Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Received my Gainward 4600 yesterday..

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Received my Gainward 4600 yesterday..

    Right now I'm not too happy with it. After much trouble (anyone that also frequents the nVnews forums knows what I'm talking about, and so does Kindness, so I'll leave most of it out here), I finally found out that this card is defective. But the defect may not be a problem with the components, but with the PCB and the edge connector tolerances. The reason I say that is that right now I'm waiting for GoogleGear.com to finish the hoop jumping process so I can get an RMA for exchange started (yep, I'm gonna give Gainward one more try, in the off-chance that only SOME of their cards are like this), and in the meantime I have searched around the web, forums, newsgroups, etc., for others with similar problems.

    The problem:
    A Matrix-like display in 2D (right from BIOS post display), one that is severe enough that without assistance XP halts loading on a stop error before it even shows the black logo screen. This screen looks like a black and white chessboard pattern with the 'Matrix' effect on random ascii characters all over the screen. At the boot, and in the bios, I can make out much of what's supposed to be displayed under the crap, but only because I KNOW what is supposed to be there.

    The cause:
    I originally thought it was something on the card either fried or incorrectly attached. After my searching around, I found many others with the same type of problem, and they suggested it has to do with the video card's seating in the AGP slot (or lack thereof). Since I have the card at least one more night before sending it back, I pulled it back out of its box and put it in the computer, and proceeded to boot to my bios menu. With the computer on and the bios screen overlaid with Keanu's favorite movie simulator , I applied gentle pressure to the card, watching the results on-screen. I found that while applying pressure in some directions, the distortion stopped (it didn't go away, all the crap just froze in place). After finding a pressure point that seemed to be the most consistent, I restarted the computer and allowed it to boot into WindowsXP, where it appeared perfect. UNTIL I released pressure from the card. It seems that the card has two issues:
    1) It fits loosely in the AGP slot, instead of snugly, as the G400Max and even the VisionTek cards that preceeded it here.
    2) The edge connector tab closest to the rear bracket is actually ever so slightly longer than the same tab on my G400Max, and in combination with 1 above may be causing the card to seat with some contacts not quite being made.

    No matter what I did, releasing pressure from the card caused it to return to the original form, so I won't be keeping this particular one. If I could have reseated it and had it stay there (fixing the issue without me having to continue to hold it), I may have kept it. Now all I can do is hope that the replacement fits better than this one, or else I'll be looking elsewhere for a card.

    Who knows, maybe the replacement WILL be the same, and Matrox will announce P.. erm, their next gen part before I find something else that does work. (Someone somewhere might be throwing me another hint)
    "..so much for subtlety.."

    System specs:
    Gainward Ti4600
    AMD Athlon XP2100+ (o.c. to 1845MHz)

  • #2
    Hmmm. Well, with googlegear you will really need to stay on their ass. I"ve never heard good things about them, <I>especially</I> if you want to return something.
    Gigabyte P35-DS3L with a Q6600, 2GB Kingston HyperX (after *3* bad pairs of Crucial Ballistix 1066), Galaxy 8800GT 512MB, SB X-Fi, some drives, and a Dell 2005fpw. Running WinXP.

    Comment


    • #3
      Jerry the snugness of the card is a real bugaboo of a problem, but the length issue might possibly be resolved by loosening the screws to your MB and pulling it to the front of the case a wee bit before retightening.

      Give that a whirl and let me know how it goes
      "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." -- Dr. Seuss

      "Always do good. It will gratify some and astonish the rest." ~Mark Twain

      Comment


      • #4
        Thanks for the tip Greebe. Since all my other cards (AGP and PCI) were seating fine like this, I hadn't really even considered that I might get the card to seat properly by just realigning the motherboard on the tray a bit.

        Actually, since my case has a removable back plate (several different parts), I'll first try just removing the plate that the cards screw into (the one with all the nifty slots for the outputs / inputs) from the tray, and see if that helps, since it should have much the same effect as moving the tray back (no plate = nothing putting pressure against the rear bracket of the card). If that works, I'll see if I can't move the motherboard back a bit from the edge of the tray and give that a go with the plate in place.

        I'll post back here with my results once I get home and can test(since it seems certain that getting an RMA is gonna be a pain- too much procedural crap they want done first).



        BTW, if you're in IRC and see me sign in, out, in, out, in, out, you can bet that I'm booting up with the card in, watching for the display in XP, then shutting down, changing something, booting back up, etc. I've been pretty consistent about doing this at least every third day since I got the KT3Ultra, as I played with overclocking settings, fsb, multiplier, voltages, etc., and then test for stability.
        "..so much for subtlety.."

        System specs:
        Gainward Ti4600
        AMD Athlon XP2100+ (o.c. to 1845MHz)

        Comment


        • #5
          Isn't it about time you updated your sig?
          "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." -- Dr. Seuss

          "Always do good. It will gratify some and astonish the rest." ~Mark Twain

          Comment


          • #6
            I've been planning to do that, but between work keeping me too busy and the constant shuffling of hardware at home, I either haven't had time or haven't been certain about what hardware I need to list.

            But since you mentioned it, I'll put down what is currently running fine (subject to change as soon as my new video card works, or I get a M card newer than the G400 )
            "..so much for subtlety.."

            System specs:
            Gainward Ti4600
            AMD Athlon XP2100+ (o.c. to 1845MHz)

            Comment


            • #7
              Howzat?

              Hmm. I only left out the printers, I think.
              "..so much for subtlety.."

              System specs:
              Gainward Ti4600
              AMD Athlon XP2100+ (o.c. to 1845MHz)

              Comment

              Working...
              X