Cards of that time can have DVI signal quality issues that lead to some monitors not working well with them. ATI cards do have some settings in the control panel for DVI compatibility. With NV you can make custom resolutions with different modes like "reduced blanking" that might help.

I think the GF6 is still using a Silicon Image chip for DVI? ATI had an integrated transmitter I believe.

Are you running 1920x1200?

By that generation, both ATI and Nvidia had integrated TMDS functionality (that generates the DVI signal) into the GPU .

Two cards with GPUs from different manufacturers having the same symptom is odd . Are you using a DVI switch or splitter ? I have had weird issues with those before . Are you certain the monitor is not starting to flake out and maybe you just noticed on those cards ?

Hmm, true is that i didnt see it inside to Dos, if im not wrong so.. it could be resolution related, i saw it in Linux for sure. Yeah, im using 1920x1200 monitors - I have old HP IPS 24 (ZR24w and LP2475W) ones... and cards are set to 1600x1200 for modern OS. Do you thing that decrease resolution, would help?

If it is only some SW issue, not HW one, there would be solution for Windows, but i doubt that for Linux.

True is that i saw it more on ATI cards, i have only one Nvidia card ( AOpen Aeolus GeForce 6800 GT) with this problem.

Other info to Nvidia card, is that it had in XP, problem that.. few minutes in 2D in XP lost picture, but no shaking, i changed cooler to big passive one, its now much more stable.. but when i ran 3D for 10 minutes or saw.. picture is starting to shake and after i god black screen, to it really could be termal issue.

I will make Nvidia card photo with cooler later..

With ATI cards, i also saw some temporary lines.. but there where not related to video memory, video memory was fine.

No splitter, no switch, but i see this problem on multiple monitors, but i tested at least 50 other cards with same monitor, most of them even with same cable and all were fine.

ruthan wrote on 2020-05-21, 22:43:

Hmm, true is that i didnt see it inside to Dos, if im not wrong so.. it could be resolution related, i saw it in Linux for sure […]
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Hmm, true is that i didnt see it inside to Dos, if im not wrong so.. it could be resolution related, i saw it in Linux for sure. Yeah, im using 1920x1200 monitors - I have old HP IPS 24 (ZR24w and LP2475W) ones... and cards are set to 1600x1200 for modern OS. Do you thing that decrease resolution, would help?

If it is only some SW issue, not HW one, there would be solution for Windows, but i doubt that for Linux.

True is that i saw it more on ATI cards, i have only one Nvidia card with this problem.

I will make Nvidia card photo with cooler later..

Do both your monitors display the issue ?

ATI used to have an option in their Windows drivers for alternate DVI timing, you could possibly try that .

I had no issues at 1600x1200 with a Radeon 9700 and Geforce FX 5900, which are even older . I have new a 1920x1200 monitor on order , so we'll see how that goes .

I have seen that with marginal cables , and when using DVI to HDMI converters. Some cards are more picky than others.

Better take a look in your monitor and replace capacitors in it as well?

Cheers,

If this problem is only with some cards and after they get hotter, its not monitor or cable problem for sure.
Also that this is working for some other cards older means nothing, because my could be damaged and your not, same with overheating.

ruthan wrote on 2020-05-22, 11:06:

If this problem is only with some cards and after they get hotter, its not monitor or cable problem for sure.
Also that this is working for some other cards older means nothing, because my could be damaged and your not, same with overheating.

What you are saying is logical and makes sense . It's just the fact that several cards with different GPU models from both ATI and Nvidia having exactly the same issue/failure mode seems like an odd and improbable coincidence .

Here,
is image of Geforce 6 card and it has some Silicon image chip and if this chip is for DVI handling, its not integrated for sure and it would make sense to add heatsink on it.

ruthan wrote on 2020-05-22, 15:31:

Here, is image of Geforce 6 card and it has some Silicon image chip and if this chip is for DVI handling, its not integrated for […]
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Here,
is image of Geforce 6 card and it has some Silicon image chip and if this chip is for DVI handling, its not integrated for sure and it would make sense to add heatsink on it.

