Leadtek 6600GT AGP - Faulty or Incompatable?

[NZedPred]

I just purchased a Leadtek 6600GT AGP card. Unfortunately all is not well, both in Windows and Linux. I have tried the card in two different PCs, and have not managed to get it either stable or artifact-free.

The specs of the two PCs are as follows:

Main PC - AthlonXP 2400+, Asus A7N-266C, 350W Enermax Power Supply, SB Audigy, 2 hard drives, one DVD burner, Leadtek Video Capture Card.

Second PC – Athlon 1200+, Asus A7V, 300W Power Supply (unsure of brand), Aureal Vortex 2 (yes, I have one and still use it!), 2 hard drives, a CD burner, a DVD rom.

The problems I've experienced are as follows:

Main PC running Windows XP

• Some difficulty when installing drivers with intermittent crashing during installation.
• PC will generally only get to the desktop the first reboot after installing drivers, after that it's pot luck.
• Severe artefacts running Vampire Masquerade and Half Life 2 (both Source engine games - basically there would be stray polygons stretching out all over the place), however none in Unreal Tournament (the first one) in OpenGL, although I couldn't play it as it would crash.
• A black vertical line is present from top to bottom on the right side when viewing DVDs in PowerDVD in full screen mode, and the line is still there but smaller when in windowed mode. It won’t crash however.
• To ensure it wasn’t just Windows issues, I installed a fresh copy on a spare drive, and again after installation of the drivers, it would boot once, but crashed each time after that.

Main PC running Linux

• Seemed to install fine, and played Super Tux in OpenGL fine. However, I updated the drivers from 71.67 to 81.78 and from there it would crash doing simple operations such as browsing files using Nautilus. Over time, this became worse where it would crash when the display manager started, and now the X server won’t even start.

Second PC running Windows XP

• Proved to be more stable in that it wouldn’t crash, however upon playing games (Far Cry and Motor Cross Madness 2) after say 10 seconds, the display would turn red and green, and other artefacts would appear (e.g. textures would have 'noise' patterns running down them)

On both PCs after running a game, there were no artefacts once returning to the desktop.

Does it appear that the card is faulty, or that I’ve just lucked out with incompatibilities?

[Gentle]

Look at the power supply sticker.

Tell us the specifications on the "rails".

The +3.3v +5v +12v (the negative ones too) and the AMPS for each rail.

Thank you.

Gentle

[BigE4u]

Power supplys need serious consideration when dealing with newer video cards of today, you will want a minimum of 420watts with at least 26a on the +12v rail to function correctly on a quality built unit. Another thing to remember is when connecting the molex power plug to the video card, make sure theres nothing else connected, it works best when its a totally deticated line. If your having similar problems with the same card in different systems, im thinking it a bum card, return it for another like it or try a different brand.

[NZedPred]

OK, thanks for the replies so far. I've dug up the specs for the power supplies, listed below:

Main PC - Enermax EG365P-VE

• +5V 32A
• +12V 17A
• +3.3V 32A
• -5V 1A
• -12V 1A
• +5VSB 2.2A

Second PC - Hyena 300W (can't find model, but obviously it's more-or-less a 'no-name' in terms of quality)

• +5V 25A
• +12V 10A
• +3.3V 14A
• -5V 0.5A
• -12V 0.5A
• +5VSB 1A

From what you've said BigE4u, both of the power supplies are below spec for successful operation, although I do note that Nvidia only recommend 300W PSUs for the 6600GT AGP, I guess this is assuming much higher quality than what I have. The Enermax is probably 4 years old, and the Hyena maybe even 6 years old!

I did some experimentation as well on the main PC. I removed all the excess peripherals, leaving just the hard drives (needed both, can't boot off the spare hard drive - partition tables are apparently invalid), video card and sound card (not even DVD attached). Whilst I had marginally better success than before, I went a step further and down-clocked the CPU from 133MHz to 100 MHz FSB. The difference was pleasantly unexpected - no longer did I have issues getting to the desktop, it got there every time. I even managed to play some games (call of duty, SW:KoToR, Tenebrae) and run some demos. Whilst I still got crashing on occasion, overall stability was greatly improved.

This suggests that a better power supply is in order. Would it be an idea to stick with Enermax? They were amongst the most highly regarded from a few years ago weren't they? How about Antec?

As an aside, one thing I will mention that wasn't improved at all which I suspect is a driver issue is image quality in Vampire Bloodlines and presumably other source engine games. I've attached a screenshot of how things look (ignore the black at the bottom quarter of the screen, for some reason the GIMP was playing up). This was with the 77.77 drivers, but I had exactly the same things before with the 81.98 drivers. Anyone else getting this?

[andy_nv]

The main rig should be OK, 17 amps on +12 with an Athlon Xp 2400+ and 6600GT is within normal limits, especially with an Enermax PSU. I've built tons of systems with Athlons 64 754 and 6600GT AGP at work - with 350W Enermax, Antec and Chieftec PSU.

On another note I'm guessing there might be something wrong with the cooling sollution on the video card , maybe it's not making proper contact and the GPU is overheating.
In the end maybe you just have a bad card and should RMA it.

[NZedPred]

Thanks for that andy. I've tried some more games whilst underclocking the CPU even further (since it seemed to be helpful), and Far Cry shows similar artefacts to Vampire and HL2. 3D Mark 2003 either won't start at all or won't get to the first test, so I've done my fair share of testing and will now send for an RMA.

[a12ctic]

Originally Posted by BigE4u

Power supplys need serious consideration when dealing with newer video cards of today, you will want a minimum of 420watts with at least 26a on the +12v rail to function correctly on a quality built unit. Another thing to remember is when connecting the molex power plug to the video card, make sure theres nothing else connected, it works best when its a totally deticated line. If your having similar problems with the same card in different systems, im thinking it a bum card, return it for another like it or try a different brand.

my 6600GT pci-e runs perfectly in linux with 350watts, although it crashes in windows for some reson

[alucard_x]

i run an enermax 350p-ve (i think, i know its 350w) and a 6800 (non ultra) with no issues. also running a amd xp-mobile 2.3ghz, 1gb ram, etc

[NZedPred]

OK, an update... Got the replacement card, and it works fine ..... in my second PC only. In the main PC, the stability issues have mostly cleared up, however the artefacts continue. I tried running dxdiag, and was surprised to find when running the D3D tests, that only the DX7 interface test displayed properly. The DX8 & DX9 tests showed missing polygons, or polygons stretching out where they shouldn't have been. This leaves me thinking that there may be a driver issue somewhere, but I'm not sure where.

Is anyone successfully running an nForce 1 (not 2, or later) with a GF6600GT? If so, what drivers for chipset etc do you have?