My Ti4200 broke in a very very strange way...help?
 

Hi all.

Recently, my Leadtek GF4 Ti4200 64MB stopped working. Whereas it used
to work fine in my Shuttle PC (the Nforce2 based SN41G2), recently
when I removed the card (to clean dust off the heatsink fan) and put
it back in, the Shuttle motherboard's 'AGP Protection LED' went on.

After reading the manual, I found that this LED lights when the
motherboard thinks you have a older 3.3V card in its 1.5V-only AGP
slot -- it won't let you power up the machine in that state. Puzzled,
I put it in another Nforce2 motherboard. Same thing: AGP protection
LED on, no POST. Interestingly, the LED on that other mobo stayed on
_even after the card was removed_. That other motherboard now works
with its original card, but the LED remains on. I dont know if that's
relevant, but it's odd.

Now, I know that my Shuttle motherboard and its AGP are fine because

1) I can run the Shuttle perfectly with the onboard video, and

2) Another Gainward GF4 Ti4200 works in the same AGP slot.

Coincidentally, I bought this card EXACTLY one year ago, on October
25th. This means that the warranty seems to have run out, and my email
to Leadtek support has gone unanswered for 2 or 3 days.

Does anyone have ANY clue whatsoever about this? What went wrong, and
is there anything at all I can do to fix it?

Any suggestions appreciated!

I would look the card over very carefully for anything that doesn't look
right. The problem only happened after you took the card out to clean the fan.
Also clean and check the edge connector. You can use a pencil erasor to clean
the contacts on both sides.

porpoise wrote:

Hi all.

Recently, my Leadtek GF4 Ti4200 64MB stopped working. Whereas it used
to work fine in my Shuttle PC (the Nforce2 based SN41G2), recently
when I removed the card (to clean dust off the heatsink fan) and put
it back in, the Shuttle motherboard's 'AGP Protection LED' went on.

After reading the manual, I found that this LED lights when the
motherboard thinks you have a older 3.3V card in its 1.5V-only AGP
slot -- it won't let you power up the machine in that state. Puzzled,
I put it in another Nforce2 motherboard. Same thing: AGP protection
LED on, no POST. Interestingly, the LED on that other mobo stayed on
_even after the card was removed_. That other motherboard now works
with its original card, but the LED remains on. I dont know if that's
relevant, but it's odd.

Now, I know that my Shuttle motherboard and its AGP are fine because

1) I can run the Shuttle perfectly with the onboard video, and

2) Another Gainward GF4 Ti4200 works in the same AGP slot.

Coincidentally, I bought this card EXACTLY one year ago, on October
25th. This means that the warranty seems to have run out, and my email
to Leadtek support has gone unanswered for 2 or 3 days.

Does anyone have ANY clue whatsoever about this? What went wrong, and
is there anything at all I can do to fix it?

Any suggestions appreciated!

Just a guess, but AGP cards are sometimes hard to seat.
Several posts in the past about AGP cards not working til
the were seated with more force than initially tried.

On 25 Oct 2003 16:04:23 -0700
(porpoise) wrote:

Hi all.

Recently, my Leadtek GF4 Ti4200 64MB stopped working. Whereas it used
to work fine in my Shuttle PC (the Nforce2 based SN41G2), recently
when I removed the card (to clean dust off the heatsink fan) and put
it back in, the Shuttle motherboard's 'AGP Protection LED' went on.

After reading the manual, I found that this LED lights when the
motherboard thinks you have a older 3.3V card in its 1.5V-only AGP
slot -- it won't let you power up the machine in that state. Puzzled,
I put it in another Nforce2 motherboard. Same thing: AGP protection
LED on, no POST. Interestingly, the LED on that other mobo stayed on
_even after the card was removed_. That other motherboard now works
with its original card, but the LED remains on. I dont know if that's
relevant, but it's odd.

Now, I know that my Shuttle motherboard and its AGP are fine because

1) I can run the Shuttle perfectly with the onboard video, and

2) Another Gainward GF4 Ti4200 works in the same AGP slot.

Coincidentally, I bought this card EXACTLY one year ago, on October
25th. This means that the warranty seems to have run out, and my email
to Leadtek support has gone unanswered for 2 or 3 days.

Does anyone have ANY clue whatsoever about this? What went wrong, and
is there anything at all I can do to fix it?

Any suggestions appreciated!

