powers mine as well. Hope you can get your problems solved...

[snowmanwithahat]

here's a pretty important question... is it AGP or PCI-e

i've heard of a few 6600's not being good for AGP because the HSI bridge will actually start to die, it's just an idea though

[DIoxyde]

Originally Posted by snowmanwithahat

here's a pretty important question... is it AGP or PCI-e

i've heard of a few 6600's not being good for AGP because the HSI bridge will actually start to die, it's just an idea though

Ah yes sorry I forgot to mention it's PCI-E. Seems like I've had one problem after the other lately...damn computers =(
Hopefully I can get a hold of BFG tech support one of these days, but after being on hold for an hour and a half last night it seems like they aren't even there at all.

[agentkay]

I agree, the PSU shouldn´t have caused it, it has plent of juice to run your system stable (IMO), unless of course it was meant to die, then it can take a few things with it to hell. It´s still working though, so thats not it. You didn´t OC the 6600, right? If all your other hardware devices still work, then its pretty certain to me that your 6600 decided to die off. It´s kinda odd how it happened, but I guess its always like that. You still have warrenty, so RMA it.

Good luck on the RMA replacement!

Edit: I checked your screenshots (been blind that I haven´t seen them earlier), and it really looks like damaged memory on your 6600. There is nothing you can do about it and you shouldn´t have issues with the RMA process. GL!

[DIoxyde]

Originally Posted by agentkay

I agree, the PSU shouldn´t have caused it, it has plent of juice to run your system stable (IMO), unless of course it was meant to die, then it can take a few things with it to hell. It´s still working though, so thats not it. You didn´t OC the 6600, right? If all your other hardware devices still work, then its pretty certain to me that your 6600 decided to die off. It´s kinda odd how it happened, but I guess its always like that. You still have warrenty, so RMA it.

Good luck on the RMA replacement!

Yeah I reckon it will have to be RMA'd, good thing that it IS still under warrenty. I'm just as confused about this as you guys are, anyways thanks for the super fast replys! To answer your question though the card comes overclocked by BFG, but I didn't overclock it any further.

[nV`andrew]

At Best Buy they sell BFG Tech RAMSinks for video card memory. Maybe you should look into them next time, but this only occurs once in a while for one person unless your Riptide(:P), so your RMA should be a good card that hopefully wont fail you.

[DIoxyde]

Originally Posted by nV`andrew

At Best Buy they sell BFG Tech RAMSinks for video card memory. Maybe you should look into them next time, but this only occurs once in a while for one person unless your Riptide(:P), so your RMA should be a good card that hopefully wont fail you.

I do hope so, it looks like there was nothing I could do to prevent it, more so just one of those random things, or maybe it just happened to be a poorly made card. Anyways at least my girlfriend will be happy that I won't be able to play world of warcraft for a few weeks Ahaha...thanks

[Gentle]

A recommendation...

You really want a gig of system ram nowadays when you are running games with higher resolution and texture detail settings.

Good luck on your video card situation.

Gentle