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Received my Gainward 4600 yesterday..
Right now I'm not too happy with it. After much trouble (anyone that also frequents the nVnews forums knows what I'm talking about, and so does Kindness, so I'll leave most of it out here), I finally found out that this card is defective. But the defect may not be a problem with the components, but with the PCB and the edge connector tolerances. The reason I say that is that right now I'm waiting for GoogleGear.com to finish the hoop jumping process so I can get an RMA for exchange started (yep, I'm gonna give Gainward one more try, in the off-chance that only SOME of their cards are like this), and in the meantime I have searched around the web, forums, newsgroups, etc., for others with similar problems.
The problem:
A Matrix-like display in 2D (right from BIOS post display), one that is severe enough that without assistance XP halts loading on a stop error before it even shows the black logo screen. This screen looks like a black and white chessboard pattern with the 'Matrix' effect on random ascii characters all over the screen. At the boot, and in the bios, I can make out much of what's supposed to be displayed under the crap, but only because I KNOW what is supposed to be there.
The cause:
I originally thought it was something on the card either fried or incorrectly attached. After my searching around, I found many others with the same type of problem, and they suggested it has to do with the video card's seating in the AGP slot (or lack thereof). Since I have the card at least one more night before sending it back, I pulled it back out of its box and put it in the computer, and proceeded to boot to my bios menu. With the computer on and the bios screen overlaid with Keanu's favorite movie simulator
, I applied gentle pressure to the card, watching the results on-screen. I found that while applying pressure in some directions, the distortion stopped (it didn't go away, all the crap just froze in place). After finding a pressure point that seemed to be the most consistent, I restarted the computer and allowed it to boot into WindowsXP, where it appeared perfect. UNTIL I released pressure from the card. It seems that the card has two issues:
1) It fits loosely in the AGP slot, instead of snugly, as the G400Max and even the VisionTek cards that preceeded it here.
2) The edge connector tab closest to the rear bracket is actually ever so slightly longer than the same tab on my G400Max, and in combination with 1 above may be causing the card to seat with some contacts not quite being made.
No matter what I did, releasing pressure from the card caused it to return to the original form, so I won't be keeping this particular one. If I could have reseated it and had it stay there (fixing the issue without me having to continue to hold it), I may have kept it. Now all I can do is hope that the replacement fits better than this one, or else I'll be looking elsewhere for a card.
Who knows, maybe the replacement WILL be the same, and Matrox will announce P.. erm, their next gen part before I find something else that does work.
(Someone somewhere might be throwing me another hint)
The problem:
A Matrix-like display in 2D (right from BIOS post display), one that is severe enough that without assistance XP halts loading on a stop error before it even shows the black logo screen. This screen looks like a black and white chessboard pattern with the 'Matrix' effect on random ascii characters all over the screen. At the boot, and in the bios, I can make out much of what's supposed to be displayed under the crap, but only because I KNOW what is supposed to be there.
The cause:
I originally thought it was something on the card either fried or incorrectly attached. After my searching around, I found many others with the same type of problem, and they suggested it has to do with the video card's seating in the AGP slot (or lack thereof). Since I have the card at least one more night before sending it back, I pulled it back out of its box and put it in the computer, and proceeded to boot to my bios menu. With the computer on and the bios screen overlaid with Keanu's favorite movie simulator
, I applied gentle pressure to the card, watching the results on-screen. I found that while applying pressure in some directions, the distortion stopped (it didn't go away, all the crap just froze in place). After finding a pressure point that seemed to be the most consistent, I restarted the computer and allowed it to boot into WindowsXP, where it appeared perfect. UNTIL I released pressure from the card. It seems that the card has two issues:1) It fits loosely in the AGP slot, instead of snugly, as the G400Max and even the VisionTek cards that preceeded it here.
2) The edge connector tab closest to the rear bracket is actually ever so slightly longer than the same tab on my G400Max, and in combination with 1 above may be causing the card to seat with some contacts not quite being made.
No matter what I did, releasing pressure from the card caused it to return to the original form, so I won't be keeping this particular one. If I could have reseated it and had it stay there (fixing the issue without me having to continue to hold it), I may have kept it. Now all I can do is hope that the replacement fits better than this one, or else I'll be looking elsewhere for a card.
Who knows, maybe the replacement WILL be the same, and Matrox will announce P.. erm, their next gen part before I find something else that does work.
(Someone somewhere might be throwing me another hint)
)
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