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I don't know how to describe it really... I get these weird distortions of some stuff on screen. Unfortunately I haven't been able to replicate this happening since to take a picture... My monitor will also start saying "No Signal" for a few seconds occasionally... And then coming back on.
However, that's not all that's wrong. There seem to be some problems with DirectX or something, which could be the cause for weird stuff happening on-screen... I did a dxdiag test and got odd results...
Direct3D 9 works perfectly...
Direct3D 7 doesn't show anything at all...And weirdest of all is Direct3D 8 which seems to ironically be somewhere inbetween the two...
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/...
However, the next time I tried... Direct3D 9 also gave some errors when displaying the spinning cube. And it seems that everytime I try I get a new and unique distortion of on-screen stuff...
DirectDraw, though, is fine.
My computer also froze a couple of times when I tried to load certain programs... Mainly Mixmeister, which is very "visually satisfying".
I can't bear to think of what would happen if I attempted to start a game. I'll test it later, though...
This started by booting into the O/S that I don't use much. But I don't know if it's specific to this O/S or not, I first booted into this O/S because my computer suddenly froze (during use of the MixMeister program which I'd been using for some time before the crash).I don't know whether it's my videocard or some sort of setting/driver/directx issue... But I want to fix it.
I hate the idea of having to buy a new videocard, though... I'm in love with my nVidia Geforce 6200. Even if people say it's crap, I've managed to get it to do some great things.
If you need some sort of idea of what I mean by "visually exciting", then here:
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/w...
I've gotta say, though.. Some of these dxdiag tests have been beautiful... The cube looks so cool. But the fact that every time I run them, a new corruption appears... I'm worried that my GFX Card may be dying or something.
How about try to check if the connection of the monitor is loose?
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After you checked your plug to the monitor.
Open your PC, see if it got any dust inside and clean it.
Take out your Videocard, clean the slot and put it back in again.
Close the PC and reboot.Still problems ??
DE-install video drivers
Reboot
RE-install video drivers
Still crap ??Take videocard out and try in friends computer.
This will give info if it is the card or not !!!!!!!
Success
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Hmm... I tried it on my usual O/S and things are working normally.. That still doesn't explain the crash I had while using MixMeister, though.
The main difference between the two O/S' is that the one that's working uses MUCH older drivers for the videocard... Whilst the other uses the newest ones...
I kept having this problem with my card.. Where good drivers for it were hard to find. I wish nVidia would actually ensure the drivers worked properly on all cards...
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Which different OS's are you talking about? All you have listed is WinXP Pro?
And yes, the 6200 is an old, low end piece of crap. It's really not a gaming card, it's just a minor upgrade from onboard graphics. Here's a snip from a review dated 01/21/05 when the 6200 first reared it's ugly head:
"Obviously, if you're serious about games at all, the GeForce 6200 isn't for you. For about $80 more you can get a GeForce 6600GT, and you'd be a lot happier. The target market for the 6200 products are the "well at least it's not integrated graphics" crowd. For them, we can recommend the standard 6200 without reservation."
http://www.extremetech.com/article2...
I don't know why you're having problems locating drivers, they're available thru nvidia.com. And the newest drivers aren't always the best for outdated cards. Here's the latest available that will work:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_...
Have you tried reinstalling DX9.0c?
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Okay, turns out that the other O/S (they're both XP Pro, but I use them for different purposes) also has problems... But only when I play a game.
6200 is the best crap gaming card I've ever had... And I'm pretty sure it's not that bad... My onboard card couldn't run anything to do with video but this one can run things very well as long as it isn't over the top... I tested with my friend and we managed to get it to run a really high-resource game with my videocard matched with his ultra computer. And I hate HD and "realistic" physic games.
I have DirectX9 on one OS and DirectX10 on the other...
I assume the reason the card is acting worse on the other OS is because it has an updated driver wich must be pushing the card further.
Since this problem occured I've also got those "Infinite Loop" bluescreens yet again.
The problem I have with finding drivers is knowing which ones suit my card better... As some seem to work better on my card than others... With no indication from nVidia about how to tell the difference.
It'd seem a shame to waste money on a good card when I hardly do anything with it. All I do is code mods for GTA: San Andreas so the only thing I use my GFX card for is to test those mods... The 6200 was more than sufficient enough for that job.
Will this 6600GT even run on my old-ass computer? lol... $80 is £40 for me, so cheaper than I expected for a GFX card... How good is it?
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"Will this 6600GT even run on my old-ass computer? lol... $80 is £40 for me, so cheaper than I expected for a GFX card... How good is it?"
That review is over 4 years old & if you had read the snip correctly, it says that the 6600GT was $80 more than the 6200, which meant that it sold for close to $200 at the time. The 6200 was released not as a gaming card, but as an alternative to integrated video. The 6600GT was a gaming card back then, but it was a lower cost alternative to the "true" gaming card of the era, the 6800 Ultra which sold for about $500. The 6800 Ultra is roughly the equivilent of today's 9500GT, which in itself is a $40-50 low end / entry level gaming card.
GTA:SA is an old game (2005?) which has extremely low system requirements by today's standards. The requirements weren't even all that high by 2005 standards, which is why even the low end 6200 will play it adequately.
We're closing in on 2010. None of the 6000 series cards are adequate for modern gaming, especially the 6200. If you're happy with it, that's fine, but don't try to pawn it off as a great gaming card, because it's not & it never was. Try playing Crysis with it, then get back to me about how good it is.
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Ah... But if I were to say that I could run Call of Duty 4 with high-specs, then I'm crazy... Right? It wasn't a desirable FPS for most but for me it was fine. And that was back when my PC wasn't doing so well... I have no idea what Crysis is, though... And I don't wanna bother buying the game to "test" my card. No, I'm not saying it's a great gaming card... But it's certainly not a terrible gaming card. Give respect where it's due...
