Problems with GeForce FX 5900

Question

I have just bought a GeForce FX 5900 (128) video card. I currently have a Dell Dimension 8200 with a Dell M991 monitor. When I swapped the video card out and turned on, the boot screen comes up with vertical lines through it and after the Windows XP logo screen comes up the screen goes black and monitor message comes up with Attention: Fequency Out of Range. Need help please. I talked with Tech support for the FX 5900 and they were no help at all. Is it possible this monitor can't handle the video card? This is only a two year old monitor. Any help would be appreciated.

James May

jrmayii · Answer

Ok one thing I just noticed was that my system has a 250 watt power supply and the card recommends a 300 watt power supply. Could this be the culprit? I would hate to upgrade the power supply just to find the card still doesn't work.

James May

shunney · Answer

Hi,

The psu will handle any of the new cards, there must be some other problem....

Try wiping the connections on the vid card and reseat it, use a dry lint free cloth.. also do the same with the memory, see if that helps...

This is my system with standard psu...

Dimension 8200
Pentium 4 2.6ghz / 400mhz
1024mb Samsung pc800 rdram
160gb Western Digital 8mb cache
120gb Western Digital 8mb cache
16x Samsung DVD
24x Nec CD/RW
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2
10/100 3com Network
Sapphire Atlantis 9700 pro Graphics
Win xp Home

3dmark 2001se - 14251
3dmark 03 - 4994

Message Edited by shunney on 02-05-2004 08:57 PM

JDre · Answer

The 9600 is it the SE or regular?  I want one myself! I have noticed, if updating the Nvidia driver in my Win 98, that I would get some very high refresh rate setting until I changed it.  640 by 480 and 800 by 600 at 120hz is above what many monitors will do.  Mine could handle it, but when I reset things my way  I discovered these settings were crazy.  I would reboot in safe mode, try Add/remove progams then reinstalling your video drivers from there.  Or: ReInstall old board, if it works,  Remove old drivers from Add/remove programs first. Shut down, remove power Install new card.  Screen should have big icons and lines.  Then new Nvidia drivers 53.03.  Then set to your resoulution, 800 by 600 75 hz or 1024 by 768 75 hz.  Maybe the card should be reseated carefully.  If your graphics are corrupt still, could be defective...I hope not.

dfonda2 · Answer

I have the exact same problem!! BFG 5900

I have replaced the Power Supply with a 350w

Made no difference

I have an Dimension 8100 but I have the same M991 monitor

I do not think its the monitor because eventually I got mine to work

It is when you do any DIRECTDRAW it blue screens

I have an RMA # but after seeing your post It sounds like our Cards are OK

If you press F8 and go into the boot menu you can choose to load with the VGA drivers

This enabled me to get to windows The newest drivers 5.3.03 worked for me but I get blue screen crashes and artifacts if I try anything that requires hardware acceleration

If I ever get this piece of junk working I will post again

Hold on I just stumbled upon this link and it sounds similar http://www.riva3d.com/yabbse/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=332

It may be bad cards after all

And then there is this http://www.bjorn3d.com/_preview.php?articleID=337&pageID=462

Message Edited by dfonda2 on 02-06-2004 09:19 PM

Message Edited by dfonda2 on 02-06-2004 09:29 PM

rajuncajun · Answer

There are some strange things going on with 5900 cards lately. I myself purchased a eVGA 5900SE before the holidays for my Dim4500, and other than not being able to overclock hardly at all it runs great - runs games much more smoothly than my Ti4200 I replaced.

However, it seems quite a few people have attempted to flash the BIOS of a 5900 Non-Ultra to the BIOS of a 5950 Ultra. From what I've read are several forums there is really nothing gained by doing this, BUT if the BIOS flash fails you've got a dead card! It seems some vendors (like www.gameve.com) are shrink wrapping returned 5900s (especially BFGs) and sending them out again! Certainly not ethical (unless sold as an open box), but the fault really lies with the dip-sh**s that returned the now non-functioning cards back after flashing the BIOS!

You can tell if your "retail" box has been opened - go over to this site http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=1241999. There are also several other topics in that forum that cover this exact subject.

I hope for your sake you didn't get stuck with one of these returns, but if you did contact BFG directly (contacting the vendor doesn't seem to resolve the problem). They are aware of this problem and seem to be bending over backwards to help the customers.

Dennis

dfonda2 · Answer

Yes I RMA'ed mine Saturday back to BFG not extremegear where I bought it.

Mutiple problems I think:

1)The Cards themselves they should just plain work, I mean how many dells are out there.

2) I counted on Dell to keep up BIOS changes Dimension 8100 has not had a BIOS update since 2001!

3)After searching 5900 FX's for solutions I just cannout believe how many problems are out there.(hundreds)

Wasted 125 bucks on a new PS.

Recomend no one buys 5900 FX for a Dimension 8100, Until someone posts with positive results

proving that our motherboards are compatible.

If anyone has a 5900fx working in a dimension 8100 please post.

Thank you

PS. I dont buy what people are saying about the bad returns, most companys can check these cards out and refuse to return the money.

