my first Leadtek experience.

[Mogwai]

My Leadtek GeForce 6800 GT (AGP) has.... crapped out on me. After about 1.5 years of use, I started to see random graphic anomalies/artifacts/flickering, random freezing/lockups would occur more and more often, even when playing such LOW LOW resource hungry games like warcraft 3 and original counterstrike! I know it was the GPU causing the problems/pc crashes because I switched back to my old geforce 4 ti 4200 for over a month and there were no problems what so ever. btw if u are wondering, I don't overclock, and my drivers are all up to date etc.
Unfortunately, my leadtek geforce card only came with a 1 year warranty. QQ. >_<

I have read over a lot of posts here. I was especially interested in the "One final AGP upgrade. Any advice?" thread, since I am now sort of in the same boat. All throughout that thread, the x800 gto/xl - http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=2984012 was obviously the most recommended move(whats the xl/gto difference btw?). However, my recent experience with the leadtek geforce has me very very skeptical of used/refurbished/limited warranty cards, since my brand new retail card failed to last me even 2 years. Right now I'm debating picking up that x800.

The BFG PCI-E series offering a lifetime warranty looks sweet to someone in my position but I am on a limited budget. I guess what I'm asking here is will a refurbished x800 card be likely to last me a long time?

I may bite the bullet and go for a full PCI-E mobo upgrade and pick up a BFG overclocked lifetime warranty 7600gt, but if i knew for sure this x800 gto/xl would last me another 3-4 years i'd sick with the AGP mobo and save the money.

 

[Delitus]

It might be worth checking if it is in fact the PSU to blame. I have had a same experience TWICE with my PixelView GeForce 6800 Ultra (from Prolink). At first, I blamed the "cheap" card, but as tests had revealed, the problem had actually been the power supply. As for the second time, it was my motherboard that was causing the card to artifact/lock up (voltage anomalies). It could be that your GeForce4 Ti 4200 isn't giving problems since it is not as power-hungry as the GeForce 6800 GT - just my 2 cents.

My card is still running fine. =)

Edit: clarification

 

[Mogwai]

but as tests had revealed

how did you test it? are there any software proggys out there that have diagnostic tools to test something like this? I was going to plug the card into a friends computer to see if it was indeed my mobo or PSU, but if there is an easier way please let me know, thx.

 

[Delitus]

I tested by swapping out various components, trying to isolate the source of the problem. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get the card to run stable on my PC, so I installed the card on my old Compaq PC - and bingo, the card worked flawlessly. I then tried swapping the two PSU (the original one with the one from my Compaq) and it actually worked. A new power supply cured all problems (until my motherboard started acting up - I got it RMAed, and all's been well since).

I really don't think there is an easy way to troubleshoot these kinds of problems, since there are no programs that can simply pinpoint the source of problem after a diagnosis (from my knowledge anyway... if such programs DO exist, I'd be happy to know 😀 about them). Brace yourself for some component swapping - and be warned that you may get driven nuts at times.

 

[tenaciousleydead]

ahh that sucks man ive been running my leadtek 6800 vannilla for about 2 years extremely overclocked and pipes unlocked with no problems. i would upgrade your mobo to pci express(60 bucks), then buy a x850 xt(150) thats what im in the proccess of doing. and the x850xt will play any current game on excellent settings. Good Luck.