F!#$ing 9800 Pro

[dimsum411]

Okay this card is driving me crazy... I bought a refurb 9800 pro 128mb 8xagp to upgrade my Ti4200. After uninstalling the nvidia display drivers and removing the Ti4200, I physically install the 9800pro, plugin the molex connector. Everythings starts out fine, xp sp2 recognizes the card and uses a generic driver. So, I download the latest catalyst driverset and install those, then reboot.

Now, after it gets past the rolling windows screen, the screen goes blank however my hardware is stilling running in the background (i.e. I can restart it with the alt+f4, ctrl+u.. without actually seeing the screen). I try it in safe mode, and it works fine, slow however & without any 3d capabilities. I'm at a loss, and ready to break this card in half.

I've been an nvidia user my entire life, and this experience is not helping any in swaying my opinion... :(

system specs:
athlon xp2500+
msi K7n2 Delta-L (nforce2)
1024mb ddr2700
300watt antec true series psu

[TopSecretBoy]

Re-download and re-insall the drivers. Try an older version if it does it again. If not, post back.

[Digital Limit]

No problems here. I couldn't help you if there were :p

[WhoGivesARatsAss]

Return the refurb and get a new one.

[dimsum411]

i only paid $60 bucks for this... its probably bad vram chips, because i tried it in my intel box and the same thing, no directx/d3d, + pink artifacts.

I'm gonna get my buddy to swap this with a brand new one from Fry's, hehe, perks of being an ex-employee.

[MrBored]

Before you mentioned the pink artifacts I would have thought it was just running in a refresh rate your monitor didn't accept, damn those pink artifacts...

[PHAT_ASS]

gotta love those 9800s... i just bough an XT off the net and the ram on it runs only at 500 mhz, with the bus set at 128 bits. feels just like my geforce 4 but with new shaders. :@