Dead video card or did I mess up my mobo

[alex666]

Hi all. I recently purchased a Biostar 6100/410 939 board, running with a 3500 venice, a cheap 7300LE video card, 2 X 512 Patriot 3200, wd 80g hdd, and an old cd player and floppy drive. Bought it a few weeks back and and I'm in the early stages of setting it up. The board has been running fine, the installation was uneventful, Win XP installed without problem. Great little board. I bought it really to play with overclocking it, as it ocs like a bandit.

I installed new cpu and northbridge hsfs this past Friday. Everything runs fine except since I put the new hsf on the northbridge, the 7300LE PCI-E video card I installed does not work. The on-board video does, as does an old PCI card that I placed in one of the regular pci slots, but not the 7300LE in the pci-e x16 slot. The fan on the 7300LE does start, but the card does not initialize, i.e., the screen is blank, no bios, no nothin. Note that system status led lights on the mobo indicate normal functioning for memory, video, and cpu.

When I removed the original nb hsf, I had some trouble getting it off (thermal paste was like glue), and when I finally got it off, a very very thin layer of shiny metal, almost like an external coating, came off the top of the chip.

My fear is that I somehow screwed up the northbridge chip. At the same time, I'm not sure if the video card just coincidentally died, perhaps when I pulled it out when I installed the new hsfs. Despite the fact that the 7300LE's fan starts, I noticed later that the fan is very very loose on the card, not a good sign. Unfortunately, I have no easy way of testing the card or putting a different card in the board. I'll have to scramble to find someone with a spare pci-e card, or a pci-e board in which I can insert the 7300LE.

In the meantime, here's my question: during the installation of the new northbridge hsf (and/or the removal of the old hsf), could I have screwed things up such that now the pci-e x16 lane is faulty, yet both the on-board and pci video continue to work? Or does this sound like a dead pci-e card.

Thanks for any feedback. I have posted this in a couple of biostar forums, and have not gotten a response. I will probably rma the video card regardless because of the loose fan, but I'm reticent to buy a new card (the 7300LE was only intended to be a stopgap card until moderately priced dx10 cards become available) until I can ascertain whether the board will even accept one. As an inexpensive board with on-board video, it still works (and looks cool as hell with those new copper and blue led hsfs), so I can always get a newer dvd burner and case and donate it to my son's school where I've donated two other computers I've built.

marty

[azzey]

Sounds to me like a dead PCI-e card...

If you try to boot with just the 7300, do you get a beep? Try resetting the CMOS. Other than swapping out cards, I don't really have any suggestions. Maybe a friend will lend you a card for a few hours?

[alex666]

Thanks azzey. I reset the cmos immediately upon this problem occurring, but it had no effect.

This board uses both status lights and the usual Award beep codes, and both the lights and the beep codes indicate normal functioning. I get that single brief beep (normal functioning) with either the 7300 card in (though it takes a while), the on-board, or the old pci card. Plus, there are four status lights on the board, two of which indicate whether there are cpu, memory, or VGA errors, and these all check out as normal with any of the above 3. I know for a fact that the beep codes and status lights are working, as I testing these out without memory when setting up the board, and I obtained the proper error codes.

One other interesting finding. With the on-board or pci card, the system boots up to windows. When I push the power button to power down, it takes the usual 5 or 6 seconds. Now when I have the 7300LE pci-e card in, obviously I cannot see the screen, and it takes a while for the system to seemingly boot up fully. But when I push the power button to power down, it powers down almost immediately, much like what happens when I power down from the bios. So I don't think the system is booting all the way to windows. I suspect it's booting into the bios, or some error message, even though I can't see it.

Finally, I should point out that I've tried all the different bios settings related to which slot (pci-e, on-board, or pci) the system should boot to first. None of this makes any difference.

marty

[mjc]

Install the card (don't screw the monitor cable tight) and boot to it...without powering down, pull the monitor cable and flip it over the onboard connector. That should let you see what error or where it is stopping.

Also, in BIOS do you have the option to set which video is used first? Onboard or something else? Make sure it is set to the pci-e option and that your BIOS settings are actually being saved...

