help please - is it my vid card or my power supply??

[hickens]

Hello,

I just bought an eVGA 6800 GT (AGP 8x version) to upgrade my boyfriends Geforce 3 ti200. I don't have another computer to try it on, so I need help...My problem is that when he puts in the new video card and turns on the computer, the monitor stays on 'standby', and then about 2 or 3 minutes later it turns on and goes to the asus bios screen....theres certain parts where it wants to freeze up a bit, but then when he gets to the power/ temp area it says this:

1c/33.5F

CPU Fan 19640 RPM
Chassis Fan 19640 RPM
Power Fan 19640 RPM

VCore Vltage 0.03V
+3.3V Voltage 0.03V
+5V Voltage 0.05V
+12 Voltage 0.12V

But if he plugs his old video card back in, the monitor turns on right away & all the voltage and stuff is fine, althought at boot it goes to the asus bios screen too.

If he tries to leave the bios screen with the new video card, the monitor just turns itself back to standby mode again.

I had called eVGA when I thought the monitor wasn't turning on at all, and they told me the card was DOA.....but is it? (The guy wasn't very helpful, he asked like what kind of motherboard and what my old card was, and then told me it was dead) Or do I just need a better power supply???

Just in case it's needed:

Asus P4S333 Mobo
Enermax 350W Power Supply (it's like 3 years old)


Oh, and also, the power oconnector that came w/ the vid card....it has 3 connections total....one connects to the vid card, the other to the power supply, and the other to what? Or is it supposed to hang out by itself? lol My manual doesn't go into specifics, just says to plug it in.

And....in the Troubleshoothing in the manual, the couple of questions that kind of sound like my problem, one of them says the monitor driver needs to be updated??? But I can't find a new driver for a Phillips 109B anywhere....so could that really be it???

Thanks soooooooo much for any help!!!

[Midknyte]

the cable with the video card is just a splitter. you don't really need it. just plug the psu directly into the video card. there should be no other hdds or cdroms on the line going to the video card.

you might want to try a bios update for your motherboard. use the old video card to do the bios flash.

350W should be sufficient, but that is assuming you aren't running a lot of hard drives, etc. you can calculate your power requirement here:
Power Supply Calculator (http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/)
Tech Tools (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=173743)

It wouldn't hurt to try another PSU, though. 6800GTs can draw a lot of power.

It's not the monitor driver. you're having problems at the POST.

[hickens]

Not to sound like a retard....but how do I update the bios? I've been trying to figure it out for the past couple of hours and everything I've read on how to do it is pretty confusing to me because I've never done it before.

In the motherboard manual it says to create a backup of the bios in DOS....but then I have Windows XP and when I looked online it says XP doesn't have DOS??? I'm pretty sure I had used DOS before though....all it is is the C pompt screen, right? But I can't remember how to get there.

Then it says to create a floppy with Aflash.exe and the new bios and to update it, and if something goes wrong, not to restart, but to change it back to the old....well, how am I supposed to know if the new bios messes everything up if I'm stuck in DOS?

I'm sorry, I'm not usually this dumb when it comes to these things. Is there like an Updating BIOS for Dummies article somewhere? :(

[Midknyte]

you need to make a bootable diskette and run the bios flash from there. you don't run it from winxp. if you're not experienced at that, you may want to get someone to help. we can try to help you here, but that ain't gonna do much good if your system is in DOS mode. you can end up with a dead board if you don't do it right.

go to the asus site and follow their directions about the bios flash. you need to download the latest file from there anyway.

before you flash, read what the next bioses fix. there is a readme on each version to say what problems they resolve. look specifically for nvidia fixes. if you don't see any, then a bios flash may not be that helpful.

[Ol'Tunzafun]

That card will draw over 200 watts under full load. I think nvidia recommends a 480w PSU for it.

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=7800gt&page=5&cookie%5Ftest=1

[Midknyte]

That was a previous recommendation, but nvidia later changed it to 350W.