First, make sure it's seated properly. If that's not the problem then
there are several possibilities. Check the connector on the card
carefully in a good light and make sure that nothing is wrapped around
it (little piece of paper, piece of tape, that sort of thing)
that might be preventing good contact. Also look in the connector on
the motherboard for the same thing. If that's not it, look the board
over very carefully with a good light and preferably a magnifier and
make sure that there aren't any little wire clippings or the like
short-circuiting two traces together. If that's not it then look for a
missing piece--wires are there but not the part that they went into or
solder is there but whatever it held down is gone, that sort of thing.
If that's it then you need to find out what the part was and replace it.
If that's not it then odds are that you managed to zap (damage with
static electricity) the board, in which case it's probably beyond
economical repair.



--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 22:52:44 -0600, ")-()-("
wrote:



porpoise wrote:

Hi all.

Recently, my Leadtek GF4 Ti4200 64MB stopped working. Whereas it used
to work fine in my Shuttle PC (the Nforce2 based SN41G2), recently
when I removed the card (to clean dust off the heatsink fan) and put
it back in, the Shuttle motherboard's 'AGP Protection LED' went on.

After reading the manual, I found that this LED lights when the
motherboard thinks you have a older 3.3V card in its 1.5V-only AGP
slot -- it won't let you power up the machine in that state. Puzzled,
I put it in another Nforce2 motherboard. Same thing: AGP protection
LED on, no POST. Interestingly, the LED on that other mobo stayed on
_even after the card was removed_. That other motherboard now works
with its original card, but the LED remains on. I dont know if that's
relevant, but it's odd.

Now, I know that my Shuttle motherboard and its AGP are fine because

1) I can run the Shuttle perfectly with the onboard video, and

2) Another Gainward GF4 Ti4200 works in the same AGP slot.

Coincidentally, I bought this card EXACTLY one year ago, on October
25th. This means that the warranty seems to have run out, and my email
to Leadtek support has gone unanswered for 2 or 3 days.

Does anyone have ANY clue whatsoever about this? What went wrong, and
is there anything at all I can do to fix it?

Any suggestions appreciated!

Just a guess, but AGP cards are sometimes hard to seat.
Several posts in the past about AGP cards not working til
the were seated with more force than initially tried.



Take a look at the bottom edge of the card at the socket. You should
not see any "gold" on the edge connector.... Sometimes the card
latch feature will keep the back edge from going down...
Bill

Sounds like it is not seating properly. If it worked before you took it out,
what else could it be.




"porpoise" wrote in message
om...
Hi all.

Recently, my Leadtek GF4 Ti4200 64MB stopped working. Whereas it used
to work fine in my Shuttle PC (the Nforce2 based SN41G2), recently
when I removed the card (to clean dust off the heatsink fan) and put
it back in, the Shuttle motherboard's 'AGP Protection LED' went on.

After reading the manual, I found that this LED lights when the
motherboard thinks you have a older 3.3V card in its 1.5V-only AGP
slot -- it won't let you power up the machine in that state. Puzzled,
I put it in another Nforce2 motherboard. Same thing: AGP protection
LED on, no POST. Interestingly, the LED on that other mobo stayed on
_even after the card was removed_. That other motherboard now works
with its original card, but the LED remains on. I dont know if that's
relevant, but it's odd.

Now, I know that my Shuttle motherboard and its AGP are fine because

1) I can run the Shuttle perfectly with the onboard video, and

2) Another Gainward GF4 Ti4200 works in the same AGP slot.

Coincidentally, I bought this card EXACTLY one year ago, on October
25th. This means that the warranty seems to have run out, and my email
to Leadtek support has gone unanswered for 2 or 3 days.

Does anyone have ANY clue whatsoever about this? What went wrong, and
is there anything at all I can do to fix it?

Any suggestions appreciated!

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. The good news is that I've gotten
the card to work in two other motherboards now, one of which the card
DIDN'T work on before, which indicates that the card is not itself
entirely broken. But it still continues to light the LED when it's in
my own shuttle AGP slot. I'm still totally puzzled as to why this is.
As many of you suggested, seating is commonly an issue with AGP cards.
I've had problems with AGP cards not seating properly before, so I
paid special attention to that, and I've made a visual inspection of
the contacts along the bottom and on the PCB itself.

What I'm confused on is why it would be broken enough that it wrongly
sets off the 3.3V AGP LED but can still work on 2 out of 3
motherboards. I'll keep looking for any obviously physical defects on
the card.