problems with graphics card
 

Alright let me first explain I didn't use my thread in maya chat forum to post this because it's not really a maya problem, but it's more of a graphics card issue.

I got a Quadro FX 3450 off of eBay. I uninstalled my previous graphics card from my computer turned off my computer put in the new graphics card and downloaded the most recent drivers. Restarted again and ever since I put in this new graphics card I've been getting these red/pink lines/dots (image below for a better description). I wouldn't call them dead pixels because they get stuck on the screen and clear up slightly when I reload a page. Also they're not always in the same spots of the screen, and sometimes they're green and in just blocks on my computer, instead of lines.
The back of the graphics card has a 6 prong plug in. In my computer there is a plug in that fits perfectly, it has 3 white wires and 3 black wires that look like they go to the power supply (and when I unplug it it says there isn't enough power going to the card). Whether that is plugged in or not these dots are still on the screen.

Dell Dimension 9150 (under system properties it says it's Dell Dimension DXP051 but the front of the cpu says Dimension 9150)
2 gig ram
Pentium 4
3.2GHz
Previously an ATI Radaen X300 upgrading to a Quadro FX 3450

Anyone that has any ideas, please help. It seems to me like I got a bum card but wanted to ask to see if anyone has any ideas or suggestions. Or if anyone knows of a better forum I could post this on... maybe nVidia's? I haven't looked to see if they even have a forum.

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/3...7c03ne4.th.png
(click for bigger view, too big to post on the board)

oh yeah, the pink dots also end up following the trail of the mouse. Just for a little more information.

hmm, reminds me of the matrix.. lol...


could it be that it isnt completely plugged in all the way? or maybe the computer is too old for the card, or even too new? idk, thats about all i can think of right now.
-Andy

Has it got enough power to the card?

Other than that is the card the PCI or AGP? just to check that the cards properly compatable as it may be PCI 16 or something?

Or it could be a bum card.

I would post this over at nvidua as I think it does have a forum.

I think its got more to do with the software being incompatible or driver's settings being wronge than the hardware being dodgy. Does this happen only in the browser or other apps as well?

I would try setting every single setting back to default and enable them one by one to see if enabling any of them causes any of this.

I owned a quadro FX2000 for a while and had this exact same problem.

I RMA'd and board 4 times. After a lot of head scratching and hard core diagnostics I eventually tracked it down to marginal power supply.

It seems the PSU in my system was fine when I first built it, but over time I added a bunch of extra hard drives and the draw eventually exceeded the supply.

Also these cards usually require their own clean power connection. Be sure you have connected the power connector on the card (if there is one).

In my case I just went in and powered off the system and disconnected everything except the OS disk and the graphics card and bingo things cleared up. I went out and got a 550w antec true power PSU and everything worked fine.

Rick M.

thanks for the help so far

Those lines and dots show up right from the start, the bios screen, the windows opening screen, the desktop, any application I use, so on and so forth.
From what I read I have a 375watt power supply and the fx 3450 requires 350watt.
From the original settings that it comes with it does it, and it does it even after tweaking settings as much as possible.
The white and black wires that I plugged into the back of the card run to the power supply. So it's plugged in, and if I unplug it, it tells me that there is not enough power to the card. I will look into buying a bigger power supply and see if that works, if not it's a good idea to buy one anyway.

I found the nVidia forum and posted the same original post there, haven't checked back yet, I will as soon as I finish posting this.

edit: I checked the nVidia forum and there were no comments and the post I made was at the bottom of the page.

I'm guessing 375 watt might be a little too small of course it depends how many HD's and fans ect you have installed , but I would go with a minimum 500watt.
Right now I have an 850watt installed ,you can never have too much power.

I have the main hd, and a 500gig external drive. 4 slots of ram filled up (1 gig, 512, and two 262), cd burner/player, dvd burner/player, a spot for camera cards, like 8 USB ports, pretty much all of them are taken up with the external hard drive, mouse, keyboard, creative zen player... I'm sure all of this takes up a lot of the power. I will give more power a try before totally giving up on my card, until then, the old ones in and I still have to leave maya on hold :( I'm going to need some refreshing when I can finally use it again.

