Please help me with a video card issue (April 2011) Now resolved

[cranioscopical]

Dear Aunt Agony,

Can someone be kind enough to give me a piece of information about hardware?

My wife's machine runs XP SP3.

The computer has an ASUS P5LD2 motherboard (ASUS P5LD2) with 2 Gig DDR2 memory. This board uses PCI Express X16 for video, and its video card died. The dead card was an Asus GeForce 7300 GS with 256 Meg DDR2 SDRAM. The machine died and then came up with vertical lines on the boot screen, a munged Windows start screen, and then failed… every time.

My extremely limited hardware know-how (more properly don't-know-how) does run to replacing a video card but I live in the middle of nowhere, so there's not much choice locally. Just about any video will do for this machine, however.

All I could get on short notice is a ZOTAC(?!?) GeForce GT 430. This has PCI Express 2.0 support and 1 Gig DDR3 SDRAM. So, that's what I bought.
I removed the old drivers, powered off and inserted the new card: machine came up perfectly well.
Installed the new drivers, rebooted: machine came up perfectly well.
Updated the drivers to the latest version, rebooted: machine came up perfectly well.

The trouble is that, once I start to access some software pffft, down it goes. With the new card installed the machine runs okay in safe mode with network support and, to my surprise, at 1600x1200.

So, before I start digging, can someone tell me if there is something inherently problematic, from a hardware point of view, about replacing this 256 Mb DDR2 card with a 1 Gb DDR3 card that has PCIE 2 and DX 11 support? Or, is it going to be driver conflicts etc… ?

Yours truly,

Lost, in Limbo

[f0dder]

The GeForce 430 is probably (guesstimate, haven't looked at specs!) more power-hungry than the old card. Perhaps the PSU isn't delivering enough Watts, or is slightly flake and have voltages that drift too much? Could also be a motherboard problem, if it's voltage regulators are flunky; there's been known problems with too cheap capacitators on several motherboards.

[nudone]

I've heard similar problems before and I think one answer was to check if you need an extra power cable to the card - because it's easy to overlook that kind of thing. I know I've done it.

[f0dder]

I've heard similar problems before and I think one answer was to check if you need an extra power cable to the card - because it's easy to overlook that kind of thing. I know I've done it.

-nudone (April 17, 2011, 09:06 AM)

Ah yeah, that would result in a very unstable machine - I thought later-gen cards all refuse to even start if the additional power cables haven't been installed. Some even come with buzzers so you get some very nifty/nasty audio warnings

[nudone]

I've heard similar problems before and I think one answer was to check if you need an extra power cable to the card - because it's easy to overlook that kind of thing. I know I've done it.

-nudone (April 17, 2011, 09:06 AM)

Ah yeah, that would result in a very unstable machine - I thought later-gen cards all refuse to even start if the additional power cables haven't been installed. Some even come with buzzers so you get some very nifty/nasty audio warnings

-f0dder (April 17, 2011, 09:08 AM)

Probably so. It's a long time since I dealt with any new hardware.

[cranioscopical]

Thanks!

@nudone; good thought, there's no extra power connection on this card
@fodder; I'll check the PSU

[cmpm]

I would reset the bios to setup or standard defaults.
Then, if you can get online, update the drivers from Nvidia.

http://www.nvidia.co...ndex.aspx?lang=en-us

Try option 2 with IE first.
Firefox and that site don't play well together.
For me anyways.

Here's option 1 results for that card and XP.

http://www.nvidia.co....58-whql-driver.html

Or use another computer to download the correct drivers.

[cmpm]

hm, another thought....

Computer - 256 Meg DDR2 SDRAM
Card - PCI Express 2.0 support and 1 Gig DDR3 SDRAM

Will that work?
DDR2 for the computer and DDR3 for the card?

[f0dder]

Yeah, no problem there cmpm - the memory on a discrete GPU is separate from the main memory.

[cranioscopical]

Thanks for the further thoughts!

The problem card's in an Antec case with a 430W PSU. There are 2 HDDs and a CD-ROM and that's about it for power draw. That ought to be enough ought it not?

Meanwhile, I've ordered an el-cheapo 256Mb DDR2 replacement card and my next step, when that arrives, will be to try that in the machine and see what transpires.

I notice the software that comes with the card to adjust its clock speed etc. doesn't affect anything, so I'm beginning to wonder if this individual ZOTAC card is flaky. Seems unlikely but stranger things have happened to me.

@cmpm; good idea about the drivers, thanks for the link. As it happens, I'd updated to 266.58 almost immediately after installing the card.

[cmpm]

Yes, I figured you had updated the drivers.
Sometimes I run on what windows provides automatically for a little while till I get to updating.

Reminds me of a card I bought once.
Everything was green, sent it back and ordered a better one.

Thanks for that about the memory not being a problem, f0dder.

[cranioscopical]

Reminds me of a card I bought once.
Everything was green, sent it back and ordered a better one.

-cmpm (April 17, 2011, 06:23 PM)

With mine I'm beginning to see red and feel blue. 

[cranioscopical]

The card is now working and the machine is running fine.

Yet another driver clean-out/re-install, plus some software repairs, and it looks okay. A whole lot of commotion created mainly by my uncertainty about whether using this particular card had any hardware ramifications.

Thanks for your help! now, if you all will keep the relevant parts of your anatomies crossed…

[Stoic Joker]

now, if you all will keep the relevant parts of your anatomies crossed…

-cranioscopical (April 18, 2011, 10:27 AM)

But I can't type with my eyes crossed...

[cranioscopical]

But I can't type with my eyes crossed...

-Stoic Joker (April 18, 2011, 11:20 AM)

In that case, you already know why I made the request 

[wraith808]

The GeForce 430 is probably (guesstimate, haven't looked at specs!) more power-hungry than the old card. Perhaps the PSU isn't delivering enough Watts, or is slightly flake and have voltages that drift too much? Could also be a motherboard problem, if it's voltage regulators are flunky; there's been known problems with too cheap capacitators on several motherboards.

-f0dder (April 17, 2011, 09:05 AM)

Just as an FYI (late I know...)

GeForce 7300GS 23.1W Power Consumption at load
GeForce GT 430 49WW Power Consumption at load

Not sure what kind of CPU you're running, but that's a small amount of difference to cause failure for that reason.  And ZOTAC is a pretty good brand from my experience.