If they returned money for user destryoyed cards all the Card company's would be out of business.

BFG is going to test my card and let me know what they find.

IMHO this is why these 5900's have been priced so low recently, they will be phased out.

If these problems don't put BFG back into receivership I will be suprised, remember they took over a bankrupt company last year.

jrmayii · Answer

Thanks for the responses......least now I know others are experiencing the same issues. I still have had no luck getting this card to work in my dim8200.  As far as issues with flashing the bios (on the video card) mentioned above, I have not done this nor will even think about trying it.  Should I just send this card back?

Granted · Answer

Hi Shunney Are you running all of that extra  equipment in your 8200 system on the original Dell 250 watt power supply? Grant

shunney · Answer

Granted....

Yep, this is everything on standard psu... running almost 2 years now with no probs...

Dimension 8200
Pentium 4 2.6ghz / 400mhz
1024mb Samsung pc800 rdram
160gb Western Digital 8mb cache
120gb Western Digital 8mb cache
16x Samsung DVD
24x Nec CD/RW
Nec floppy drive (comes in handy sometimes)
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2
10/100 3com Network
56k modem ( no broadband available in my area yet)
Sapphire Atlantis 9700 pro Graphics
Win xp Home
External - Epson Photo printer, scanner, Sony digi cam

3dmark 2001se - 14251
3dmark 03 - 4994

Granted · Answer

Shunney

That's great that all of that works on the 250 watt PS!

I have an 8200 with a 80 gig HD, CD, DVD, Zip 250 and 2.6 gig P4, 512 gigs of R400 ram
Also have a Gforce 3 ti 200 video that I want to upgrade,
guess I can go up to a FX 5900XT with my current 250 watt PS?

Grant

Message Edited by Granted on 02-09-2004 04:19 PM

shunney · Answer

you should be able to use any of the new high end cards without any psu issues :)

DaedalusOne · Answer

I just got the BFG Technologies Asylum GeForce FX 5900 128MB 8xAGP card today.

Guess what... It doesn't work right, it has SEVERE Anti-alaising problems.

Locks up when trying to run 3D graphics.

Icons dissapear.

Random Graphical specks on the screen.

Etc..Etc..Etc..

I called BFG. They couldn't do anything...

I called Dell, and sat on the phone with soem guy from India who I could barely understand before my phone died after over an hour of going through his check-sheet. (Ok really I'm an IT Tech, like I didn't already try uninstalling and reinstalling my drivers, good grief!) And still no fix.

And this is all after the S-Video adapter had to be modified to even stay in the card! The reciever on the card is set into the card too far to allow the adapter to plug in all the way, so it falls out from it's own weight, you have to trim 1/16th of an inch of the black rubber of the thing to get it to be able to seat all the way.

And for what it's worth..

Dell Dimension 8100 Limited

1.7GHz Intel Pentium 4 (most recent board revision)

512MB

40GB HD

Stock power supply (the stock power supply is more then sufficient to run anything you can cram into the case)

Audigy Gamer Sound Card w/6.1 surround speakers

The BGF Tech junk 128MB card

WIndows XP Proffessional w/ XP Plus

And ALOT of other very high end software

And until recently I was running the XP2 bios, but switched to the CL9 bios because it is the XP2 version for 8100's with the Audigy Card.

Bottom line. I'm ticked. And the card is junk. And no one seems to be compitent enough to fix it.

And as I was typing this one of the fans just started sounding like a wheel grinder.. Great, I should have gotten the Radeon. Too bad it's out of stock...

Message Edited by DaedalusOne on 02-14-2004 12:00 AM

dfonda2 · Answer

Daed that is bad news,

It seems the 5900 is not compatible with the 8100's motherboard, I RMA ed my first card back to BFG and the new one should be here monday. Guess anew one will not due any good, but I will post here after I try it out. I wonder if Dell could not have updated the BIOS in these machines to help us out? Well any way some good will come for me, I have decided if it does not work I am going to build my first computer around this card. No more of this propriatory motherboard stuff!

PS. and to think I got an nvidea to avoid ATI driver hassel's LOL

PSS Hey Daed if you cannot use restore to get back your icons TweakUI for windows XP was able to repair mine.

Dell Dimension P4 1.8Ghz 512 Pc800RDRAM 120GBHD, GeForce3 200/ Pinnacle 1394/Belkin 4Port2.0 USB/Linsys10/100 network/Cable Broadband/Pioneer AO6/Samsung Dvd/SBLiveValue/WinXP/Studio8/Dirctx9

Granted · Answer

Has anyone had success installing a FX 5900XT on a newer Dell motherboard than the D 8100?

Like a 8200, 8250 or 8300?

I have an 8200 and would really like to get a 5900XT from eVGA or MSI or Gigabyte.
Are these problems just with BFG cards??

Grant

California Jim · Answer

Granted: I have both an 8200 and BFG FX 5900. They run flawlessly for me and installation was a snap and troble free. I personally have had no problems with the card.

Im running it with a 400 watt PSU from PC Power and Cooling as per manufacturers recommendation. If you have any other questions about this setup just ask.

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Problems with GeForce FX 5900

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