Dead 6800 Ultra?! Just my luck!

Daz

OK so this is awesome. I just ordered my shiny new monitor, but it won't be here for a while yet. But today, when I went to turn on my PC, my display on the current monitor was so dark and faint I couldn't make it out. By the time XP booted up, I literally could not make out the words. Imagine turning the brightness *and* contrast way, way down on your monitor and that's about what it looks like. I can't navigate around windows. Nothing. But I can vaguely just about see it If I turn out the lights and strain my eyes. My first instinct is the monitor is borked ( my, what excellent timing, I'm thinking ) but as a test, I try an old vid card lying around. I throw in the 32 meg TNT2, and it all works. I go back to my Ultra, again, almost blackness. No matter how much I play with cable connections or the seating of the card, no improvement.

The card is over a year old, so no warranty. Anyone heard of anything like this? Seems mightily weird to me. Now it looks like I gotta shell out several more hundred bucks for a new card, cos this TNT sure as hell doesn't like my Maya models!

Keg

ouch sucks to hear that. I went with bfg just cause of the lifetime warrenty in case such a thing happens.

Sean McBride

Very weird! Usualy when a card dies dosn't it start going kind of bonkers? Messing up rendering pixels and throwing verts around? I've accualy seen a card that was partly burnt up and it was pretty wild. I've never heard of a card seeming like someone turned down the brightness but I guess anythings possible.

KDR_11k

Perhaps the connector is fried?

ScoobyDoofus

I'd say its unlikely that its the connector. If it were the connector, you might get flipping, or odd color.

Might be the DAC.(Digital-> analog converter).

Are you running DVI to the monitors or VGA?
Are both monitors displaying this same symptom?
Try using the DVI>VGA converter (usually included). If it is the DAC, I'd think it'd bypass that anyway and go straight out to the monitor fine. But then again, Im no video card engineer.
If it is the connector and youre using VGA..same thing. Problem solved.
The DAC is the only component that would fail, that I can think of, that would produce that sort seemingly analog signal degradation symptom. Digital electronic failures tend to be more of a binary nature (works or it doesn't).
You can get that repaired I think, and I'd imagine it wouldnt be that expensive. Cheaper than a new Vid card anyway.

Good luck!

arshlevon

i would also try another another power supply.. 6800's suck tons of juice..so if the power supply is kinda borked and isnt putting enough out i can see it having problems.. i think a tnt2 can run off a watch battery.. heh..

KMan

You sure it's out of warranty? What brand of 6800 is it? I know that PNY and BFG Tech have lifetime warranties, not sure about the other ones though.

b1ll

computer suck, just last friday (1weekago) mine went KABOOOOm, couldnt load the damn thing at all, Change power supply twice, formart, reformat, fix, crash crash and crash, spent like 500$ just trying to fix it, End up buying a completly new one , got it 2 days ago, DAMN was annoying. Now im late in work,emails and news, DAMN!

Goodluck. I suggest kicking it. it doesnt help, but ya know..


b1ll

TelekineticFrog

Daz I just had the same thing happen 1 week ago! My 6800 up and went poof on me. I was playing WoW and my monitors went really dark and then started prompting signals back and forth saying Analog/Digital, as if no video signal was being received. I couldn't make any sense of it and so rebooted. It wouldn't come back up, the screen that is. So I thought how nice my card's gone dead on me. I even tried another power supply to check it and no go. I thought for sure I was out. My 6800 was also just over a year old. Fortunately after calling up the manufacturer, PNY, they said that it must be a fault with the card and they'd be happy to replace it with a new one if i just provided a sales receipt and the bum card. Seems they have a limited lifetime warranty and technical failure of the card due to manufacturing is covered. I sent it in on a friday and got a new card the following wednesday. Popped it in and back in action. I will definitely keep them in mind when buying another video card. BFG has a very similar policy.

flaagan

funny.. cause i'm having problems with my bfgtech 6800... though bfg tech says that it's the new forceware drivers effin with the 6800 and not the card itself on the fritz...

Joshua Stubbles

Odd. I've had a PNY 6800GT since they came out, and not a single problem. This is the first I've heard of people having issues with them =\

Soul_Reaper

I've had one for almost a year.
Now I'm all worried that I'll need to replace it soon.

Mark Dygert

1) Was it a BFG? They over clock most of thier cards and "say" they are safe but I have seen a lot of BFG's burn out. So much so that I won't buy one. We have customers call/email in saying "after hours of play my game crashed". If they have a BFG or they over clocked the card themselves we have them under clock it and SOMETIMES it works if the damage isn't too bad.

2) Could it be a monitor driver issue? I know it sounds wierd but XP isn't the smartest at picking the right monitor driver. Most of the time the actual monitor manufacture has better drivers. XP is starting to show its age like win98 did when it comes to internal driver DB's. Also make sure you don't have any card tweaking software installed, the kind that tries to force certain refresh rates can cause issues when the wrong monitor driver is installed.

3) I would try the card in another system, if it's borked there too, you MIGHT try different video drivers, or even under clocking the card.

Thegodzero

Yeah comps can have some really shity timing for breaking down. I just got mine up and running again after a week of fixing and replacing new parts. I didnt even get to finish what i was working on... Good to know its just your video card, mine was the videocard, motherboard, and the processor, and the windows on my HD was dead too. So your lucky, but it still sucks.

Daz

It's an evga. The monitor Im currently running it on is ancient. Im using an DVI>VGA connector. Scooby was onto something with it being some kind of analog failure as opposed to an issue with the card chipset itself. No amount of playing with it all day saturday fixed it. I got the very very faint dark but unusable signal out of the one output, and no signal at all out of output 2. I was out all day yesterday but bizarrely I tried it again last night and I have a totally fine working signal from output#2, but #1 doesn't work ( well, it's still the very dark, very faint signal as before ). So I have it working for now.
That's a good idea Vig yeah I'll bring the card to work.

Slayerjerman

Sounds like an excuse to upgrade to the 7800 Ultra

bwahahahaah ^_^

Daz

yeah, that crossed my mind actually til I realised I'd have to basically get an entirely new pc to support pci-e!

KDR_11k

What CPU and RAM are you using? Couldn't you just get away with getting a new mobo?