I'm not saying that a better PSU wouldn't help, though.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/print/20040514055549.html
“For users who want to run the GeForce 6800 Ultra at its standard clocks, a good quality 350W power supply is more than enough. In fact a number of web-sites have done reviews of the GeForce 6800 Ultra using a 350W PSU. Based on this and additional test time that we have had with the GPU, our new minimum power requirement is a 350W power supply,” Mr. Alibrandi explained.

[misjudgedinall]

Does that card even support AGP 4x backwards compatibility?
Because her boyfriends motherboard dosn't support AGP 8x.
If you can give me the modle number of the card I can check.

[Midknyte]

yes it should work fine on the 4x. The 6800GT is a universal 8x AGP card.

http://www.ertyu.org/~steven_nikkel/agpcompatibility.html

[RamonGTP]

That card will draw over 200 watts under full load. I think nvidia recommends a 480w PSU for it.

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=7800gt&page=5&cookie%5Ftest=1


not quite. That was TOTAL SYSTEM POWER CONSUMPTION, not the video card alone. They're also running a P4S333 which suggests an older system that likely doesn't draw as much power as todays systems.

[Ol'Tunzafun]

Doh!!

[hickens]

So...I bought a new power supply, and tried that, and that didn't make a difference. Then the computer wouldn't work with either his old or his new video card, so I gave up and took it to the computer shop in town. The guy got it to work with the old video card again, but said that he didn't think that the new video card was compatible with my boyfriends system but he wasn't sure. But when i called EVGA the first thing they asked was what my motherboard was, and they didn't say anything about it not being compatible. I don't know, I figured he would have messed with the bios if that was the problem because I didn't want to mess it all up. Should I just give up on the card and buy a completely different one? Or was it really just DOA and exchange will work? Oh...and it said something in the user's manual about updating AGP drivers after installing the card. Could it be that I need to update it before I put the new card in? (if so...where would I find an update? :()

[hickens]

Oh, also, I read something about if the slot that the sound card is in and the agp slot were both the same IRQ that it sometimes causes problems? I just checked and his sound card and the video card are both IRQ 11. He has a Sound Blaster Audigy...but if the whole IRQ thing is it, then wouldn't the video card he's using now give him the same problem??

(Sorry for all the questions)

[Midknyte]

Systems are meant to share IRQs. that shouldn't be the problem. you can always try removing the sound card to see if it helps.

agp drivers would be the chipset drivers. you'd have to look and see if there are any updates for your SiS board. You can try the Asus site to find out what you have, but they may not have the latest set.

did you try the video card in another computer?

[hickens]

Okay, so I figured I'd let ya'll know what ASUS told me just in case anyone else has this problem (doubt many people have this old motherboard at all, but still haha).

I RMA'd the 6800GT for a 6800GS AGP 4x/8x and still had the same exact problem. Bottom line, don't bother trying to get a 4x/8x AGP to work on an ASUS P4S333, because this is what they emailed me(took them a week to reply):

Dear Sir/Madam,
Thanks for support of our products!
The P4s333 motherboard has a 4X AGP slot that will only support a card that runs at 1.5v , the 6800 video card has a new technology that the card runs at 0.8 volts. You will need to use a card that runs at 1.5 volts.


I don't know if that even makes sense...but that's all they said. I do know it's not the cards, and check this out:

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/printthread.php?t=54274&pp=50

I found it after the second card wouldn't work either. That's like 2 years ago....but it's "new" technology that is responsible for it not working? If they really wanted to they could release a patch that fixes it up, right? I don't know really, it's just frustrating.

Eh, anyway, gives me an excuse to upgrade to PCI-E x16 and get a 7800gt :) Plus I told NewEgg about it and they are refunding my restocking fee on both cards and giving me $10 shipping credit :)

Thank you all for your help! I truly appreciate it!:D