NVidia 6600 crashing my machine.
NVidia 6600 crashing my machine.
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hedders

Original Poster:

24,460 posts

277 months

Tuesday 8th November 2005
quotequote all
I had a mishap with my old card (128mb Nvidia Ti-4200) so i replaced it with an Nvidia 6200 (256mb) which gave me all kinds of grief /errors/ crashing etc.

I decided it must be a bad card so i upgraded to a nvidia 6600 (also 256 mb), formatted the hard drive and reinstalled windows for good measure and have the same problem with the new card.

It can't be a compatability thing with Nvidia and my chipset as my original card was Nvidia and the machine worked great.

When i try and run games with the new card, it loads up the game, shows me the opening screen and then locks up / reboots the machine. Sometimes after the reboot it will then run the game, but not at the kind of detail I would expect, it won't let me do anything above 1280 x 1024, which my old card would do with no problems.

The 3d bench marking software i used to use will sometimes run, but not well, ussually it freezes intermittently or crashes altogether, sometimes it just throws up and error message about my display adaptor and does not start at all until after a reboot.

I have tried various drivers for the card.

My system is :
AMD XP2500
768 mbs of ram, but i have tried it with 256 / 512 mbs to weed out any conflicts and there does not seem to be much difference even though i think the ram is slightly different.
XP Pro SP2
Nvidia 6600

Unfortunately my PC vendor is not interested as my 2 month old PC works with its on board graphics but not with my card. The people I brought the card from tell me it muct be a PC problem etc etc.

If any one could point me in the right direction I would be most grateful!

rsvmilly

11,288 posts

271 months

Tuesday 8th November 2005
quotequote all
Sounds like it could be power related.

Is there an aextra socket on the card to take a direct power feed from the PSU?

What PSU you you have in your PC? What wattage is it rated as and is it a cheapo case/PSU package?

FunkyNige

9,836 posts

305 months

Tuesday 8th November 2005
quotequote all
Power supply isn't up to the job.

hedders

Original Poster:

24,460 posts

277 months

Tuesday 8th November 2005
quotequote all
cheers guys.

Yes, there is an extra power socket on the Nvidia and it is plugged in...although i didn't notice it at first , the software immediately warned me that there was insufficient power until i plugged it in.

The power supply is a 400 watt jobby, do i really need a bigger one?

Added: And yes, it was a cheapo bare bones system that i have added more ram and a slightly better processor to, so maybe it just needs a better 400 watt supply rather than a bigger one?





>> Edited by hedders on Tuesday 8th November 21:56

rebelstar

1,146 posts

274 months

Tuesday 8th November 2005
quotequote all
I have one of these cards. The PC was freezing a lot in both Windows and Linux (so I know it wasn't the OS). In the end I swapped the existing 350W PSU for a big 600W one. Although it still freezes once in a while , it's sufficiently rare that I can enjoy playing games again.

hedders

Original Poster:

24,460 posts

277 months

Tuesday 8th November 2005
quotequote all
rebelstar said:
I have one of these cards. The PC was freezing a lot in both Windows and Linux (so I know it wasn't the OS). In the end I swapped the existing 350W PSU for a big 600W one. Although it still freezes once in a while , it's sufficiently rare that I can enjoy playing games again.


Ta for that!

I Can pick up one of those tomorrow.

rsvmilly

11,288 posts

271 months

Tuesday 8th November 2005
quotequote all
hedders said:
Added: And yes, it was a cheapo bare bones system that i have added more ram and a slightly better processor to, so maybe it just needs a better 400 watt supply rather than a bigger one?

As you say, a good quality on is what you require. I have an Enermax 460W running 2 optical drives, 4 HDs, an Athlon and a Radeon 9800 Pro (quite a power hungry card).

I also have a display on the front of my PC which shows the voltages of the supply and even with the above load, they are stable at 5.05V and 12.10V.

hedders

Original Poster:

24,460 posts

277 months

Wednesday 9th November 2005
quotequote all
I am going to have a word with my vendor in the morning and see if they use a different PSU when they use these cards in their machines, but they didn't mention it when i was speaking to them before, fingers crossed.



rebelstar

1,146 posts

274 months

Wednesday 9th November 2005
quotequote all
Bad memory can also cause things to crash/lock up. Google for memtest86 (it's free) for a very thorough testing tool.

malman

2,258 posts

289 months

Wednesday 9th November 2005
quotequote all
If it an AGP variety of card disable AGP fastwrite in the BIOS as this can cause havoc for little to no benefit.

