Needing some help sorting out a vid card issue

[Baghr]

OK,

I tested the connector with a fan, and it seems to work OK. I know this isnt load testing, but I just replaced the PSU with a Corsair 520W three rail modular system because I though the card was acting initially like it wasnt getting enough power. As it acted the same after changing power supplies, I'd say that is not the issue. I didnt wipe the connector off with alcohol but I'm pretty careful not to touch the connectors with my fingers for that very reason, When I try installing the card again I'll do that.

As far as the dirvers go, I use something called Driver Cleaner Pro, which does a good job of getting rid of old drivers and also cleans cabs out too. Ive never had an issue before with remnants of old drivers, but Ive never had this problem either. I didn't install the drivers that came with the card because they are pretty out of date, but I will try that to reason out the possibility of an issue there. I'm really thinking there is an issue with the 3D portion of the card, whether its a lack of power, driver, or bad card issue I'm not sure.


The BIOS I'm not sure of, I'll take a look at it later today when I have time. I'd like to mention the BIOS on the machine is from 2004 and has not been updated or modified. I dont have any experience in changing or messing with the BIOS. I have heard horror stories from flashing the BIOS, so I havent messed with it. I'm not sure what I'd be looking for anyway. I'll take a look to see if anything looks aout of place though.

Thanks for the replies. I hate sending stuff back, and want to make sure its the card that has an issue instead of the operator.

[Baghr]

I forgot to add I have since taken nTune off the machine, but it did not show any issues in other modes of the computer, and the game ran as slowly before I added nTune, so I doubt this had anything to do with the speed the sim was running.

I have put the old card back in and it runs fine without any issues. I am able to run the sim as before.

So, I'd say that is not the problem.

If anyone could help with pointers to make sure the BIOS is running right, I'd appreciate it. As stated, I dont have any experience with changing or looking for problems there.

**edited to say I checked the BIOS, with the video options being selected for AGP instead of PCI. I'm not sure what else to check that would pertain the the video card or issues****

[Baghr]

OK, latest updates.

I went back in and load tested the power connection by hooking up two hard drives, and two fans on the same rail with the same power cable. This checked out OK, so I'm saying the power supply to the card is good.

When installing the card I made sure the conection was good with the molex connector, and all was seated and happy.

I then removed all drivers and utilities by using Driver Cleaner Pro, rebooted into safe mode to run DC Pro, and followed instructions. I removed all traces of anything to do with ATI or Nvidia.

I then installed the program from the installation CD and ran a benchmark test. Same thing happened as before. I then uninstalled the drivers that came with the CD, and installed the newest drivers, with the same thing happening. After this I uninstalled the drivers and card, re-installed the 9600 and everything worked fine. I almost forgot to say I even went in and took out the hardware acceleration to test if that would make a difference. I was able to get the game to start, but it still took a while to navigate with the cursor, which would move every 3 seconds as compared to the thirty before. In 2d mode it would work just fine.

At this point I have tried everything posible mentioned here and that I can think of to get the card running, and have ruled out power or driver issues. I looked at the system's BIOS, and it was selected for AGP cards, which is right for my application. I have concluded the 3D function of the card is not working, and will be contacting newegg tomorrow for a return RMA. I had the same luck with Seagate hard drives, going through two duds before I told them to keep them and went with a WD, which fired up from the start. And the Seagate name always stood for quality.

So, I know electronics Quality Control is just about worthless these days, and will wait for another card that hopefully is working right this time.

I appreciate the help everyone had given me, and I've learned alot now about how to trouble shoot vid cards. I hope I can help someone else like you have to me.

Thanks again, Baghr

[SPUDLEY1977]

Sounds like you have defective vidcard. SOmetimes the best diagnostics are swapping a bad item for one that works. The date of NVIDIA drivers shouldnt matter, my experience is that older less "unified drivers" give me more FPS, so i stick with those. So you have reseated, swapped another card, and reinstalled and it is NO GO...I would agree RMA time.

Good luck sir and let us know how this ends up.

PEACE

[BadAim]

Good luck M8.

[bomath]

Allow me to doubt that the card is defective; I think 75% of the RMAs are not justified, and the vendors only send back replacements because they don't want the bad PR that would come from some loudmouths there.

I see that you did almost everything BUT a nice clean install for the Windows. I had the exact same experience a couple of times, when switching from nVidia to ATI cards and back to nVidia, solved only by a clean Win reinstall.

[WhiteSnake]

Fastest AGP card available is a GeForce 7600GT 256mb GDDR3 AGP.
The best you can get of those is the XpertVision GeForce 7600GT 256mb GDDR3, it has a nice big cooling block on it keeping the temprature nice and low even under the highest load.
With a 3.0Ghz Single Core CPU it runs even Crysis fine at Medium Settings.

I dont know why you bought a 7300 series card and why EVGA bothered with fitting 512mb on there but those are cards that are not suitable for most of the games from that came out the last 5 years. Even my GeForce 3 Ti 500 runs IL2-1946 better.
Found this out wen i replaced my GF 3 ti 500 with a 7300 card thinking it would be an improvment for my old computer.

[Baghr]

This most interesting information. I'm by no means a computer expert, in fact I have just enough knowledge to make me dangerous.

