So.. my GF3 crapped out completely.

**Xpie** · Dec 10th, 2002, 00:51:56

I was in a 5 person team, just hanging around the mish terms in o-1 with my enf, when I started getting some vicious texture corruption (have a screenshot, I'll post it later).

The game promptly crashed, but windows was still up, although there were some artifacts on the UI.
I thought this might just be a driver issue, and downloaded the new Detonator drivers.

Wishful thinking. With the download at 81%, the screen went blank, but came back on after a gruelling 10 seconds, at 640x480, 256 colours, and a nice prompt that said "Windows detected a device failure and recovered".

Oh bullcrap.

I have a windtunnel of a computer setup, with 2 intake/exhaust fans, though I had those turned off because of the current season temperatures (Cpu is normally at 38c). Put the fans back on, and the CPU was hovering at just about 30-32 idle in the BIOS.

However, upon booting, I got the scandisk prompt (corrupted files), and cancelled that scan. The monitor was showing small signs of graphical artifacts. My computer isn't overclocked at all, just equipped for stability with what was the best heatsink, fans, psu and the works a year and a half ago.

When windows was set to kick in and show me that spangly login screen it went blank.

Nothing.

Nada.

Poof.

I'm currently in the process of reapplying AS2 (thermal conducting goo) to the Graphics card, and I hope that will sort it out.

If all else fails; What kind of new graphic card can you recommend?

My gut feeling is that this card has seen its day.. (Asus v8200 Geforce 3)

My apologies to the team I was in; Gygax, Ellys, Those two agents..

**Toxinator** · Dec 10th, 2002, 02:23:10

ouch Xpie

**_________Slicendicen** · Dec 10th, 2002, 02:53:54

Hmm... My Geforce4 can't handle the spaceships without going to blackout. @#$%

**______________Fenris** · Dec 10th, 2002, 04:41:09

Radeon 9700 Pro. Its the best thing since Geforce 4.

**__________THEDEACON!** · Dec 10th, 2002, 09:54:03

If you'e in the states, call Affordable PC Services of Madison (in madisom, Wisconsin) I'll get j00 fixed up brotha, I have a couple of ideas as to what's going on....

**________________Neek** · Dec 10th, 2002, 12:58:34

Radeon 9700 Pro. Its the best thing since Geforce 4.

Agreed.

**Mneuromancer** · Dec 10th, 2002, 13:23:32

Originally posted by Fenris
Radeon 9700 Pro. Its the best thing since Geforce 4.

I have to disagree, sorry...

Quadro4 XGL900

Expensive...but well worth it, especially if you do more than play games =)

**Darkbane** · Dec 10th, 2002, 13:35:12

In terms of affordable power, GF4 Ti4200 is flat out winner, for raw power, that Radeon 9700 is the biz. NVidia have generally had better drivers, but ATI have been getting their act together in the last year...

**Zicoz** · Dec 10th, 2002, 15:02:38

bah Nvidia

hehe always wanted to say that=)

and now for you Mneuromancer:

Quadro cards are made for creating games, not playing games. I think radeon 9700 pro beats any quardo card in the normal tests, unreal, quake and 3d mark.

And I feel that 9k7 pro also is better ql/price, simply because I've seen is as cheap as 2.7k nok 1$ =about 8 $. How much does a 4200 cost?

ATi baby...

sorry for jacking this tread =)

**Zicoz** · Dec 10th, 2002, 15:07:49

bah Nvidia

hehe always wanted to say that=)

and now for you Mneuromancer:

Quadro cards are made for creating games, not playing games. I think radeon 9700 pro beats any quardo card in the normal tests, unreal, quake and 3d mark.

And I feel that 9k7 pro also is better ql/price, simply because I've seen is as cheap as 2.7k nok 1$ =about 8 $. How much does a 4200 cost?

ATi baby...

sorry for jacking this tread =)

**Xpie** · Dec 10th, 2002, 23:37:48

Here's the screenie I got right before it went to hell;

Big image

**_______________Kwerk** · Dec 11th, 2002, 16:25:48

Xpie,
Try removing the video card, check the connectors and reinstall it into the slot. Sometimes vibration can cause it to move a little.

**Xpie** · Dec 11th, 2002, 16:38:10

I reapplied AS to the card and put the heatsinks back on, and screwed it firmly into the slot again. It works now, but my room is freezing, so I'm not sure how it will fare.

**___________Chlamydia** · Dec 11th, 2002, 18:40:57

Originally posted by Fenris
Radeon 9700 Pro. Its the best thing since Geforce 4.

ROFL

uh.. yeah...
*goes reads John Carmacks finger posts on various driver diferences*

I hate to say it, but ATI has never, ever in the 10 years I have worked with computers, had thier collective **** together. ****ty drivers, various revisions w/o any way to identify them, OEM cards that wont use the unified drivers cause the drivers are programed to reject them, and general buisness practices in general.

Pair that with just crappy real world performance, raw FPS in any game. The ATI Radeon series is sub-par.

The numbers look good, but it can't own up to them. NVidia is never a let down.

**__________THEDEACON!** · Dec 11th, 2002, 19:57:54

You have two separate issues bro, one more serious than the other.

The black screen you get when windows boots up is common with detonator drivers.

Boot into windows XP safe mode, go into the display control panel, click the settings tab, click "advanced", click "adapter", click "properties", click "driver", click "uninstall", hit ok. It will ask you to reboot your system, go ahead and hit "no".

Now do a search for NV* (the '*' is a wildcard character) and delete all the NV files that it finds in the windows\inf, windows\system, windows\system32 and windows\help file. Also delete the file called nwiz. Delete the entire "nvidia" folder in the C: drive and make absolutely sure that any "NV" file in c:\windows\inf folder (or if you upgraded from nt or win2000, the folder will be winnt\inf.

Now when you reboot your system, force it to install the driver for "PCI VGA card". It'll have you reboot and you'll be treated with a nice 16 color screen. But that's what we want. Now install the detonator drivers, reboot and the black screen should go away (Im working from memory here, so don't shoot me if I missed a step).

The black screen is caused when you install new detonator drivers and it either fails halfway through the install, or doesn't completely remove the old drivers. It's all too common with geforce cards.

Now the other problem...the graphics artifacts. That could be a couple things. Bad RAM on the video card, or it could be overclocked too high, could be overheating (even non overclocked systems can overheat), poorly seated video card (remove the video card, clean the copper contacts with a lint free cloth moistened with 15% isopropyl alcohol and let dry), fan failure on the video card, overclocked front side bus, or even a power supply that's starting to fail.

So alot of possibilities there. But the first thing you want to worry about is getting rid of the broken drivers you have. I wish I could see it for myself to make sure that the steps I listed were exactly what you needed :/

Good luck man!

**Shairo** · Dec 12th, 2002, 01:14:29

or ja could wait like 2 months for the new geforce FX to come out...

nah...too long away from AO

**___________Zeroisgod** · Dec 12th, 2002, 03:31:43

or the next best thing, wait for geoforce fx to come out, and watch the geo 4 drop in price, and pick a geo 4 up.

**Balderac** · Dec 13th, 2002, 23:58:09

You dont know what you'r talking about

Open this link, and READ the whole article, and especially look at the pictures at the end.

http://www.guru3d.com/tech/geforcefx...a0b72eca4ec545

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So.. my GF3 crapped out completely.

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