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Leadtek 7600GT AGP problem

n.healey

n.healey

n.healey

Associate
Joined
30 Oct 2006
Posts
5
Please, can someone help!

I've been on a few forums now seeking advice on whether or not a new graphics card I had bought (the Leadtek AGP 7600GT) from overclockers.co.uk was faulty or not.

I contacted them a few weeks back and they sent me a replacement card but exactly the same problem occurred again. This would lead me to believe that the problem lies not with the graphics card but with my system itself (or the graphics card drivers?), although a lot of people here talk of dodgy 7600GTs and maybe I got two dodgy one's in a row!!!

The problem is this: When playing games on my computer, with the graphics card installed, I get varying levels of artifacting going on. They seem to be a bit random, for instance last night I was playing the demo of Mark of Chaos and all seemed well on the first map but then the subsequent map had considerable artifacting going on. I also noticed it when I ran 3D Mark 05:

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/5224/3dmark05samplend1.jpg
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/7738/3dmark05sample2mq0.jpg
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/8585/3dmark05sample3fa1.jpg

It can’t be a heat issue (or at least I don't think it is) as when monitoring the card, it doesn’t get above about 53 C, under load.

I can only now think of two logical reasons for these errors. The first is that there is a problem with the graphics card drivers. I'm not really sure about this though as I have the manufacturers latest drivers installed (from Leadtek/Winfast). The second is that I have a feeling it could be related to the card being underpowered. I'm running an Enermax EG365AX PSU running at 350W. I thought at first that this should be ok as it is recommended to run the card with a min 300W PSU, but I have quite a few other components running off it. I have a DVD RW, a CD RW, 2 HD's, floppy disk drive, and then the motherboard itself.

Is it possible that the PSU is not powerful enough? Or does it look as though I've been sent another dodgy card? Does anyone have any other suggestions of what the problem may be or things I can try? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
 
To rule out the potential lack of power, and something else specific to your rig, being the cause your best bet would be to find someone with an AGP rig that has a higher specced (but quality) PSU and get them to test the card for you.

Alternatively disconnect all non essential devices from the PSU leaving just the motherboard and the HDD you boot from.

Personally I don't think it's the PSU.

I dont know what board you have but I'd try upping the AGP voltage slightly and see if this helps.
 
Sorry to suggest something obvious, but do you have the additional molex plugged into the card? I have just bought this exact card, and with an Enermax 350w PSU I'm having no problems.

Barton 3200+
2 DVD drives, 1 Sata HDD, floppy etc.

EDIT - I think I have the exact same PSU as you also. This has a dedicated power plug for video cards, it has 'extra' printed on it.
 
GazzaMataz said:
Hmmm interesting and how would you do this?
Click to expand...
It depends on the board but there should be an option in BIOS or perhaps a jumper on the board. My 6800GT suffers artifacts when I overclock it unless I raise the AGP voltage, it seems that the memory needs extra juice to run properly at higher speeds so that there is a correlation between artifacts and AGP voltage in my case at least. So it could be that the GFX memory needs slightly more power than it's getting to work properly
 
PieEater said:
Alternatively disconnect all non essential devices from the PSU leaving just the motherboard and the HDD you boot from.
Click to expand...

I'll give this a go then and see if it helps.

banja said:
Sorry to suggest something obvious, but do you have the additional molex plugged into the card?
Click to expand...

Yes, I have the card plugged into the PSU. I'll try your suggestion of pluggin in the 'Extra' labelled connector though and see if that makes a difference.

PieEater said:
I dont know what board you have but I'd try upping the AGP voltage slightly and see if this helps.
Click to expand...

I'll give this a try too but I'm a bit worried about fiddling with voltages and damaging my system.

Bane said:
Tried using the nVidia Win XP drivers? instead?
Click to expand...

I'll give this a go too. I'll try a few other drivers as well and see if that makes any difference.

Thanks for the responces guys. Will try them out tonight and get back to you tomorrow.
 
I'll give this a try too but I'm a bit worried about fiddling with voltages and damaging my system.
Click to expand...
You're talking pretty miniscule amounts, just go up a couple of increments in BIOS and give it a try. Very few motherboard manufacturers will give you the ability to raise voltages enough to fry hardware for legal reasons. By the sounds of it you'll soon know whether raising the voltages helps with the problem, if it doesn't then shut down and put the voltages back to default.

Some motherboards have been known to undervolt so it may be worthwhile checking related forums to see if other users of the same board have had problems with newer GFX cards.

/Edit - Welcome to the OCUK forums BTW.
 
Last edited:
Ok guys, I think I sorted it. I tried a trick I've seen a few people try, where they deselect an option in the display>advanced>troubleshoot window called 'write combining' or something. Seemed to do the trick just fine. I think I may have lost a few fps though but its worth it.

Does anyone know what this 'write combining' thing does?

Thanks for your replies guys.
 
n.healey said:
'write combining' thing does?
Click to expand...

it combines writes along with reads. the agp bus being bi-directional should work fine with it enabled. but then again it could be an issue with your motherboard. always best to have the latest bios version installed.
 
neil27 said:
do you lose any performance if you deselect it even thou its running fine?
Click to expand...

Yes, I think so. I tried to run 3D Mark 05 to see how much performance I lost exactly but it crashed my computer. Need to run it again and compare the score's now with before.
 
Cyber-Mav said:
it combines writes along with reads. the agp bus being bi-directional should work fine with it enabled. but then again it could be an issue with your motherboard. always best to have the latest bios version installed.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I have the latest BIOS version installed and all the latest drivers for my m/b.
 
It could be a hardware conflict not allowing enough bandwidth to your graphics card. Try checking the IRQ settings of your hardware and see if any are conflicting with your gfx card. On low end mobos some of the PCI slots can use the same IRQ channel and I had some trouble with my SB Audigy 2 using the same as my graphics card and completely screwing up my games.
 
n.healey said:
Please, can someone help!

I've been on a few forums now seeking advice on whether or not a new graphics card I had bought (the Leadtek AGP 7600GT) from overclockers.co.uk was faulty or not.

I contacted them a few weeks back and they sent me a replacement card but exactly the same problem occurred again. This would lead me to believe that the problem lies not with the graphics card but with my system itself (or the graphics card drivers?), although a lot of people here talk of dodgy 7600GTs and maybe I got two dodgy one's in a row!!!

The problem is this: When playing games on my computer, with the graphics card installed, I get varying levels of artifacting going on. They seem to be a bit random, for instance last night I was playing the demo of Mark of Chaos and all seemed well on the first map but then the subsequent map had considerable artifacting going on. I also noticed it when I ran 3D Mark 05:

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/5224/3dmark05samplend1.jpg
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/7738/3dmark05sample2mq0.jpg
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/8585/3dmark05sample3fa1.jpg

It can’t be a heat issue (or at least I don't think it is) as when monitoring the card, it doesn’t get above about 53 C, under load.

I can only now think of two logical reasons for these errors. The first is that there is a problem with the graphics card drivers. I'm not really sure about this though as I have the manufacturers latest drivers installed (from Leadtek/Winfast). The second is that I have a feeling it could be related to the card being underpowered. I'm running an Enermax EG365AX PSU running at 350W. I thought at first that this should be ok as it is recommended to run the card with a min 300W PSU, but I have quite a few other components running off it. I have a DVD RW, a CD RW, 2 HD's, floppy disk drive, and then the motherboard itself.

Is it possible that the PSU is not powerful enough? Or does it look as though I've been sent another dodgy card? Does anyone have any other suggestions of what the problem may be or things I can try? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Click to expand...


can you post '05/'06 benchmark results?
 
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