The reason I bought the 7300GT? I was looking for a card with 512mb RAM (cuz I read the sim likes it) and it seemed like a good deal. Please don't club the newbie. I thought I had done enough homework, but it appears I have not. As stated earlier, I don't know that much about computers and am new to IL-2, so I'm bound to make some mistakes along the path. I've never re-installed the OS, and it somewhat scares me, as I'm not sure if I would be messing up any programs by doing so. I know this is not a tech site, but if anyone could give me some pointers there...

The reason I ask these questions here is because I know all are interested in the same thing I am-to get our beloved sim working as well as possible. When I ask on other sites how to get my system tuned for performance, it might not be what is best for this sim, which would then be useless. Here I know you folks know what I'm looking for. Point is, I'm just not interested in spending a wad of cash on something that will give the added boost needed to play the latest first person shooter up to snuff, because I've no intention on ever doing so. I'm interestested in flying in IL-2, or Oleg's new sim. Period.

I'm an aviation nut, and all else pales in comparison. (I'm sure a few here can relate to that statement )

Many of you have been down this path before, and I'm just old enough that I can understand and learn to use other's information to my advantage....

I have not made the jump to online simming yet, as I have to "pay my dues" in the trenches fighting the AI before I move on. (while I can land a 737 in zero visability with a 30 knot crosswind under a complete ILS setting, this fighter buisness takes a little getting used to ) What I noticed initially was when playing some missions, my FPS began to stutter, which is no good when flying at tree top level. (I havent figured out how to display FPS in the sim, but will look around) I suppose I could cut everything back to the minimum settings, but at that point the sim isnt interesting to me. At a minimum I'm interested in running "Excellent" settings, with a goal of "perfect". I can set it up for the latter, but it turns into a slide show when getting in the thick of things....no fun. I know my system is outdated; It will be replaced when Oleg gets the new sim out so I can built it to the specs to run well in that. But we all know that's still a ways off yet.

So in conclusion, I don't want to buy a 200.00 card that will not make a difference because my cpu is the bottleneck. If the cards you talk about will work with my system, giving it an signifiant increase in FPS, I would be more interested in buying one. The money is not really an option, as long as I am being realistic about it. I'm not looking for 300FPS, I just want it to run like a movie insead of aslide show. I think a minimum of 25-30 FPS would be enough to get me through the rough spots on the settings I talked about earlier. I don't want to throw a bunch of money away in parts that can't/won't help an aging system in the first place. I have plans on using this rig for movie storage, media system and the kid's web brouser in the living room after I've got the new system up and running, which it should have no problems doing. I'm looking at another 5 years of use out of it before sending it to the glue factory....so spending a little extra now can be justified in my book. In this time frame, I'll probably be looking at over a year yet to be used on IL-2......

As an update, I have sent the card back, and am curently waiting on a new one. With a little reassurance, I will reinstall the OS if this is an issue again, as long as I know I shouldn't screw things up. (tips here would be appreciated) I do appreciate the input, and have a feeling there are others this is helping that have not posted due to a myriad of reasons.

Sorry for such a long post, but I guess I had alot to say. I really do appreciate all the help that has been given to me. My goal is to return the favor to others as I become better acquainted with the sim.
Baghr

[xtc_evil_twin]

I had a similar problem when I upgraded my graphics card to a HIS 2600 XT agp.
It turned out to be driver conflicts with an old sound card I had. I worked this out by the fact that on my XP x64 partition it ran perfectly, lol the sound card didn't have any x64 drivers, but kept crashing on my standard XP partition.
It may also be caused by other conflicts
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic40683.html
Good luck with the fresh install

[Baghr]

XTC, this is very interesting to hear, cuz of late I have had some issues with an older Creative Soundblaster Live! card. I seem to have some random issues with it making a "clipping" noise when in surround sound mode when playing the sim, where there is not sound except for this sound. Its not distorted, and the closest I can describe it sounding like a "farting" sound when in this mode, (sorry for being so crass), or overloading the signal, making a square wave sound.

I have done all the usual checks, removed and reinstalled, and have the original drivers because its not a new card and there isn't service for it anymore from what I have been able to find. The funny thing is I can start my webbrouser and play music, and no probs with the midi sounds, everytime. When doing a diagnostic, all perameters on the card check fine, just when testing the speakers does the "clipping" start. To add another fold to the mix, I can seem to test fine with left and right speaker; just appears to be problems with the surround sound. I can reset to default settings for the card and randomly and get a good test in surround sound many times without problems, then it resorts to the "clipping" again. Grrr.

Frankly, this one has me baffled. I cannot find the random issue, unless I play the sim, then the sound goes nuts again, but will sometimes run fine for a half hour or so, but only if it start that way, and will never revert to a good sound if started "clipping".... This card has worked well four years straight, but I have done some upgrades lately, and am clueless to what this is. Of course the troubleshooter does not cover this, and a search results in nothing. When checking under the device manager, all implies there are no probs.....and I'd hate to replace the card without knowing what the problem is. My gut tells me its not the card but a conflict somewhere that I am unable to find, based on my (and the troubleshooters guide) lack of knowledge or information.

My biggest issue (frustration?) is the fact its so random, and I cannot get it to come or go based on the areas Ive looked. I am gathering enough courage (and knowledge) re-install my OS soon, but I'll be hosed if I blow it there, without a way to get the system back. If I ever get this figured out, I'll post my findings.

All I want to do is fly, not be a computer tech.......