Another thing to check is if after removing the card, you have it fully reseated and any extra power connectors connected...

[alex666]

Install the card (don't screw the monitor cable tight) and boot to it...without powering down, pull the monitor cable and flip it over the onboard connector. That should let you see what error or where it is stopping.

Also, in BIOS do you have the option to set which video is used first? Onboard or something else? Make sure it is set to the pci-e option and that your BIOS settings are actually being saved...

Another thing to check is if after removing the card, you have it fully reseated and any extra power connectors connected...

Hmm, I'll try the first suggestion. That should be fun.

Regarding the others: in the bios, I've tried every which way of which video is used first, it makes no difference. Also, the card has no extra power connector. Finally, the card is fully seated. I've quadrupled checked that.

marty

[alex666]

Good suggestion MJC, though at this point I'm not sure what it tells me.

When I swapped the video plug from the 7300 to the on-board, sure enough I was staring at my bios and the message was the same one I get when I try to oc too much, something like "Your pc has been put in safe mode" (safemode is the term biostar uses, and has nothing to do with Windows safe mode). It's a great feature of the biostar bios that I won't detail here, a form of bios recovery.

Anyway, I have my system slightly oced, 230 X 11. So I set everything back to default and went through the same process. This time, when I switched plugs, sure enough I was into windows.

So, with the system oced at all, the system won't boot into windows with this card in place. I experimented a bit further, and this occurs regardless of whether I have the monitor plugged into the 7300. In other words, if the 7300 is in the system, attached or not attached to the monitor, and the system is oced, it won't boot into windows. But if the system is at default, it boots into windows just fine.

Now the question remains: is this due to a dead card, or something awry with the northbridge. I don't know any geeks here where I live, at least geeks like me who like to work on systems. However, I work at a university and so tomorrow I'll dig around, talk to the computer support people and see if I can find a fellow geek traveler to help me find a way to test either the board using a known good pci-e card, or else plop the 7300 into a known good system and see if it will at least post into the bios.

One other finding: with the 7300 in place, the system at default, the monitor attached to the on-board, and being windows XP, I looked at device manager and the 7300 was not listed. Even though I didn't have a monitor attached, shouldn't the card have shown up in device manager?

Good night Gracie.

marty

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I see no mention of your other hardware, specifically your power supply. Is it possible when overclocking you are surpassing the threshold of sufficient power to run your system?

[alex666]

I see no mention of your other hardware, specifically your power supply. Is it possible when overclocking you are surpassing the threshold of sufficient power to run your system?

Fruss, I mentioned all my hardware in the original post except for the psu, which is an antec neopower 480. It's a solid psu, and my rails are solid. Voltages and temps always are the first thing I check when I set up a system, and they are fine. Believe me, when I oc, I am constantly monitoring temps and voltages.

Please recall that everything was in working order until I pulled the video card, memory, et al, removed the mobo from the case, and installed the two hsfs. Now everything works except for that video card. But I'm not sure if it's the video card per se or if perhaps I managed to ding the northbridge chip.

I think the bottom line is that I'll just have to test the card. I was hoping that someone would know whether you could damage a northbridge chip on a mobo with on-board video such that the pci-e slot would not work, but all other aspects of the board works fine. This is the situation I'm facing.

I should add that I used a zalman 7000 series hsf for my cpu, you know, one of those big copper flowers!! And it works great, really keeps the temps down (6C - 8C compared to stock hsf) when under full load, less so when idling. Also, the hsf on my northbridge, the suspect here so to speak, seems to be running fine, and a close inspection of the base of the hsf reveals nothing out of the ordinary, no leaking thermal paste or anything like that.

Thanks.

marty

[Fruss Tray Ted]

It's looking like the troubles with your Northbridge may be the focal point of your problem. So imo, your mobo went south without a ticket..

Testing everything you can in another pc is about your only route left. Trying to boot without memory may produce a memory error but it will not resolve the video issue.

[alex666]

It's looking like the troubles with your Northbridge may be the focal point of your problem. So imo, your mobo went south without a ticket..

