Did unstable nvidia driver fry my card? [closed]

batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

I've moved to unstable x86 a week ago, and during the last days my system has been recompiling with gcc4. Today I came back from work, and my video card is toast. :evil:

The system was really hot inside and the video card is not working. Luckily I had a spare card to use, but it's an ATI and I will have to find out how to configure it

Is it possible that the unstable drivers have anything to do with it? Just a coincidence? My card is a Gainward navidia FX5200

k-root · Guru Joined: 08 Jan 2005 Posts: 428

coincidence... i hope

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bob_111 · Apprentice Joined: 12 Oct 2004 Posts: 155

I had the same thing with my 9600XT :cry:

. Thankgod it was ATi :lol:

.

- bob_111

drescherjm · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 11:12 pm Post subject:

It is way more likely that the fan on your card had died.

Did you try to use the card after everything cooled back to normal?
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batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

OK, more details. I can read *some* text on the screen when booting (text mode) but the screen is garbled with strange colors and lines everywhere. During booting I can see the gensplash logo, but again, very wierd. When X starts, I can't see anything anymore.

The card has no fan since it's a passive cooled card. But it was really hot, almost burning my fingers. I took it out, let it cool down a bit, and even put it in the fridge after

I'm not sooo sad. A new such card costs 40 euros, but I don't wanna but a new one, plug it in, and have an egg frier within a week.. :roll:

drescherjm · Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:19 am Post subject:

That is very strange that it does not have a fan. I have had quite a few fx5200s in my department and they all had fans...

If there is no fan there is a chance that the driver did damage to the card by setting the gpu to a higher frequency than it is recommended and thus overheating the gpu by applying way more heat than the passive cooling system could handle.
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batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

Cintra · Advocate Joined: 03 Apr 2004 Posts: 2111 Location: Norway

I'm running the Gainward FX 5200 and have used every version of nvidia drivers up to the latest with no sweat.. and no fans, thats why I bought it!
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batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

Cintra · Advocate Joined: 03 Apr 2004 Posts: 2111 Location: Norway

wise

currently using:

batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

According to gento-portage, those are the latest unstable versions as today, so it should be the same that I had (I was running KEYWORDS=~x86)

Now I feel a bit more confident that the reason was something else and this was just a coincidence, so I will go ahead and get a new card. You really can't get something much better for 40 bucks in a shop here in Germany :roll:

I will close the topic. Thanks a lot Cintra and the rest for your help and suggestions.

Cintra · Advocate Joined: 03 Apr 2004 Posts: 2111 Location: Norway

perhaps you should have a look at the edit to the above post...
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revertex · l33t Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 806

It´s almost impossible nvidia release a driver that can fry their own product.
Did you overclocked it?
Overclock can surelly fry a video card, do it at your discretion.
You can use nvoption to see the frequencies, both memory and cpu frequencies.
Does this card work booting from a live cd?

energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

Hi,

I had a 5200, passive cooled too, and it worked fine with 8178.

It is very possible, that your case was so warm inside, that your card overheated... usually, they are fine after cooling down (as long, as nothing burned), but putting it into the fridge may have damaged it.
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batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

I didn't overclock my card, so that should be the case. Thanks for the tip with nvoption, I'll look into that.
The card shows this strange (completely unredable behavior) directly from the beginning. I can barely read the BIOS commments so live CD is a dream... A good question would be wether the card works using the DVI connector, but since I have a CRT then I can't test it.