Anyway, £100 is too much for me. Any suggestions for GFX Cards (moderately better than what I have) that are in the range of £40-£80? Lol... I'm not good with choosing GFX cards. The numbers mean nothing to me.
great. now my keyboard just spacked out and im having to use character map to type this. i also dont want to spend much on a card since my pc is so old that im gonna wanna replace it sometime anyway. I just need it for educational purposes for now.
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For that matter, try turning up the eye candy in the original Far Cry. A crapload of 6600GT, 6800GT and 6800 Ultra cards were sold just so gamers could try to play with Ultra High settings.
And Crysis? Trying that on any of the 6 series cards would be like powering a bulldozer with a lawnmower engine.
My best crap gaming card is an ATI AIW9600xt. Only way I'd ever upgrade would be to find a good used 6800GT or Ultra for 10 bucks (£5) and if you decide to replace the 6200 I recommend you spend no more than £10 in the process.
My system specs are same as yours...KT4VL, XP2800+, 768Mb PC2700, XP Pro. So our towers are worth about £25?
IMO, sure not worth spending good money for an upgrade like this one...http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss...
Skip
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Did you do any updates on the driver of that video card?
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No updates have been done since the fixed version and the broken one... I'm pretty sure it's a card problem.
Anywho, I need a new videocard but I don't really know what's good and what's not... But I don't want to spend too much money on this.
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Have you tried to look for the same card that you have used? You might also try to see if you can find something in surplus stores. But i think you should just try to save up for a new one .
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Ugh... Okay, the capacitors were blown on my old card. I got the same one but with the latest firmware. There's no way I could get a better one to work on my PC.
The new card fixes all the bad dxdiag tests and runs games fine... But I'm faced with a remaining problem that happens on both of my O/S'... The monitor keeps turning off (yes, it's plugged in right) and staying off for quite some time. It will then start to go on every once in a while and then back off. The computer is usually quite slow during this time and it seems programmes will become non-responsive.
When it's on, stuff I do while it's off takes effect. And I'm greeted by a load of black boxes replacing certain things on screen... Seems to happen alot while using Firefox. Stuff on screen will just go back, for some reason (drawing problems?).
At the moment I'm testing using a 16mb gfx card without drivers (I don't even know who made this damned card)... Not happening so far, but I expect it will. If not, I'd get the idea it's something to do with the hardware accelleration, because the drivers are not installed so hardware accelleration is disabled. Hardware accelleration is something I disabled back with my broken card and it helped a bit.
I'm really confused. I don't even wanna plug in my new 6200 to the computer in case capacitors end up flying every-which-way again, lol...
I wonder whether the broken card started the problems or the problems caused the broken card... I've no idea how the capacitors managed to burst.
Another thing that suprised me (although not a threat, I believe) is that the videocard manufacturer and some other detials show up when I first turn the computer on... This never usually happens so it confuses me why it would start to happen now.
Anyway, thanks for all your help so far. I'm unsure about what to do to ensure that I can use my computer normally again... Without having to worry about capicotrs flying everywhere and the screen going off.
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Well you might have failing power supply as well but still not so sure because you told that capacitors from your old V card pops. which means the power supply over charging your mother board. Also are you sure that the mother board is not included in the problem.
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I've no clue. How would I check? I don't really have access to any other computer parts.
Also, if my motherboard is the problem, how come it works perfectly fine without drivers?
Anyway, I've made a few discoveries. If I use the latest drivers... My computer will sometimes seize up when I've only just installed them. So I guess that the later drivers mess up faster than the older drivers. But the old drivers still make my PC crash after a while.
The computer goes slow and stuff freezes, then the mouse freezes, then the screen stops recieving signal, sometimes it comes off and on again and then it goes onto a bluescreen giving me the "Infinite Loop Error"... Which is a problem I used to have, but only when playing games. Plus the drivers that worked back then don't work now.
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Have so only updated the mother board's drivers and not the other yet?
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Can't really understand what you just said there... But I've not done anything with the motherboard drivers yet.
I'm suspecting that the computer crashes when videocard memory is used. Because it usually crashes when I'm doing alot of things and crashes after about 3 seconds of being in a 3D game...
I think lower resolution seems to kinda help the card along... But I'm unsure of a permenant fix.
No one at the nVidia forums even replied when I asked about this problem there. Yet it seems like a problem that someone surely will have encountered before.
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Well to what you are hitting the limitation of either the video card's memory or the rams. Have you tried to do a simple defrag? It might help but not so sure.
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Well running a little with the ideas but this might be my last solution. Reformat but still not so sure if it will do something.
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Okay, I've kinda fixed it...
By setting the Aperture to 4MB, instead of 256MB the videocard doesn't crash the computer... Although, I tried at 128MB and it still crashes, but it does take longer to crash...
So is this really a fix? Or am I just making the time that my card survives for longer?
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Well can i ask some thing how did you control teh size of the video card? did you do it in the bios?
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Yeah... Not sure how many other systems it will work on (most people have PCIE these days. I have AGP)...
I think it was something like this:
Advanced Chipset Features > AGP Timing > AGP Aperture Size
Now the little book I have which is aparently made for my motherboard (yet many things are different from the manual) says it can go from 32>512MB... Although mine starts from 4MB and only goes to 256MB... Still don't really know much of what it means., though.
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Hm.. you it can be adjusted there are really those kind of video cards on the market no a days. Sorry I missed to review about that card you have. Now I am starting to think that it might be temp problem that you are having.
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I tried installing a nVidia loopfix and adjusting a load of settings in nVidia Control Panel. I find that the system survives longer now, but while using games it eventually freezes.
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