Motherboard broken or video card broken??

[glawson77]

I have an Asus P4R800-VM motherboard and an Xpertvision Geforce 6800GS 256mb video card. I have updated the motherboard BIOS so it is uptodate and I have installed the latest Nvidia drivers for my video card.
My problem is since installing the video card most of my games which ran fine before installing the video card now freeze then crash. Only a few weeks ago I installed a new harddrive and freshly installed WindowsXP SP2.
I have put my video card in a friends computer and installed the same Nvidia driver and some of my games on it and it appears to run without problems, I thought it must be a problem with my motherboard but I put my friends Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 in my computer and it runs fine!
So I don't know if the problem is with the motherboard or the videocard.
Can someone tell me where my problem lyes, I don't want to go out and buy a new motherboard, etc to find out that it is the videocard thats to blame. I dont understand why it runs fine on my friends computer but not mine and why the 6800GS wont work on mine but the FX 5200 will!?

Many thanks in advance

Gordon

[GX1_Man]

If the 5200 runs in the same slot then it sounds like you have isolated the problem to the card. Keep in mind that the latest drivers may not necessarily be the best.  

[soybean]

You say the card "appears to run without problems" in your friend's computer.  Does that mean it performs the way it should in his computer?  Does his computer have the same driver you had installed on your computer?  

Tell us more about your hardware (processor, RAM, power supply, etc.)  I think other hardware issues may also be causing your problem?  How many Watts is your power supply?  Do you know what your temperatures are running when you play games?  How many fans do you have in your computer?  

You said, "most of my games which ran fine before installing the video card".  So, your games ran fine with integrated video, is that correct?  

[donsor]

I'm no computer expert but while downloading the BIOS update for my Asus A7N8XE DeLuxe, I believe I read a warning to the effect that if the existing BIOS works fine, to not to install the upgrade, which I saved but did not install. Anything to this?

[Calum]

donsor, can you please make a new thread for your question?
Thanks.

[glawson77]

You say the card "appears to run without problems" in your friend's computer.  Does that mean it performs the way it should in his computer?  Does his computer have the same driver you had installed on your computer?  

Tell us more about your hardware (processor, RAM, power supply, etc.)  I think other hardware issues may also be causing your problem?  How many Watts is your power supply?  Do you know what your temperatures are running when you play games?  How many fans do you have in your computer?  

You said, "most of my games which ran fine before installing the video card".  So, your games ran fine with integrated video, is that correct?  

I played GTA San Andreas on my friends computer with my 6800gs video card and it ran perfectly, I had it in 1024x768x32b and it was super smooth. I installed the same Nvidia driver on his computer that is on mine, v93.71.
The video card has its own fan so I doubt it would be getting too hot and the games would crash before or shortly after starting the game so it would not have had time to get hot.
The games all run fine on the motherboards integrated video (ATI Radeon 9100), my computer has a 400w power supply and 256mb Ram and 2.66ghz Intel Celeron cpu(with cooling fan). My friends computer has 512mb ram and 2.81ghz cpu.

Thanks for your reply.

Gordon

[soybean]

I'm not a gamer but I know the Celeron is a poor performing processor for gaming. You also have a fairly low amount of RAM (256MB) for Windows XP and, I would guess, for gaming. And, even though you have a 400W power supply, I'm not sure we can conclude it is not a factor here.  As often attested to in forums, a cheap power supply of a certain wattage rating may actually be less capable than a high quality power supply of a lower wattage rating. The fact that your system crashes when subjected to the higher power requirements of the 6800gs video card may be an indication of a power supply issue.

Here’s a forum on the game you mentioned: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Subforums.  You might post over there and get some advice from fellow gamers.

[glawson77]

Thanks for the advice, I will have a look at my friends computer and find out what wattage his psu is, it may be worth 'borrowing' his psu to see if that is the problem (I'm sure he wont mind )
It may not be related but a while back I purchased an additional ram module (which was listed in the motherboard manual as being compatible and recommended by asus) but when it was installed the computer became unstable and would crash, they sent me another simm and it was the same, so maybe my motherboard has some issues ??

Thanks again

Gordon