2020-05-22 17.29.27.jpg
2020-05-22 17.24.32.jpg

Does it get warm or hot to the touch ?

I can really access it, its at bottom of card, under cooler, but whole card, get quite hot. 6800 GT PCI-E is has TDP 55W im using heatsink from Geforce 240, it should be enough for main chip.. but original coller also covered some memory chips and this chip too.
I cant simply cover all memory chips, because of heatpipes over some of them, but Silicon image chip is free to add some heatsink.

There is some temperature sensor, but its probably only in main chip and it giving me constant 59C in Afterburner so i dunno, if its really working.

If you are using zinc-based white thermal compound on bare die stuff, that's pathetic paste to use, only 1w/mk, not enough surface area, only good for ceramic large surface cooling like 486 and pentium, and that's about it, high wattage large surface metal top might not be enough. MX-4 is easy to get is around 8w/mk and should have tube of these in your toolkit. For important stuff and must have and little expensive but worth having is 11w/mk is Grizzly Hydrouant. The top of the line is 14w/mk, again from Grizzly's, not the metallic compound.

I get same complaints from stupid people who use chinese paste (grey stuff from that source and anything in between are also 1w/mk) in their Xbox one and PS4 under load, fan spin louder, I can make a console quiet and reliable using Grizzly Hydrouant or MX-4.

59C is hot. Can upset a weak chip, Get 99% alcohol and dribble few drops on the silicon image IC and see if that improves. Evaporating alcohol carries away extra heat causing evaporative cooling effect.

If not enough cooling a chip, if you have a canned air, invert it, that's basically liquid C02, same stuff as freeze spray is, and cheaper! Or air compressor if you have one, shoot a stream of air at the chip, spot cooling it.

I use 99% alcohol to wet a live board in order to find short via looking for boiling component circuit board old technician's trick of tools. Phones when got spilled on of anything that contains water (tea, sea etc, except distilled water, develops short circuits through electrical conductive liquid and corrodes rapidly when on, even low voltage, at metallic terminals of components and some develop short circuit internal (especially multilayer solid capacitor).

I also use alcohol of this type to dry out also to dilute washed board after plain or distrilled water rinse.

Cheers,

Some news, i rechecked HWinfo and i saw 4! gpu related temperature sensors within, strange is that after other reboot i saw only 2 of them and others gave we 0.0 numbers, so its not 100% reliable.

Numbers which werent constant seemed to be fine, in exception some very high max non sense numbers.

So i find out that VRM temperature is not good, it was able to go near 100C even in 2D, if you check card picture, because of PCB parts design, VRM heatsink is very small and its not possible to change it for something bigger. VRM heatsink counts on some airflow, or this cooler have to ve connected to main heatsink - there is only 1-2 mm distance on the top, so maybe with some thermal pads, it count be connected. Or maybe if someone is experience with solder 2 metal parts together - its not my thing.

I added some small fan, above that VRM heatsink and its still much more silent not original fan and VRM temperature is no fine < 60C.

2D is now stable, but when i run 3D temperatures are still fine, but after i dunno 30 minutes of Unigine Santuary.. picture again starts to quake.

I added some small vram chip cooler on Silicon image chip, but maybe its not enough.. i have bigger heatsinks, but not with ready to use glue layer, can someone recommend some good heatsink glue from eBay?

Here is how it looks with cooler, small heatsink is on Silicon image chip, there is place for something bigger, but it has to be glue and be balanced - there are not standardized size holes to hold it.. I would have to drill to some heatsink some custom places holes and it would need some workshop and skill - not my thing.

Didn't mention that video card is passive cooled, that's important. This really need different way to cool it not where the fan is, cool the fins instead then card will be more cooler.

The other video card Radeon card is also passive cooled?

My experience:
Tried and could not use passive cooled designs, Preferable cooling design is with fan on a heatsink that only take up 1 or 2 slots. Or 1 slot heatsink with blower also vented bracket or two slot and vented bracket for the exhaust.

