[Cutebutts]

My son recently bought a Nvidia GeForce 6800 GS video card and has been having a problem ever since installing. Every time he starts up a game he gets a blue screen with the following error:

Stop: 0x0000009C (0x00000004, 0x80545FF0, 0x52000000, 0x00070F0F)

It appears to be a hardware issue. He has put his old video card back in and everything appears fine.

Asus K8V-x mother board
1.5 GB DDR RAM
160 GB Hard Drive
Anthlon 3000 Processor

Old video card is Radeon 9550.

Any suggestions?

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He needs to uninstall the ATI catalyst drivers, this can be done from add/remove programs. Then preferably since its a different brand of card get and run driver cleaner(follow the instructions it gives) a couple of times to make sure its clean.

Then install his new card and then install the new drivers. Have you connected the extra powre connector properly if it has one(i think it does itll be in the manual), if its still no go its either an insuffucient powersupply or more likely just a dud card and you should contact the manufacturer to get it replaced.

[warriorscot]

He needs to uninstall the ATI catalyst drivers, this can be done from add/remove programs. Then preferably since its a different brand of card get and run driver cleaner(follow the instructions it gives) a couple of times to make sure its clean.

Then install his new card and then install the new drivers. Have you connected the extra powre connector properly if it has one(i think it does itll be in the manual), if its still no go its either an insuffucient powersupply or more likely just a dud card and you should contact the manufacturer to get it replaced.

[Cutebutts]

Thanks for you advice....he is doing that as we speak....if he requires a new power supply....what exactly would he need....I am no computer expert so sorry if this is a stupid question.

There are numbers on the side of the power supply he has....if they are posted is that sufficient info to determine if the current power supply is ok?

Edited by Cutebutts, 08 April 2006 - 11:41 AM.

[warriorscot]

There should be one that will have the power rating on it in Watts (W) this is the big number you are looking for, as long as its over 300-350W it should be fine for that system. Usually an PSU that doesnt have enough power will still run the system but will cause the system to act "funny" graphical glitches, non functioning peripherals etc..

Its probably just a driver problem though so i wouldnt worry about it unless the drivers dont work.

[Cutebutts]

Thanks again....his power supply is 420W....he has run the drive cleaner and has installed the drivers and is still having problem....any more suggestions?

I was wondering about his RAM...he has a stick of 520 and 1 G...shouldn't it be 2 of the same size sticks?...or is that only for certain computers?

[warriorscot]

And is the extra power connector hooked up as well it should have one if it is an AGP gfx card, the PSU should certainly be enough to power it. The fact that even with no drivers it the new card doesnt work but the old one does work doesnt bode well.

It sounds to me like a bad card or it was accidently damaged during the installation here is some information on static its a common way to fry things accidentally http://www.pccompute...com/esd/esd.htm .

The ram wise yes they should be two sticks of the same size if he was running dual channel memory however that feature wasnt introduced until the socket 939 motherboards and chips, he has a socket 754(from what i could gather on the motherboard), so it should be fine.

Compatibilty wise it should work, he should have an AGP 8x version of the card and has sufficient power and a compatible motherboard. And while the motherboard is generally not considered a good motherboard from what ive read thats just down to it being a bog standard budget board rahter than there being any flaws in the board. This is leading to me thinking its card damage, the best way to rule this out would be to try the card on another compatible system and see if you get the same error, if you do its a faulty card(happens in electronics) if it works its something in the computer thats wrong and we can probably track it down and fix it.

So if you followed my advise on the drivers and its still no go i would test the card or just take a chance and RMA it and get a new one under warranty, liklehood of two broken cards is relativley low(not impossible but low).

[Cutebutts]

OK...we tried installing the graphic card on my computer. My specs are:

AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+
2.20 GHz
1.0 GB RAM
VIA K8T800Pro Neo2 Series Motherboard.

Had problems on my computer. Once I tried to play the exact game, Oblivion, my computer rebooted automatically. Does this mean that the card is defective? Or are the computer systems not advanced enough for that game? Your thoughts? Thanks for all your help.

[warriorscot]

No with your system with the GS you more than meet the requirements, it does indeed sound like the card is faulty if it cant play a game on that system. I would just send it back on warranty or the process listed by the company you purchased it from.

As soon as it started did it just crash straight away or did it start and then crash. Did you remember to install the nvidia drivers it wont work propely on your system without them. If even with drivers installed it crashes its fairly certain there is a problem with the card and not the other pc.

[Cutebutts]

When we installed it on my computer....we removed the old drivers first using driver cleaner...then installed the new nvidia drivers....when we started up the game....the screen was black for a few seconds and then the computer rebooted on its own....i can play that game on my computer with my old card on low settings (my video card is not meant for gaming lol)...i guess it sounds as if the card is defective....hopefully there wont be too big of a problem returning it.....thanks again for all your help

[jrm20]

card certainly sounds defective to me.