Problem: Motherboard or Video Card at fault

edrisk · Post by **edrisk** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:50 pm

Hi, I'm pretty new to the forums. This is my first post outside of the notebook section.

I'm a systems builder and computer technician. I'm working on upgrading a friend's PC and ran into a bit of a puzzle.

My friend is currently running a AMD XP 2400, old gigabyte board (can't remember the name), 512 PC-133 Memory, and a Leadtek 5900 128MB AGP AD360TDH. He wanted to upgrade to a AMD 64 3200, so I replaced basically everything with new parts except the video card. He didn't want to upgrade even though I told him about the wonders of PCI express.

The problem is this, I got an ABIT AV8 board for him, 512 PC3200 DDR Dual Channel OCZ Memory but whenever I use the old video card ... WINXP won't boot I get a blue screen and it restarts (think its the nvdisp error but the thing boots too bloody fast to see it).

So I take the video card out, put in an old FX 5200 laying around and it works perfectly. To test the 5900 video card I put it in my testbed machine (ECS RS400 motherboard which supports AGP express, PCIexpress, DDR1, DDR2 along with a intel 630 processor) and it works great. I've run 3dmark on both and they tend to pass (though some tests are skipped since they don't support the features).

Am I missing something? I usually build new systems and rarely ever upgrade because of these kinds of potential problems. I'm thinking the 5900 video card (which is about a year old) may be the problem but since it works perfectly with the intel machine (and worked great prior to upgrade), I can't tell him that the video card is bad.

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:54 pm

sbohdan · Post by **sbohdan** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:56 pm

kenc51 wrote:PSU?

just what I was thinking. might be to small with all the upgrade

edrisk · Post by **edrisk** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:59 pm

I have a thermaltake silent power (think its 430 or so). The testbed machine is running a similar model (might be 480 not at machine atm). I also monitored the voltages and they seem to within the normal range. CPU temperature doesn't seem to be a issue either.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:02 pm

Did you format the HDD? Give us the full system specs, I mean everything.....we'll put our heads together and make a rock pile.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:03 pm

have you tested the proc on another pc?

try different ram slots....sometimes (especially abit) boards needs ram in certain slots

are you certain the GFX card fits in the slot fully, no capacitors etc. getting in the way?

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:04 pm

capper5016 wrote:Did you format the HDD? Give us the full system specs, I mean everything.....we'll put our heads together and make a rock pile.

edrisk · Post by **edrisk** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:52 pm

Haven't had the chance to try out another MB. Most systems I build have PCI-express rather than AGP. The hard drive is brand new, and I've formatted it.

ABIT AV8
Processor: AMD 64 3200 Vinece Core
Powersupply: Thermaltake W0070RUC TR2 430W
Memory: 1 GB (2x512) DDR (400) PC-3200 OCZ
Seagate 200 GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA

Video Card that fails on AMD 64: WinFast A350 TDH
http://www.leadtek.com.tw/eng/3d_graphi ... onameid=39

Video Card that works:
Chaintech FX5200 SH5200
http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw/eng/prod ... &PISNo=300

Both cards work on my testbed PC, but only the FX5200 works with the AV8 motherboard.

I think the CPU is fine since everything works great with FX5200 but since I don't have another AMD 64 motherboard on me, I can't test it for sure.

Thanks for the help.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 5:59 pm

Again, did you format the HDD and reninstal WinXP before switching boards?

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:04 pm

bios update?

edrisk · Post by **edrisk** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:49 pm

Bios is fully updated.

1. formatted the system when I first built the PC with the 5900.
2. put in the 5200 without reformatting at first. Worked perfectly.
3. then formatted the system with the 5200 installed (for testing) worked
4. installed then installed 5900 without formatting same problem.

I did not reformat the test system (ECS RS400), I used that mainly to test if the 5900 is working. I ran 3d mark on both systems, with all possible configurations and the 5900 seems to work great on the test machine.

I've tried using different memory slots as well as using just one dimm, no help.

The only problem is when I put the 5900 in the AV8, the system freaks out. Going to try the video card on another PC this weekend if I can't figure out what is going on.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:59 pm

My first suggestion would be try run Driver Cleaner....wipe out the video card drivers installed on the system.
If that doesn't work, I'd probably format the HDD on his system.....switching mobos isn't usually just plug and play...... sometimes there are driver conflicts that can bork the whole setup.

pointreyes · Post by **pointreyes** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:39 pm

About the PSU.
What is the amerage rated at on the 12v rail? Wattage rating is rather useless if the amerage is not that great on the 12v. I would think that a Thermaltake would be ok though.

edrisk · Post by **edrisk** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:50 pm

I think the power supply is okay, its at 18A here is the link to the exact product.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817153023

Just finished a reformat on his system, still doesn't work.

