tpowell.ca wrote on 2022-01-24, 02:28:

I'm having an issue with an Nvidia GeForce GTS I acquired. The card appears to work just fine with the exception of VGA output. […]
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I'm having an issue with an Nvidia GeForce GTS I acquired.
The card appears to work just fine with the exception of VGA output.
The problems in short are:
- Ghosting
- Dim luminance, excessive saturation
- Diagonal banding in graphics modes

The card does not have any visible damage, and does not have a DVI output.

I've read that this was a common issue with cards of this era, but no clear mention of any fixes.

Note: I tried different cables and monitors with no effect. Different cards work perfectly fine however.

This discusses sharpness issues due to improperly designed RF filtering on VGA output : http://web.tiscalinet.it/creeping_death/guide/aamodifica.htm

That being said, I am not certain if what is seen on the pictures you shared is related to this or to another phenomenon .

I have a gf2 gts with exactly the kind of problem you describe. Comparing it with an exact same version that works with a multimeter, I couldn't find anything obvious on the analog output path that would indicate an easy fix, like a broken capacitor or inductor, or noticeably different resistance values. Unless more information becomes available, I would consider that the gpu itself is damaged in this case.

I have the same problem with a Virge DX that I found. Other S3 cards display fine on this system. My guess would be failing capacitors, yes? Or would it be a failing clock crystal?

I'm going to try replacing the capacitors first since I have some of them, and then I'll try the crystal next if that doesn't do anything.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/869/5

Check this old Anandtech article......