Graphic card issues (9600GT silent), compatibility?

[cheetah]

Hi,

I purchased a Gigabyte 9600GT Silent Pipe last month and installed it in a Gigabyte GA-EP35 DS3R mainboard. Intermittently, I get artefacts (horizontal moving stripes) in the post screen and Windows. Sometimes they go away while Windows is starting. I tried a live Linux CD, same artefacts and even a completely corrupted screen using another mainboard (MSI P35 Neo2 FR).

A friend of mine bought the same card and he had the same issues, while the RMA replacement shows artefacts as well.

The only thing our mainboards have in common is the P35 chipset with PCI-x 1.0a (MSI) and presumably 1.0a Gigabyte (couldn't confirm this anywhere). In any case, P35 does not support PCI-x 2.0, which is the card's interface.

I understand that PCI-x 2.0 is usually backward compatible with PCI-x 1.0a (though 1.1 is less strict and offers more chance of success). In rare cases, however, this combination will not work.

Can anyone please shed some light on this issue? Are my friend and I extremely unlucky to have found 4 defective cards (I bought a replacement because I decided to upgrade another PC as well) or could this be a compability issue? I'm about to RMA one of my cards.

[Lsdmeasap]

Sounds to me like it is simple, that silent pipe does not perform AT ALL

RMA it and get a card with a FAN on it. PCI-E 2.0 IS backwards compatible FULLY and this is not the issue and has nothing to do with it at all.

Some not all silent pipe cards have similar issues, sounds as if you found one of the not so good choice ones. Artifacts and stripping is memory and or core overheating, and for you to see it already at windows loading screen is for sure not a good sign for that specific card model

At the very least if you cannot get a different model, put a FAN on the heatsinks

Good luck, and Please dont take what I say the wrong way. it is just how I see things, and it is based on your comment and my previous knowledge of GFX cards and silent pipe performance, and artifacting due to heat issues

[cheetah]

Thank you for your reply! The temperature reported for GPU is around 40 idle (Celcius). I don't do load as I'm not a gamer, Vista Aero is about the most difficult task my card has to face.

My friend with similar problems installed an Artic Cooling Turbo Module on the heatsink without any result. On full load, his card reaches about 51 Celcius.

It's an interesting observation though, as I had opted for a fanless 8600GTS as a replacement. Might have to reconsider.

[Lsdmeasap]

Well, I was more concerned with memory heat, that does sounds ok for GPU temp though, have you tried adding a fan to see if that helps any? That way you could see for sure if it is a heat issue, or something else

[HemiRick]

I've been running a 9600GT by XFX in my board and it works great.....idles at about 40 and the hottest I've seen it is about 61C, standard reference heatsink

[JVM]

I have the EX38-DS4 that is 2.0 on the PCI-E 16 slot. My passive ECS 9600 GT (no fan) performs without any problems whatsoever, and I am running Vista Ultimate x64 with Aero enabled. I think the problem may be that you don't have 2.0 on the PCI-E 16 slot, as that appears to be the only significant difference between us. Fanless should not be an issue since my 9600 GT is also fanless.

[cheetah]

I tried running it with the case open, not the same as having a fan blow towards the card of course. However, my friend has done so and it didn't make any difference.

I have a second card on a MSI Neo2 FR and the results are horrific when running a Linux Live CD: lost signal followed by only a half corrupted screen. That same card was doing more or less fine on the Gigabyte board, even though it had intermittent artefacts. I know the MSI board has PCI-X 1.0a.

Meanwhile I've decided to replace one of the cards with a 8600GTS so I'll be able to test my compatibility theory. The other will probably be returned for RMA as well but I think the replacement won't be a Gigabyte card.

[Kenjutsu]

Some not all silent pipe cards have similar issues, ... Artifacts and stripping is memory and or core overheating, and for you to see it already at windows loading screen is for sure not a good sign for that specific card model

At the very least if you cannot get a different model, put a FAN on the heatsinks

... my previous knowledge of GFX cards and silent pipe performance, and artifacting due to heat issues

I have to agree with Lsdmeasap. I have a Gigabyte GV-RX80256D Radeon X800 which showed the same symptoms. I got a Zalman VF700-AlCu VGA Cooler to replace the massive silent-pipe (SP) on the card. When I started to remove the SP, I noticed, to my horror, that the SP did not touch most of the memory chips, and it only barely touched a very small surface of the the GPU!

With the Zalman Cooler, you also get heatsinks for the memory chips, and after applying the cooler + heatsinks, I had no further problems.

Some of my friends have had similar experiences with SP cards, so for me, as a rule, I get a GFX card with active cooling, or I add a 3rd party cooler to it.

I know this might sound silly, but have you tried to take compressed air and blow out any possible dust in the PCI-Express slot on the MB?

[cheetah]

No compressed air available I'm afraid ...

The problems keep getting weirder and weirder. I contacted Gigabyte by phone today and so did my friend. They suggested to him to try another PSU. So I went ahead and bought a EVGA 9600GT (active cooling) and he bought a Coolermaster 850W PSU.

I tested the EVGA on my MSI mainboard and used the only way I know how to reproduce the problem: running a Linux live CD (in Windows/post the artefacts are intermittent). With the EVGA I had the same problem as with the Gigabyte card, loss of signal once X server starts.

I then proceeded using the EVGA in my main computer with the Gigabyte mainboard. Kubuntu Live CD: same artefacts as with the Gigabyte card. I switched power supplies and used my friend's Coolermaster. The Linux problem only got worse: loss of signal (same as on the MSI mainboard).

My friend will test the Coolermaster on his own rig later tonight, but we seem to be out of options here. It's not a PSU issue, it would be too much of a coincidence to think we got 4 faulty Gigabyte cards and the EVGA is having the same issues. It's not temperature related as I tried a card with active cooling (noisy as hell BTW), which leaves compatibility .... I have ordered a EVGA 8600GTS, it should arrive within the next few days.

Or did I miss something?

[Kenjutsu]

My friend will test the Coolermaster on his own rig later tonight, but we seem to be out of options here. It's not a PSU issue, it would be too much of a coincidence to think we got 4 faulty Gigabyte cards and the EVGA is having the same issues. It's not temperature related as I tried a card with active cooling (noisy as hell BTW), which leaves compatibility .... I have ordered a EVGA 8600GTS, it should arrive within the next few days.

Or did I miss something?

Well yes, you might have very bad luck and got faulty cards, but I hope not. :-)

Here are a few more things I can think of:

1. The AC (wall) power might not be very "clean" causing interference
2. There might be another electronic device near your PC/screen that could cause interference (TV, Hi-Fi, AirCon, etc)
3. There might be a PCI card in your PC near to your GFX card causing interference (sound card, multi I/O card, etc)
4. Maybe your screen?