Problems with new 6800GT

I ordered a new Gainward 6800GT Golden Sample video card last week and got it on Friday. I immediately tossed aside my old GF4 ti4200 and breathed a huge sigh of relief when I confirmed that the massive Gainward was going to fit inside my case. I made sure the power connector was nice and secure and turned it on to find massive pixel tearing and other distortions (http://avisynth.org/tom/6800GT/Gainward_6800GT_Golden_Sa mple_errors.jpg) from the very first seconds. (This pic was taken as a screenshot - I also took actual pictures of the monitor which can be found below.)

You can see the large amounts of tearing and distortion produced by this card on my system even in the DOS bootup sequences and in the BIOS screen! I decided I would install the correct video drivers and update my mobo's nForce3 drivers too. As I suspected, neither fixed the problem. I even tried another DVI cable for my 1800FP as well as using a DVI -> VGA converter and hooking it up VGA. Same problems. Well crap, I thought, here I am on Labor Day weekend with a new video card that's essentially DOA. I called up the reseller and put in an RMA request, then reinstalled my GF4 + old drivers and everything was normal again.

Well, earlier today I thought I'd make sure it was the card that was at fault so as not to go through unneccesary hassles. I had my roommate try the card in his computer, and to my surprise it worked flawlessly! Games ran perfectly with all the settings up at 1600x1200, children smiled, flowers bloomed, etc. So, I tried it again in my box and got the same distortions & tearing that I had seen before. WTF?!

Has anyone read anything about this being a problem? System:
A64 3000+
MSI K8 Neo Platinum mobo
Gainward GeForce 6800GT Golden Sample / Leadtek GF4 ti4200
1gb Crucial PC3200
WD 74gb SATA Raptor
XP Pro SP1 (legit version)

Here's more pictures of the tearing:
mobo splash screen (http://avisynth.org/tom/6800GT/Gainward_6800GT_GS_Pixel_ Tearing_1.jpg)
XP splash screen (http://avisynth.org/tom/6800GT/Gainward_6800GT_GS_Pixel_ Tearing_2.jpg)
desktop 1 (http://avisynth.org/tom/6800GT/Gainward_6800GT_GS_Pixel_ Tearing_3.jpg)
desktop 2 (http://avisynth.org/tom/6800GT/Gainward_6800GT_GS_Pixel_ Tearing_4.jpg)


Any help is greatly appreciated.

PSU maybe ?

I had something similar happen with my GeForce Ti4400, but it was a defective card.

Can you update your AGP slot?
Maybe see if the card is sitting in there snug?

Dunno man, hope you get it working, I was drooling over the 6800 GT OC at Best Buy the other day and when the CSR refused to knock the price down I was forced to leave or I'd have lost my rent money. :-)

Bios update for mobo or the card isnt getting enough power but I'm not sure if it would react like that.

PSU maybe ?
i'm running an Antec TruePower 550w PSU. i do have 7 HDs total in the case, but i've tried unplugging them all and still get the same results :/

Hey marantz thanks for the deal, mine came in as a Golden Sample :O!!!

I get to try it out at home. in another 2 hours.

Edit: Funny thing is I just had ordered mine 2 hours before they changed thier website with the Golden Sample as a different card/price.

Anywho heres my Thanks to you :D

Oh and this problem you described once happened to me when my System RAM had developed a bunch of dirt on the connection the Mobo. So you RAM may be bad or dirty.

Have you tried underclocking the video card to see if it is a heat issue?

i flashed the BIOS on the card and on my mobo today to their latest versions to no avail. i'm pretty much clueless now and am about to buy a new Asus mobo to replace my MSI because it'll be cheaper to get a new mobo than it will be to send the card back :/

Oh and this problem you described once happened to me when my System RAM had developed a bunch of dirt on the connection the Mobo. So you RAM may be bad or dirty.
glad to hear you got a GS :)

...but my comp works fine when i put my old GF4 in instead of the 6800GT so it can't be dirt in the RAM :/

Have you tried underclocking the video card to see if it is a heat issue?
No, but it works fine on my roommate's computer (and fucks up from the get-go on mine) which pretty much tells me it isn't a heat problem.

I had a similar issue with a msi k7t266 pro2 and a radeon 9600 pro. Turned out to be the mobo but I learned that issues like that are usually related to the vid card ram (either bad or getting too hot).

No, but it works fine on my roommate's computer (and fucks up from the get-go on mine) which pretty much tells me it isn't a heat problem.
I read your post. If your case is poorly ventilated, heat could easily become an issue. However, doing it right as it cold boots points away from that. Still worth a try though. Not like it takes much effort either.

i flashed the BIOS on the card and on my mobo today to their latest versions to no avail. i'm pretty much clueless now and am about to buy a new Asus mobo to replace my MSI because it'll be cheaper to get a new mobo than it will be to send the card back :/


glad to hear you got a GS :)

...but my comp works fine when i put my old GF4 in instead of the 6800GT so it can't be dirt in the RAM :/


No, but it works fine on my roommate's computer (and fucks up from the get-go on mine) which pretty much tells me it isn't a heat problem.


Hm weird. I Have an MSI Mobo too, MSI K7N Delta I think, and I did not have this problem when I started up. Did you try and reset all your BIOS settings? Use AIDA to test and see if your Chipset or whatever are having problems with your MOBO when the 6800 is plugged in? or something could be touching your V-Card since this thing is huge, thats causing it to short out just inside your case. Like in my case the card touches a capacitor on the mobo but isn't causing anything funky like in yours.

other then that iounno mang. sorry :(

Err it's not likely the fact that it's MSI, but it still could be the mobo.

Well, I pulled the mobo out of the computer and have it sitting on an antistatic bag. Since the board is out and I can see stuff a little better, I peered under the massive structural frame of the 6800GT to ensure there was no contact between its metal frame and the chipset heatsink, which is directly below it along with a capacitor or two. The frame clears both obstacles by a few millimeters, but I tried everything below both with and without an antistatic bag between them with the same results. The only things I have attached to the mobo are the 6800GT, RAM, CPU, and my boot drive.

In BIOS, I still get lots of distortion and whatnot, but when XP booted up it looked normal! Breathing a sigh of short-lived relief, I installed the 61.77 drivers along with ExpertTool and rebooted. Again, there was tearing and distortion in the BIOS and load sequence screens, but this time when Windows loaded it looked horrible, filled with tons of distortion and tearing. I didn't touch a single thing during the reboot, so wtf?! I checked in ExpertTool to ensure the 2d and 3d settings were the same (both at the very minimum speeds: 350/1000); they both were set to the minimum by default.

Anyway, I decided to uninstall the driver and try it again, and to my surprise I'm back with the 6800GT running driver-less and looking relatively normal. I do notice one or two pixels messing up, and every five seconds or so a string of them will appear, but it's much better than with the drivers installed. Now I'm even more confused. :confused:

Next step is trying my roommate's PSU, I guess. On a more interesting note, if you try to start the card without the power connector attached (happened for a split second initially, oops!) it blasts out an ear-splitting squeal similar to an airhorn. Hehe :)

When you say without the drivers installed, you mean without the Windows default drivers as well? 640x480 in 256 colors would be without drivers (VGA mode), which is not controlled directly by the video card. That might explain the less pixelated stuff. Doesn't help your cause much though. ;)