DescentBB

Last night I started seeing Descent 3 lock up on me for the first time in a very long time.

After exhausting some reversals of some driver changes I recently made, I opened the case and lo and behold the, GF4 card had worked itself up a little bit out of the slot. I reseated the card and all is fine.

Yes I do know that this has been an issue with AGP slots since day one. The only thing I can think of is, I must have yanked on the monitor cable in just the wrong way.

Im holding out no hopes for this but, does anyone know of an elligant way of holding down the AGP card if your motherboard does not happen to have that clip?

Only thing I can think of is to make sure the screw holding the card in is tighten well. And give your monitor cable some slack.

I have been using AGP based systems for over 6 years and have not had a problem with the cards coming out, this tends to make me think either your card or your case is damaged and bent in such a manner that makes the card pull out of the slot more easily.

Otherwise, it's ZIP TIE TIME! :D:D :mrgreen:

Krom wrote:Otherwise, it's ZIP TIE TIME! :D:D :mrgreen:

LOL

I was thinking just that. There is a small hole in the top corner of the card that I could zip tie down to a hole in the backplain in the case, behind the motherboard.

Krom wrote: Otherwise, it's ZIP TIE TIME! :D:D :mrgreen:

HEY!! dont make fun of my zip ties!!

Krom you still have that pic of my zip tie fan? i dunno what happend to it on my drive......

Dude, how in the hell could an AGP card work itself out like that? Do you sit your case on a giant vibrator or something? I have NEVER seen or heard of an AGP card coming loose on its own until now. The pins in the slot are MORE than enough to hold that card in on its own let alone with the frame on the front of the card being held down by a screw.

From my expierence they aint that secure.

MD-2389 wrote:Dude, how in the hell could an AGP card work itself out like that? Do you sit your case on a giant vibrator or something? I have NEVER seen or heard of an AGP card coming loose on its own until now. The pins in the slot are MORE than enough to hold that card in on its own let alone with the frame on the front of the card being held down by a screw.

AGP cards have that little hook on them for a very good reason. When the first design of the slot was made, placing the connector so far away from the end was a huge engineering goof. Ive worked as an admin and Ive seen AGP cards sliding out, just enough, all the time. When they added the hook to the cards and a hold down clip to the motherboards, this little problem was solved. But my motherboard is old and it doesnt have a hold down clip.

BTW Krom, I took your advice. All hail the inventor of zip ties.

BUBBALOU, thanks for that pointer, but Im afraid it wont work in my computer. My motherboard actually has the doomed AGP(2) slot which interfears with the clip position. You can still use AGPs in those slots but the extended section actually surrounds the clip area.

Ever hear of "chip creep" ?

Over a long period of time, with expansion and contraction of heating and cooling, cards can actually work themselves out of their slots.

This applies to more things than you would think. For example - say you plant your direct tv dish out in the yard on a pole, you dig a hole, and pour the concrete around the pole, etc etc. Over time, your dish keeps getting moved out of alignment and you have to readjust it periodicly - Same thing happens with the concrete and the hole - That dish will work its way up out of the ground. If you had bulbed the bottom of the hole, it would have prevented this.

You really don't encounter it very often, because it takes so long to manifest, but its one of the reasons why you have latches on your ram slots

Sounds like something that would only happen if you turn your computer on and off a lot... guess that's why it never happened to me.

two words.

Duct


Tape!!

Not inside my computer!

LOL!! but duct tape fixes everything!

Duct tape is like the force.

It has a dark side, it has a light side, and it binds the universe together. =)