Guess I know why the latest Sparkle 6600 GT isn't working... The AGP bridge chip cracked either when it was removed from the previous system or during transit. I bet the memory and the GPU itself are still fine. I wonder if I could take the AGP chip from the other 6600GT that artifacted and put it onto this one...

How are the capacitors on that NOS 7600GS card?
Some of them had caps that would fail in storage. If they have "FZ" stamped on them, they're Sacon FZ. Every one of those I've seen is dead and exploding now, even if they were never used.

shamino wrote on Today, 10:41:

How are the capacitors on that NOS 7600GS card?
Some of them had caps that would fail in storage. If they have "FZ" stamped on them, they're Sacon FZ. Every one of those I've seen is dead and exploding now, even if they were never used.

Visually they look fine... The card is just dead cold no matter what platform/PSU I use.

Visually fine and fine are two very different things. I met a lot of visually fine caps that were dead.

RandomStranger wrote on Today, 18:04:

Visually fine and fine are two very different things. I met a lot of visually fine caps that were dead.

Yeah, I know... What I don't know for that card if it's worth it to have it repaired. Or maybe I can use it as a test to finally practice in replacing capacitors.
Would be the first time in two years that I find myself with an electronic that's completelty dead due to bad caps. I was able to avoid the problem until now.

Once I had a bad PSU. It worked but VGA cards didn't show output. If I remember correctly only Nvidia cards didn't work - like Geforce 4 Ti4600 - I was pretty upset. Changed the PSU and all worked fine 😁

Those caps are Nippon KZJ and some kind of Sanyos.
KZJ are a "controversial" series from an otherwise reputable manufacturer, but I don't think they're nearly as bad as the kind I was talking about, so I think that's probably not the problem.
Power could maybe be involved - if you can, try to get a measurement of the voltage rails with a multimeter while it's trying to boot (ie under load). I know you've tried several boards and video cards, but it's possible some of those cards are more demanding on rails that the other cards don't care as much about.

I notice the plastic cover is still on the DVI port. I've run into some cards - and the one I remember for sure was a 7600GS - which didn't play well with my KVM (are you using one?) I had to use a DVI->VGA adapter on the DVI port to see the video output. The card didn't default to VGA even though that's how I had it hooked up.
If you have an adapter handy, try testing both output connectors in case it's just not detecting correctly which port to use.
Same suggestion for any of the cards that have dual outputs. Since the 7600GS is staying cold, it does seem like that card just isn't getting powered for some other reason.

shamino wrote on 37 minutes ago:

Those caps are Nippon KZJ and some kind of Sanyos. KZJ are a "controversial" series from an otherwise reputable manufacturer, bu […]
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Those caps are Nippon KZJ and some kind of Sanyos.
KZJ are a "controversial" series from an otherwise reputable manufacturer, but I don't think they're nearly as bad as the kind I was talking about, so I think that's probably not the problem.
Power could maybe be involved - if you can, try to get a measurement of the voltage rails with a multimeter while it's trying to boot (ie under load). I know you've tried several boards and video cards, but it's possible some of those cards are more demanding on rails that the other cards don't care as much about.

I notice the plastic cover is still on the DVI port. I've run into some cards - and the one I remember for sure was a 7600GS - which didn't play well with my KVM (are you using one?) I had to use a DVI->VGA adapter on the DVI port to see the video output. The card didn't default to VGA even though that's how I had it hooked up.
If you have an adapter handy, try testing both output connectors in case it's just not detecting correctly which port to use.
Same suggestion for any of the cards that have dual outputs. Since the 7600GS is staying cold, it does seem like that card just isn't getting powered for some other reason.

I did performs all the usual tests: Different boards, different PSUs, different molex connectors on every PSU and both VGA and DVI output. I just put all the cap back after testing it months ago since, being NOS, it came with the box and all accessories.
I found another 7600GS for a "not that bad" of a price, we'll see how this acts up. But I'm starting to feel I just got extremely unlucky: One 6600GT has the AGP bridge chip busted, one was just on it's way out when I got it, and this one is, simply, new old stock that was probably ded the day it left the factory.
The guy that sold me that 7600GS did tell me that he had a PC part store, and that was some leftover inventory he still had after retiring. I literally got it for 15€ plus cheap shipping. Probably the cheapest 7600GS I ever saw on ebay recently.

I'm also waiting to hear from a repair store if they're able to transplant the VGA Bridge chip from the ded 6600GT to the one that has the chip broken, because I bet the rest of that card is perfectly working.

kixs wrote on 50 minutes ago:

Once I had a bad PSU. It worked but VGA cards didn't show output. If I remember correctly only Nvidia cards didn't work - like Geforce 4 Ti4600 - I was pretty upset. Changed the PSU and all worked fine 😁

Yup, tried that to no avail with all those cards. I have two or three PSUs I use for testing. They're nothing to write home about, but they get the job done. One is from a decomissioned CAD workstation, one is from an unknown brand but it did work fine for almost a full year on my XP retrobox (E8600+HD6970) before being replaced for a reputable Corsair. Then I also have a couple of Enermax from 2008/09 that I got from scrapped PCs. I used only one of them a bit while performing tests on a Win7 box, but not knowing the full history of those units, I put them into permanent storage.