>> Edited by malman on Wednesday 9th November 11:11

ErnestM

11,621 posts

297 months

Wednesday 9th November 2005
quotequote all
Is the AGP version of the card compatible with the AGP version of the motherboard? Something else to check...

ErnestM

TimW

3,848 posts

277 months

Wednesday 9th November 2005
quotequote all
Well another thing you cant usually run differnt ram cards.. they have to be teh same e.g 256/512, you cant run 256 and 512. they usually run adjasent... As for your card its NVidia thats your prob.

malman

2,258 posts

289 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
TimW said:
Well another thing you cant usually run differnt ram cards.. they have to be teh same e.g 256/512, you cant run 256 and 512. they usually run adjasent... As for your card its NVidia thats your prob.


*cough*

TimW

3,848 posts

277 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
Ey?

xiphias

5,889 posts

257 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
malman said:
TimW said:
Well another thing you cant usually run differnt ram cards.. they have to be teh same e.g 256/512, you cant run 256 and 512. they usually run adjasent... As for your card its NVidia thats your prob.


*cough*


Don't they teach you to spell anymore?!


And wtf is a ram card? Perhaps you mean sticks of ram, in which case you're wrong. You can run different sized sticks easily. And iirc, hes already eliminated that problem...

TimW

3,848 posts

277 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
xiphias said:
malman said:
TimW said:
Well another thing you cant usually run differnt ram cards.. they have to be teh same e.g 256/512, you cant run 256 and 512. they usually run adjasent... As for your card its NVidia thats your prob.


*cough*


Don't they teach you to spell anymore?!


And wtf is a ram card? Perhaps you mean sticks of ram, in which case you're wrong. You can run different sized sticks easily. And iirc, hes already eliminated that problem...



Errr, i have been told otherwise about the ram so that makes you wrongand my tv's better than yours.., IIRC you cannot run different ram as they run parralell?!?


No, they dont teach us to spell anymore as i went to a shit school where in my last year i didnt have one proper teacher all year... so keep the petty comments to yourself.

rsvmilly

11,288 posts

271 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
Back in the days of Pentium (1) you had to add memory in identical pairs (SIMMS)

Ever since the advent of DIMMS (P2 onwards) you can add memory one stick at a time.

The only time you need matching pairs is if you are looking to make use of dual channel memory mainboards

xiphias

5,889 posts

257 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
TimW said:
xiphias said:
malman said:
TimW said:
Well another thing you cant usually run differnt ram cards.. they have to be teh same e.g 256/512, you cant run 256 and 512. they usually run adjasent... As for your card its NVidia thats your prob.


*cough*


Don't they teach you to spell anymore?!


And wtf is a ram card? Perhaps you mean sticks of ram, in which case you're wrong. You can run different sized sticks easily. And iirc, hes already eliminated that problem...



Errr, i have been told otherwise about the ram so that makes you wrongand my tv's better than yours.., IIRC you cannot run different ram as they run parralell?!?


No, they dont teach us to spell anymore as i went to a shit school where in my last year i didnt have one proper teacher all year... so keep the petty comments to yourself.


If that's sarcasm, tis a poor attempt. And you can run different sticks, mainly because my brothers pc is doing so atm And your tv is better? WTF And omg he stuck his finger up at me. And without being difficult, I could spell adjacent by the age of 11.

Sorry for possible thread hijack, and being slightly childish.

malman

2,258 posts

289 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
rsvmilly said:
Back in the days of Pentium (1) you had to add memory in identical pairs (SIMMS)

Ever since the advent of DIMMS (P2 onwards) you can add memory one stick at a time.

The only time you need matching pairs is if you are looking to make use of dual channel memory mainboards


First prize of the teddy bear goes to - Mr Rsvmilly

rsvmilly

11,288 posts

271 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
Well thankyou. I'd like to thank my Mum!

It comes from years of building - and hence troubleshooting - my own games PCs. I haven't bought a whole PC in 10 years.