Also should build adjustable voltage regulator circuit so you can adjust the fan speed for quiet but still cooling properly. Back in the day, PWM control was not there when I had athlon XP computer.

Cheers,

Well with original cooler, card was DOA so im trying to ways how to cool it.

Yeah Radeons are passively cooled too because, im prefer them such way, if someone produced such card, i excepted that they will work, im using open test benches and room temperature is not too high.

I have lots of passively cooler cards, which are fine, but from 40,50W TDP its more problematic.. and it depends on card design just need main chip cooling, so need care about more parts of card.. i dont have any other even active cooler which would ran fine with such card, because of card design, they are big capacitors, which blocking use of most flat coolers.

Any after market universal fan, is almost always better than stock cheap high RPM fan on card.. Other advantage of additional fans, are that they have 3 / 4 pin, so they could be regulated, classic 2 pin, are usually running all the time at full speed, that is noisy.
So if it can ran with such cooler its still much better. Now i need to find out if problem is really Silicon image chip and for it.. i need attach bigger heatsink on it.. i have bigger ones, but they are not adhesive.. so i need some good glue, which will good with up to 100 C temperatures. Lots of heatsink on older cards, like 3dfx ones are using such glues.

From my experience with passive cooling devices they still need air flow (Through-flow) no matter what and still perform poorly. Also defeats the idea of passive cooling by using a fan on it (takes up space).
Just buy a video card with regular but GOOD heat sink with fan and slow fan down using external adjustable voltage regulator. Better yet, make a bracket to stand the large, slow fan in front of cards and channel air using sheets to force air through cards instead of going around them. Then I can try change the heatsink with another type, more larger and wide spaced fins on the cards.

Except I keep the video cards that originally have blower fan on, and try to change heatsink itself to copper if available for it and slow the fan just so, to keep noise down.

The way best way to go were controlling the fan rpm was running them at lower voltage, lot of people purchased fan controller box but not many makers produced these and clunky as it takes a drive bay.

I built adjustable voltage regulator that looked like a card with bracket with nice heat sink for the regulator IC and adjusted voltage feeding fans and the heat is cool, hardly any heat. The voltage was around 6.5V or so. 5V works but too low air flow.

I never run open case ever. I also modified the case metal by drilling holes to ventilate the hard drives, back in the day, cases were not built properly, using the case fan exhausting only, to pull air through the case. The cards I had still have fans on them and were also adjusted to spin quietly and still maintain good temps.

Incredible thing is, I still have the modified case in use by my family. Acer HX45 with full cover that you must lift up. But minus the regulator card.

There is a circuit you can make for generating PWM signal for PWM fans nowdays. You'll will able to use inverted PWM using a transistor and couple resistors for commercial server fans as well.

I will do that again once I build vintage computers using adjustable regulator card (multiples circuit and multiple PWM control with jumpers for standard and inverted output with enough current.

Cheers,

First videocards where without heatsinnks so im used that they are silent, later came these with heatsinks.. after that these with tiny noisy coolers and small heatsinks ( to save money on production).. but you still could buy premium version with passive cooler, or aftermarket cooler. Until cards reached 70W+ with Geforce 8800 (GT - 80W, GTS - 99W) in 2008, etc.. was passive cooling always possible.
After that there were dark ages of cooling, cards had up to 150 W of TPD and very noisy as hell, sometimes around 2015 better stock coolers like MSI Gaming X or Asus Strix, EVGA, Palit become good enough with passive 2d modes, where fans where stopped and we can have quite silent 120 / 150 W cards, im always checking Guru3D reviews there are is measured noise of all cards in load, im selecting most silent modes as possible.. or they all in one expensive high models with water cooling if you need something better with higher TDP.

Open case is my test bench, but my main computers, are mostly open too, because im doing something with them and its not problem, until they are silent - im using passivelly cooler PSUs, SSD or 2.5 disks and CPUs with big passive coolers sometimes with Noctua fans with 500-800 PRM which are almost silent.. or water coolers.. so im used to silent machines.