Leadtek GF4 MX440 (A180) bombing out.

[geezer]

I am having problems with a Leadtek GF4 MX440 (A180) graphics adapter. When I start the PC in either safe mode, or in VGA mode, the card is working, and keeps on working. But when I start the PC in "normal" mode, the screen card bombs out. The screen goes dead and the power state LED just keeps on blinking. I tried it on different PC's and various versions of the drivers. It all gives the same result. Does anybody have any ideas that I can try? I tried updating the BIOS of the screencard, but just got a message "The BIOS does not need an upgrade". I updated the chipset drivers as well in an attempt to get it to work.

 

[supersunbird]

if on different PC's and it does the same thing, i think its bye bye for that card...

For R350 to R400 you can get a Radeon 9250 or 9550 or Geforce 5200

 

[|tera|]

Try and use drivercleaner

Uninstall the graphics driver first, then use drivercleaner. If the drivers uninstalled and cleaned successfully it should load the default windows drivers for the card.

See if it does the same with the windows drivers. If it does, it could be a hardware problem

Also, check the device manager prior to uninstalling, see what irq the graphics card is using, and look if another device isn't using the same, it can be changed in the BIOS. It could be a simple conflict aswell Easy way to check the irq's is to click view in device manager and select "resources by connection"

 

[geezer]

I do not think it is a driver issue. This also happens on a PC with a freshly formatted hard drive. It most probably is a hardware problem. It just seems funny that it "works" in safe mode and VGA mode. Anyone with a good explanation for this?

 

[|tera|]

Well there are guys on the forum that can give you a more technical explanation. I think it's because when using VGA or Safe-mode no drivers are loaded, a certain part of the display adapter gets used that doesn't require any direct-x emulation and or complicated instructions such as higher resolution, display frequency and color. In other words, it uses a part of the graphics adapter that is mostly software controlled, or basic to the most basic hardware controlled. Not sure really, interesting question though

Just check the irq's you may be surprised

 

[sdd]

I had a similar problem a while ago ... I pretty much solved it by getting a new card ...

as teraside mentioned ... use driver cleaner (follow the instructions) and re-install driver that came with your card to see if works....

if no luck ... 95% chance that the card is bombed ....

dude ... what are u doing with this card anyway??? You can hardly appreciate most of the new games/graphics with this card ... save up and get yourself a new card ... i hate buying second hand especially if guarantee has expired .... you can pick up something decent for R700 nowadays ... I preferr a nvidia 6 series card ....

go on ... treat yourself with a 6600gt ... you work hard .... you deserrve it ... you can get one for under R1000 now.

cheers

sdd

 

[bluesting]

Well, if it was only on one machine, it could have been refresh rate set too high for the monitor, but if it doesn't work on another machine, it's unlikely! When you set the resolution high, and refresh rate high on some older monitors, they can't handle it so they just go dead as you explained. Check it out. Boot in Safe mode, drop the resolution and refresh rate, see if it works? Bessides, how did you install Windows on a fresh install? In safe mode? I doubt that!

Safe mode (there is no real "software rendering" mode here because it's 2D).

3D instructions on those cards use different areas of the card than the 2D instructions! So this is very plausible that the GPU (3D processing unit) is shot, still in most cases it would have taken the whole card out too. But as we know, a few blown transistors will still let the card work in some cases/areas!

 

[Yang]

Keep it for your treasure up. The card build by Leadtek has gone away，now all Leadtek cards are OEM by Foxcon.