Is this card borked?

[skippy]

Hello guys, I am troubled and could really do with some help.

The offending card is an Asus v9999GT/TD128. It appears to basically be a 6800GT gpu with the 6800nu's ram stuck onto it.

All is fine until I attempt to install drivers for the thing. I have tried both Asus official drivers and a whole string of Nvidia drivers (I've gone back to a year ago). As soon as the drivers install I get hideous scrambled graphics - they are beyond artifacts - you can't actually see the screen and the PC locks up. If I boot windows in VGA mode I can remove the drivers and all is fine - install 'em again and it's back to scrambled mode.

I've tried a clean install of windows. I've tried the card in a different PC I knocked together. Both test PCs run my 9800pro card fine. The only factor which has remained the same is the PSU.
Here are the details of the thing:

Q-TEC duel fan 550W Gold psu
+3.3v rated for Max 18a 285w
+5v rated for Max 30a 285w
+12v rated for Max 16a 240w
When I measure the 12v with SpeedFan program I get a steady 11.77v.

I've fiddled with all combinations of AGP bios settings (apature and fastwrites) to no avail.

So I ask:

1) Is there anyway this can be attributed to the PSU? I want to RMA the card, but is there any chance that a dodgy PSU can cause a card to act up ONLY when you install its drivers?

2) Is there anything else I can try before I RMA this card? I really don't want to shell out on a PSU unless theres a decent chance it will help.

Thanks guys.

 

[paradigm]

The card wont be using anywhere near the same amount of power when running in PnP VGA mode, and those power supplies suck harder than a brand new dyson. I'd never put a q-tec in my PC!

 

[Curio]

The PSU is a likely culprit - especially as you've ruled other things out. As said, Q-Tec PSU's are absolutely awful things - they also "sex up" their power ratings. A 550W Q-Tec is probably only a 300-350W in reality (they quote theoretical max output as opposed to sustainable output like everybody else...). You should definitely try another PSU, if only to rule it out - and you really don't want a Q-Tec in there anyway. Trust me....I've been there

 

[chopchop]

althought that psu is utter crap, its enough to run a stock pc and a 6800 easily. low 12v readings are probably wrong, if u used a multimeter chances are it will be giving the correct voltage.
like my nf7 used to report 11.55v underload, but when i measured it properly it was dead on 12.00

try the card in another pc tho, but chances are that its buggered.