Is my 6600GT toasted?

DarkAngelZ28

Howdy,

I'm having some problems with my 6600GT. I was playing World of Warcraft and suddenly the computer reset by itself, upon windows starting I find myself with vertical dotted green lines all over the screen (they do not show during BIOS, or Windows Boot up, ie. it looks perfectly fine during those parts; Also looks fine if I open a command prompt and make it full screen). I was using 84.25 with no problems before this unexpected crash.

Immediately after this I go straight to check the temperature in the properties and it's readin 87C!!! I turned the pc down immediately to check the card, and see the fan is stuck (thank you dust !#@%!!). I take out the card, clean up the fan, take out the heat sink, clean it and reapply heat sink compound to the ram and chip, mount it up again after verifying the fan works. Boot up the pc, and everything is fine till I get on window, where all these green vertical lines show up. I thought the card fried, but when I uninstalled the forceware drivers and restarted, it looks fine without going any further to install any drivers when asked to (currently writing this post with native drivers on). If I install forceware drivers and restart the green lines come again. I thought maybe it had to do with the Mhz of the core/ram but they were always at the default values (and the window native drivers use the default from the card bios right?) So I'm at loss. Every time I try to "test" the change to the core/mem with the forceware drivers to decrease them and see if the lines disappear the computer locks up with an nv4_disp BSOD.

Could use some help to pin point this problem. Right now I'm thinking the card took permanent damage and it's only showing with the forceware drivers due to some specific driver pathway it's using to display the images.

Other info:
It shows on any resolution
It shows on any color depth
Can't change Sync since it's on a Flat Screen (at 60hz)
It shows on the TV also with the TV-Out
Doesn't show with the window native drivers

jasonbourne

mmm im really sorry but i think that your geforce has passed away.the only thing u could try is to underclock you vga and maybe reinstalling windows could do the job as well

DarkAngelZ28

I tried different versions of Forceware (84.25, 91.31, 66.77, 61.xx) and it happens with all of them. Even tried Riva Tunner to drop core/mem Mhz to the lowest (150/500) and it persisted.

The only thing I can't comprehend is why everything looks fine when no drivers are installed (Video Controller VGA Compatible). I'm not very optimistic a resintall of the OS will fix it. Curse you dust!!!

MIG-31

Is the fan covered in dust? if so try cleaning it.This may cause the gpu to overheat.If not then it sounds as though the card is on it's way out .. is it under warranty?

as you have underclocked it and still shows the same problems,it's going to be a fault with either the gpu or the memory.

The VGA drivers installed by windows is only a very basic driver to enable you view the software/windows etc,This don't put any strain on the card due to windows has not recognised the card's capability's.

jasonbourne

did u run drivercleaner before installing those drivers??i know that reinstalling windows can be a pain , but thats the last thing u could try before saying goodbye to your vga.

DarkAngelZ28

MIG-31:
Fan/Heatsink cleaned, with new heat sink compound placed on it (Current temp: 46C as I write this). It's not on warranty either

jasonbourne:
Yes, ran it, and did a manual check on the registry, nothing NVIDIA related remains.

DarkAngelZ28

No luck with the reinstall of OS Lines are there.

jasonbourne

im really sorry man.. i run out of ideas...

DarkAngelZ28

NP, I wasn't too optimistic to begin with on it being able to be fixed. Guess I'll be buying a new card soon if no other ideas come up heh. Thanks for the help though