nvidia quadro4 750 XGL video card

[rlthornt]

I've just installed a nvidia quadro4 750 XGL video card (recertified from a liquidator, got it cheap) into an old emachines T3265 (AMD Athlon 3200, 1.5G RAM, nvidia nforce2 chipset). When I first installed the card it booted fine and seemed to work OK. Later though it began to display blocking and unusual characters even at boot. The machine still has the original PSU, not sure about wattage. Could this be caused by an inadequate PSU or is the card bad? How could I check?

It's running 1 case fan, 1 CPU fan, 1 GPU fan, 1 HDD, 1 CD ROM, 1 DVD RW.

Thanks!

 

[goombawaho]

I would doubt it's the power supply. I'd look toward your "el cheapo" video card as the suspect. Easiest way to prove it is to put in another known good video card, but that may not be possible.

See if you can download and burn the Ultimate Boot CD and then boot from it.

There is a test on there "Test Cpu/Video/Disk 5.6" -
a tool to test cpu, video, and disk.

See if you get weird video issues when running that test.

 

[BadBigBen]

I agree with goombawaho there, in that most likely the problem lies with the GFX card, e.g. video memory getting to HOT and thus is showing artifacts...

stress testing the card, e.g. using UBCD as mentioned above, should show those artifacts as well...

and if that is the case, take it back from where you got it, and ask them HOW they certify used equipment, e.g. do they just plug up the cards and Post the PC and if it works it's certified, or do they STRESS test the cards, as it should be done...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

Sometimes, you actually DO get what you pay for........ or Don't pay for.

Not trying to rub it in, but I'm pretty wary of refurbished stuff. It's different if it's a refurb computer that was dead out of the box due to a bad hard drive. Hard drive replaced = good as new.

But when you get down to individual components, I lean more toward brand new replacements.

 

[rlthornt]

Thanks for your replies. It turns out the card is bad. It's past the time to return it so I just junked it. Luckily I got it so cheap it wasn't really worth the trouble to RMA.

goombawaho, you're exactly right. I have a refurbished wifi router that I've been using for several years but I learned a lesson about so called "recertified" components.

 

[goombawaho]

You can't really generalize that refurb products are bad. But I'd rather have something be bad to a discrete and easily replaceable part rather than say, replacing capacitors on a motherboard.

While the capacitors are technically a "discrete replaceable part", it's different to me to have to do soldering vs. just taking some screws out and bolting a new part in place (a la hard drive replacement).

Mehh - you get lucky sometimes and unlucky other times. It would be more important what the return policies are for refurb items.