Thanks a lot everyone for the help. Anymore suggestions are definitely welcome

If the video board alone requires 325w then you definitely need to increase your PSU.

It is quite likely that your cpu, fans, hard disks, memory, etc. are going to consume more then the remaining 50w.

I had an FX2000 with EXACTLY the same behavior. I had a 400w PSU and bumped it up to 550w and the problem went away.

If the GFX board requires 325w I would suggest a minimum of 600w that would give you 275w for the rest of your system which shoud be sufficient.

Good luck

just seen this thread :)

its showing the same problems as I had with my underpowered card (but probably not crashing like mine). It'll be to do with the 12 volt rail output on your power unit. Many power units now split your 12 volt supply over 2 or more rails resulting in insufficient ampage driving your peripherals.
I'm guessing your new card uses an amount of power that is borderline to what your rail can supply.
You should look around for a larger power supply preferably with a single 12volt rail. They have a few different ratings on the side/underneath of the power units, showing 3.3 volt, 5 volt and 12 volt. That section will tell you if it is a single or multiple rails and what ampage each rail can deliver.
If the GFX card is sharing a rail with another peripheral then that might also be causing the problem. You might find disconnecting other things like the DVD drive or an external hard drive etc might give you a boost but it'll only be temporary till you plug something else into the system ;)

Edit: just for reference the wattage of the PSU doesnt necessarily mean a fix. I had a 550w unit with two rails that was casuing a problem so I popped up the road to a computer shop and ended up with a 500w unit on a single rail and it worked fine.

Good look
Si

well I've done a little looking around, not a lot, but it also seems that upgrading a Dell's power supply is hard to do. I don't know I could be wrong, I really don't know anything about Power Supplies or much about computers but I've learned a lot since I started learning Maya. Any help on updating a Dell Dimension 9150 power supply would be greatly appreciated also.

Thanks everyone for the help, I've wanted to increase my power supply for a while now.

If its a standard PC then dont worry about the PSU being a problem. All should be a generic fit into a case with the required cables to run the motherboard, loads of peripherals and the important pci-express power cable. If you're unsure then simply hike it out and take it to a shop and ask :)
Unless its still under warranty of course and then your best bet is to contact dell
Si

It's not unreasonably difficult to swap out PSU, however, the connections to the motherboard have gone through a couple changes in the last few years.

Ticks suggestion to have a tech look at it is a very good one. If you lug the box to just about any computer store and let them know you are going to buy a new PSU most will be happy to peek inside and make sure they recommend one with the correct connectors.

It's is a fairly straight forward do it yourself project to do the installation but if you are unsure about digging around in the bowels of your system you might want to have a pro do it. Also, I am not sure how this would affect a warranty.

Also, I am not sure what a tech would charge for this but it is possible to connect a more powerful PSU to your system while it is on a test bench without completely disemboweling your machine. It night be worth the $ to verify the PSU is the culpret before you swap yours out. However, looking at what you have in there now even of this does not solve your gfx problem it is a pretty sure thing that your current PSU is on the razors edge for the components you currently have.

Good luck

Rhetoric Camel > 'Any help on updating a Dell Dimension 9150 power supply would be greatly appreciated also.'

One should be very wary of any branded computer's power supply and power connectors. If its one of those Dells in the smaller cases, its likely that they use a non standard sized power supply. Worse is that the motherboards usually have really weird power connectors that are either not compatible with a normal power supply's connector, or when they connector does fit, the pin out isn't right (really dangerous, will probaly zap your whole computer).

If you have never changed a PSU or built a computer system yourself I think the safest and easiest solution would be to simply take the box to just about any computer store and let them know you want to upgrade the PSU.

If you intend to buy the PSU from them there is a good chance they will be willing to have a tech look at the one you currently have and as long as it is not proprietary to DELL and non-standard they can suggest a compatible model.

You can then either purchase it and install it yourself if you fell confortable or pay to have them install it.