Going to try a different motherboard, maybe the AV8 has some issues with some old crappy video cards. =D

pointreyes · Post by **pointreyes** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 9:02 pm

I consider 18amps on the 12v to be weak. My 485w has 18amps on each of the two 12v rails. Another sign of a questionable PSU is the amps on the 5v rail. To claim a high wattage they put a lot on the 5v with a lower 12v which was fine on the old systems but the CPU and Video card uses the 12v on these newer systems. On a P4 system I had, I had to get a 430w with 20amps on the 12v just to power up the system.

edrisk · Post by **edrisk** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 1:09 am

Well it isn't the best PSU but it should be able to handle the basic system configuration. Also the 5900 was running fine on some generic 400 Watt PSU.

I'm going to test it with a different model amd 64 motherboard and see if I can get the thing to work. If has the same problems then either the Video card may be going bad or it may not be compatiable with AMD 64's.

I've had the 5900 video card in the P4 630 Test system and its been very stable even when running 3d benchmarks back to back.

Thanks for the input, I'll keep you guys posted.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 1:51 am

I don't think its the PSU...Thermaltakes are usually pretty reliable. I also think that system is fairly small.
My guess is the mobo might be bad.....Its just hard to try and sort through everything. You obviously have started out with a fresh install of Windows, the chipset drivers, DirectX, then you video card drivers.
You also have the latest BIOS, so from a driver standpoint, everything should be fine.

Post by **Apoptosis** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 9:37 am

I dunno those 5900's were very power hungry. My Thermaltake silent power 480W PSU was the worst PSU that I ever owned. I had similar crashes and I took a volt meter and when a game started the 12V rail dropped down to under 11... Believe it or not after I changed my PSU to a better on all my benchmark scores went up since the machine was getting full power. My suggestion with on of the older Thermaltake PSU's to check the voltages with a volt meter while thesystem is running and launch a 3D application and i'd be willing to bet the 12V rail drops and the system crashes. Did it to me on 3 of their PSU's on the test bench about a year back.

tnynyn · Post by **tnynyn** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 2:06 pm

On the system thats failing, put in a video card that works and prime95 and memtest it for a few hours. make sure all the other components are working. are you oc the system btw?

edrisk · Post by **edrisk** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 3:23 pm

Sorry for the lack of updates on this issue, internet has been down for a few days.

Anyways over the weekend, I came to the conclusion that the specific video card (leadtek A350 TDH with VIVO) has some serious issues with certain AMD 64 Platforms especially the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset.

I was bored so I decided to try out different motherboards while trying to have all other components as close as possible. I used some of the components from my other PCs and visited Fry's Electronics and bought a few open box motherboards to test as well, hoping to find a AMD 64 3000 motherboard that would work with the video card. All systems were updated with the latest bios and drivers AND there was a clean format / install of windows XP Pro SP2 with each swap. That’s right, I spent this weekend installing Windows 7 times ... what fun.

Here was the set up
1. ABIT AV8 Motherboard + AMD 64 3000 (939) K8T800 Pro chipset
2. MSI K8T Neo2-FIR + AMD 64 3000 (939) K8T800 Pro chipset
3. ECS NFORCE3-A939 + AMD 64 3000 (939) nVIDIA® nForce3 250

4. Gigabyte GA-K8U + AMD 64 2800 (754) ULi M1689 chipset
5. ECS RS400 + Pentium 4 630 (LGA 775) ATI® RADEON XPRESS 200
6. ECS 848P-A7 + Pentium 4 640 (LGA 775) Intel® 848P & ICH5
7. MSI 865PE Neo2 + Pentium 4 2.8GHZ (478) Intel® 865PE Chipset

Here are the other components used:
OCZ 1GB PC3200 Memory (2x512MB) Premier Series
Thermaltake TR2 430Watt
Segate 120GB Hard Drive (SATA)
Generic CDRW + DVDROM
WinFast A350 TDH 5900 128MB AGP 8X
Floppy, 1 120mm fan(out take) and 2 80MM Fans (intake)

Plan B Video Card: Chaintech FX5200 SH5200
If 5900 failed, test system with this.

All AMD 64 (939) Configurations failed with the 5900, the ABIT and MSI systems crashed during boot up, blue screen restart. The ECS configuration actually loaded windows but froze up randomly. The systems worked perfectly with the 5200 card. The FX5200 was able to run 3dmark 03 and 3dmark 05 (though very slow) just fine. Horrible scores were to be expected. That takes care of systems 1,2,3

System #4 (AMD 64 754) partially worked with the 5900 card, though there were some random restarts and a few strange visual distortions while running 3dmark 05. Again system worked great with the 5200 card, ran through 3 loops of 3dmark 03 without a scratch. Couldn’t get 3dmark 05 to complete a full run. Used same memory as other systems but operating at single channel.
All of the Pentium 4 Systems (setups 5,6,7) worked perfectly with the 5900. Ran 3dmark03 and 3dmark05 without a hitch and got some semi-decent scores to boot. The 5200 card ran extremely slow but was able to get past the finish mark.

Though I’m sure I made a few mistakes and oversights in my testing, I’ve decided that the Leadtek 350TDH FX5900 will not work with AMD64 platforms.

As for my friend, he decided to buy a PCI-express card, XFX 6800GT DDR3 w/ SLI ready. I returned the motherboard to the vendor and exchanged it for a ABIT AN8 SLi motherboard. Still waiting on the parts though. =/