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Defective VisionTek ti4600?

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First post, by retro games 100

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I think this is a ti4600 card. It looks a bit odd, with that feable looking fan and no heatsinks on the RAM chips. The card looks in good condition, but the lettering on the RAM chips look faded. I wonder if that's because those chips have over heated? The problem is that when I have installed the nVidia driver (eg 45.xx, and I have also tried 66.xx), the Win98SE desktop freezes within one minute. I have tried about 6 reboots and the same thing happens: the system locks up very quickly and I have to reboot.

I thought of a couple of things - I'll try another reinstall, then check RivaTuner to see what the clock speeds are. Perhaps they have been set too high? But there's a problem with this check: I might not have enought time to run Riva Tuner before the PC locks up! Also, I wonder if it's worth trying a different PSU? I'm currently using a 480W PSU. The mobo is an Epox 8KTA3+Pro, with a 2200+ rated mobile barton.

Edit: I reinstalled the VisionTek ti4600 using the nVidia 45.xx Win98SE drivers. I ran RivaTuner, and the core and memory clocks are 300 / 650. These numbers exactly match the numbers on the wikipedia nVidia comparison webpage -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nv … rocessing_units

Unfortunately, the PC has locked up again, just after I checked these values inside Riva Tuner. I have tested another GF4 card in this Epox mobo, a Ti4200, and all was OK with it. Perhaps the ti4600 is defective?

Edit 2: I tried another driver version: 30.xx. That didn't solve this problem. I replaced the PSU with a good known working one. That didn't help either. I replaced the ti4600 with another ti4600. That didn't work! Hmmm...perhaps the ti4600s don't like the Epox mobo? I am now installing one of the ti4600s on another mobo: a slot 1 board......

Edit 3: And that doesn't work either! I change back to the first ti4600. No luck. Also, I change the RAM. No joy.

I think I have been unlucky. I got both ti4600s from the same seller. This seller put both cards together in a thin padded mailer, and it looks like they've both got damaged during transit.

Edit 4: Well there's no problem with the mobo or RAM or PSU etc. I tried a completely different ti4600 from a different seller, and it works fine.

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Last edited by retro games 100 on 2010-08-21, 20:19. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 11, by retro games 100

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Hehe, this is my working replacement ti4600 testing environment. All of that junk works if you press the On button. I don't seem to be having much luck with hardware today, because the flash on my old camera doesn't work any more.

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Reply 3 of 11, by Tetrium

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What you could do about the 2 you got from the same seller is google-ing the seller and the card model number (amongst other choices). If he had a large stock of defective cards which he sold, theres a good chance someone else on the net already started a topic about it...with perhaps some fix 😉

Reply 4 of 11, by retro games 100

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Tetrium wrote:

What you could do about the 2 you got from the same seller is google-ing the seller and the card model number (amongst other choices). If he had a large stock of defective cards which he sold, theres a good chance someone else on the net already started a topic about it...with perhaps some fix 😉

I've been messing about with these 2 cards for a while now. No joy at all. And that Epox mobo I've been testing recently, the one with the broken IDE port - that seems to be going wrong too. I think it's defective. Every card I try in the AGP port fails to run any 3DMark benchmark. I've replaced it with another Epox board, but I've now run out of time until next weekend to test it. 🙁

Reply 5 of 11, by retro games 100

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I have solved the problem with the Epox mobo. I did a complete fresh install (FDISK, FORMAT). It was really interesting, because I decided to bypass the defective IDE 1 Port, and also the UIDE Raid ports, and have both the HDD and the DVD-ROM on the secondary IDE. At the very end of the installation the screen went black, so I disconnected the HDD from the master secondary IDE, and plugged it in to the UIDE Raid port, and that solved that problem. I installed the Raid software from the Epox website, but it caused no end of problems. I reinstalled an updated version found using google, and that solved that problem.

So, I'm back to where I started now! I've got a pile of AGP video cards that I can now retest, and see which ones are really defective...

Reply 9 of 11, by retro games 100

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Hehe! Both are good options. Actually, I really want to try freezing and baking a broken Voodoo 5 PCI card I have. It's in storage ATM. I'll dig it out next year. It artifacts, and freezes up after a couple of minutes. I thought - freeze it to remove the heatsinks, clean it up, then bake it for 5-10 mins. I haven't got much to lose.

BTW, I forgot to mention I did a complete clean install using one of the mobo's UIDE RAID ports. During the final part of installation, on 7% left to go, it got stuck for over 10 minutes. That's why I did another clean install using the secondary IDE port.

Reply 10 of 11, by swaaye

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Don't bake cards that use aluminum electrolytic caps. Just a friendly warning. 😀 An oopsie that I've personally witnessed.

Some GF4s use them. Some have all solid caps though.

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