Testing everything you can in another pc is about your only route left. Trying to boot without memory may produce a memory error but it will not resolve the video issue.

Well, keep in mind that the on-board video still works just fine. As does an old pci video card. So the board is still quite usable. And obviously the northbridge is not completely shot, as the board runs, I can still oc it, and so forth. It's just a question of whether I screwed up the northbridge in the very narrow and limited manner of affecting only the pci-e x16 lane.

In other words, the board didn't head south, but did it head east southeast? :)

marty

[mjc]

I'm wondering...what kind of compound did you use on the new heatsink?

Some of them are mildly conductive...

[alex666]

I used Zalman's latest and greatest, the, um, let me look it up here, okay, here we go: STG1. Here's the link:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118010

My first time using this stuff. I've used AS3 and AS5 in the past, but I was out of AS and this stuff seemed intriguing. It definitely seems to be working just fine on the cpu hsf. You paint it on. The instructions are interesting. Much easier to apply than as5.

MJC< funny you mentioned this, however, as I've considered re-installing the nb hsf with the paste that came with it, but I'm reluctant to do so unless I know it's screwed up, i.e., if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Right now, the nb hsf is securely attached and seems fine.

I'm at work and I'm going to mosey over to the computer support office and see if I can interest anyone in my problem. Too bad, it used to be in this building. Now I have to walk a ways and it's really cold out.

marty

[mjc]

If the paste used is slightly conductive and a little got on some of the chip's pins...it could explain the behavior.

[alex666]

If the paste used is slightly conductive and a little got on some of the chip's pins...it could explain the behavior.

Absolutely. That is a possibility, but I want to test the card first. If the card works, then off comes that hsf and a very careful inspection.

marty

[alex666]

Okay. Well, the university here (Utah State) will look at my card for free, test it, as I'm a professional employee here. So I'll bring it in tomorrow.

A bit unnerving, however, when I was describing how I installed a new hsf to the northbridge chip and so forth and so on. The tech guy, a young undergraduate I'm sure, had NO idea what I was talking about it. Oh well, he can probably kick ass in C++ or whatever. :)

It will take them a day or so, so I'll post back when I get the verdict. Thanks all for your input.

marty

[alex666]

My video card is dead. The fellows at Computer support tested it (I watched), and no initialization: dead as a doornail. I am SO glad I waited and didn't mess around with the new nb hsf.

So now I'll RMA the card, and I need to make a decision about getting another. The system is not really being used right now, and I'm tempted on waiting until the first moderately priced DX10 cards are available so I can set up Vista on this board. A favorite game for me and my son is Flight Sim, and the newest Flight Sim X is extremely hardware intensive from all reports, and also will fully utilize DX10 when Vista becomes available. Supposedly, the first moderately priced DX10 Nvidia cards will be available in February or March, and I can wait until then. In the meantime, if I want to play with this board, I still have the on-board video.

Thanks all for the feedback.

marty

[alex666]

Thought I'd do an update to this thread. I went out and splurged on a 8800gts 640mg video card. It immediately worked on my biostar mobo, so all my concerns about screwing up the northbridge when I installed a new hsf were indeed for naught. It was only the prior video card that died. The current card is awesome and working quite well. I've transferred the system into my super lanboy case, and it is now officially the family computer. I also bought a new psu, but the 8800gts worked fine on the 480 neopower as well.

Interesting lesson here, at least for me anyway: sometimes coincidences do happen, in this case, the video card dying at the same time I installed the new northbridge hsf.

Here are the system specs: 3500 venice running at 11 X 237 (2.61GHz), zalman 7000 series copper cpu hsf, thermaltake copper northbridge hsf, PC Power and Cooling 610 Silencer psu, 2 X 512 OCZ Plat. Rev. 2 ddr (2-3-3-8, 1T, running 1:1), 74g raptor OS/programs hdd, 120g WD sata storage hdd, NEC DVD/CD-RW burner, evga 8800gts 640mg video card..

marty

[azzey]

Ooohh looks nice :)