A8NSLI Deluxe & BFG 6800GT graphics issues, I am at wits end

[anutoshi]

Hello,

Is there anyone here that might be willing to speak with me on the telephone or through email correspondence to help resolve graphics problems I've experienced since I built a system based on the A8NSLI Deluxe and a BFG 6800GT video card in May of this year. I'm willing to pay for the help as I am desperate. I live in Glenwood Springs Colorado (near Aspen) and I can find no one locally versed enough in PC assembly to assist me. I've exhausted the techs at Asus, PC Power and Cooling, Enermax, BFG, Corsair, and AMD. I've replaced all components except for the Lian Li case and still no luck. I've documented everything and can share it on request. Thank You Tom Egan

tominaspen@hotmail.com

[Dark Nova]

well whats the problem, to see if theres anything we can do. go in details with it
and how do you know its the video card?

+ post your system specs

[anutoshi]

OK Dark Nova, but it's involved, here goes:

I purchased the following on or around May 9 2005:

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

Lian Li V COOL PC-V1200B Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3700BNBOX

BFG Tech BFGW68256GTOCXV Geforce 6800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card

ENERMAX All in One Noisetaker Series EG701AX-VE SFMA(24P) ATX12V 600W Power Supply

CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model TWINX1024-3200C2PT

SONY Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive

Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive

2 NEC Black IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3520A

CREATIVE Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum 70SB035000003 8 (7.1) Channels PCI Interface Sound Card

Replaced Enermax with
PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool® 510 Express / SLI Power Supply

NEC MultiSync LCD1970GX-BK Black 19" LCD Monitor

System was assembled around the middle of May. My most recent case number, one of many with tech support is 65374. When the system was turned on the graphics card would come on for a split second then turn itself off, I'd get the error code from the motherboard and then no video. If I pressed the power button on the Lian Li case on and off 9 or ten times the graphics card (I am using only one graphics card, not SLI) would eventually come on and stay on. I called Asus technical support , Enermax and BFG at this point and was given numerous opinions on what to try. None worked. I RMA'd the graphics card back to BFG. The new one they sent would power up consistently but after 5 minutes into a game like Half Life 2, I would get a message from the Nvidia System Sentinel stating that the performance of the graphics card was being decreased to save the card from damage because it was receiving insufficient power. Called Asus, Enermax, BFG, and PC Power and Cooling at this point and decided to buy the PC Power and Cooling power supply listed above. It made no difference in the problem. I was told by your tech support to update the BIOS, I received checksum errors so you sent me a new BIOS chip. Then the chipset fan failed. You sent me a new fan. I was told by your tech support to rebuild the system, did so and am now receiving blue screens regularly with the original problem. I was told by your tech support that it might be a voltage regulator problem in the chipset and to RMA the board.

Talked to the RMA dept, was told that they replaced a "control module" and are sending me back the same board, peachy. Will let all of you good people know how I make out. Cheers Tom
Just an update, received motherboard this morning back from Asus with a work order stating they replaced the "SLI Con Card", installed, went into bios, got a checksum error, cleared cmos, called tech support, no help.
Here's the update, I continued to work with the original board I sent to Asus for repair, I wrote zeros to the Raptor, installed XP Pro with SP2, loaded the latest Ethernet and SMBus drivers, avoiding the IDE drivers off the Nvidia chipset software. I loaded the latest Nvidia driver for the graphics card and the latest drivers for the Audigy. Loaded Doom3, Juiced, Toca2. Everything worked great that evening. Woke up the next morning, turned the rig on, left the room, came back to find the "system has recovered from a serious error" message. Shizer. Error code 102, "The semaphore is set and cannot be closed". Called Asus customer service to find out exactly what they did to the board while they had it. Seems they replaced the SLI card ( the one you turn over from single card to SLI) They transferred me to the men behind the curtain at Oz, The wizards of Level 3 Tech Support! A man named Nick reviewed my case, and to his credit, was the most thorough of any tech support help I've gotten through these 5 months. He wanted me to do an out of case installation. The MB on the box it came in, CPU, heatsink and fan, 1 stick of RAM in the B1 slot, power supply, graphics card, 1 optical drive, no floppy if using the Nvidia SATA connectors for the HD, keyboard and mouse, no Audigy or audio drivers. Then go into BIOS, set the memory timings for the RAM and change the boot sequence to load Windows. If all went well, I was to load Prime95 in conjunction with 3D Mark 2003 or 2005 and let them run overnight. Well.... while loading Windows I received a prompt stating that the DTC Service could not be installed. Called Asus Level 3, they had never heard of this message, would research it and get back to me. We talked about how a bad motherbord can corrupt Windows but most probably not during installation.
Since these posts, I've received a new processor back from AMD, they said the one I sent in would not post. I've replaced the Corsair RAM with the RAM you now have and the enclosed copy of Windows XP Pro is a new replacement copy.
The latest update:
I installed the new processor in the motherboard with the BFG 6800gt (the third card from BFG) in the blue PCI express slot, 1 stick of RAM in slot B1, connected keyboard and mouse, powered up the system, no problems. Connected floppy drive, received bios checksum error, pressed f1 to continue, turned machine off. Updated to new bios, 1015. Rebooted got bios checksum error, pressed F1 and got the Asus boot screen that had graphics corruption, dotted vertical and horizontal lines thru it, turned pc off and upon reboot the graphics corruption was worse, some artifacting. Turned pc off, rebooted and the graphics card would not activate the signal to turn on my monitor. I've experienced these same graphics problems thru the whole course of this build. I then called Jason. Reassembled the system, turn on, graphics corruption, bios checksum error and the NEC LCD prompt says 1 DVI OUT OF RANGE, spoke with NEC they said out of range refers to screen refresh rate.

[Alfie]

Have you tried another floppy drive?
Have you tried a pci video card?
Do you have a crt monitor or have you tried the vga connection on the lcd?
Can you hook up the lcd to another computer and preset it to default settings?

[anutoshi]

Just an update, I spoke with someone in level 3 tech support that cleared it with a manager for me to send my whole system in. Went to UPS the next day and found with insurance packaging and shipping I'd be spending over $100 to get it to Asus. Took it back, called Asus and ended up shipping the mobo, graphics card, memory, cpu, heatsink and fan to them. I'll let you know what they find. Thanks for the advice.

[Electric Gnome]

Sounds like you have a tiger by the tail there, please do let us know the outcome.