broken Quadro 4600 and cheap replacement

#1

I had a workstation which wasn’t being used much and gathered dust over time, I bought it on 2007 and lately I would only use it like 2 or 3 times per month. Then 2 weeks ago the graphic card started to glitch only on GPU accelerated programs, like web browsers, video playback, Maya, etc
It’s strange why it would glitch on a so specific aspect?, I opened the tower and cleaned everything I could but the glitch persists. I also tried updating Drivers, what could it be? I only think of opening the card and clean it deeply plus changing the thermal paste in the case a OS reinstall doesn’t fix it either…

So if that doesn’t work, I’m looking forward buying a cheap (~100$) nVidia card that still does the job. That is for Maya, and probably other programs like Nuke or Mari. I ask this because I observed that the cheapest officially supported cards in the autodesk webpage are way too expensive for me…

edit:
I have my eyes on one of these:
650 Ti
550 Ti
560 Se

But I woiuld like to hear if they work with the above named programs or there are better recommendations.

#2

check here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?siteID=123112&id=18844534

#3

Thanks but I actually come from there.

#4

check again, because they have an “all” list for graphics hardware and show all of those versions as supported.

NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 200 Series1024ConsumerNVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285200 Series1024ConsumerNVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295200 Series1792ConsumerNVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465400 Series1024ConsumerNVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480400 Series1536ConsumerNVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580500 Series1536ConsumerNVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2048ConsumerNVIDIA

so… what’s your question related to them?

#5

Are you fooling me? where are the 650 Ti, 550 Ti, and 560 SE in your list? Either you have gone blind or have I. If I wanted to ask about 400$ cards I wouldn’t have asked about 150$ cards to begin with…

#6

…

If the 580 works, the 560 is the same card, just a bit slower. If the 680 works… the 650 is the same card, just a bit slower. etc.

#7

…

That has no logic whatsoever…

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480

Wait, I think they missed GTX 470, did they? really? hmmm :curious:

EDIT: anyway, I’m having a look at some threads concerning Maya with Geforce cards, like hereor here.I made the thread mainly expecting more feedback in relation to the Quadro 4600 glitches, since that card is worth more than any I’m able to buy at the moment by far, or it isn’t (?)

#8

Ok, right now I’m trying to open the Quadro 4600, I removed all the screws, but the heatsink still seems to be sticked to the PCB, I handed it to a friend who told me he would try to fix the card.

Today I happened to search for a Quadro 4600, check price (drops) or whatever in case of replacement, and found that I can buy it for about 200$, which is a great price given the raw power it can deliver.

Now I have a dilemma, is it a Quadro 4600 still ok with todays softwares, technology? Or I need something more up-to-date?

Here is a technical comparison with the card I was thinking to buy the GTX 560, I’m unsure which one is more powerful. My other concern is OpenGL, and pixel shader version on the Quadro.
Link

#9

Google/look into: Baking the graphics card. I have repaired 2 cards this very odd but plausible way!

#10

it is logical, you’re just being obtuse.

if you bothered to take the time to research the versions of cards they “do” support versus what you are considering, you would see that the variants are similar.

no need to be difficult about this, just take your budget and buy the one that most closely matches.

#11

… if it is a capacitor that is failing, this won’t help.

#12

sorry tswalk, I’m not too used to Graphic Card naming conventions and stuff, yes, it seems that the second digit “GTX 5x0” defines just power and not new technology or instructions but naming the 480 after the 465 on the supported cards list is rather fishy (what happened to 470? or maybe, there wasn’t any 470 card to begin with…). My apologies.

      Either way, I have investigated and seems that no CG professionals, or people without money to spare worry too much on buying a quadro, and happily get along with good geforce cards (although later on I also read heavy critics, keep reading below)
      
      I have just stumbled over [some articles](http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-680-review-benchmark,3161-15.html) reading that the new 600 series performs rather bad on GPGPU compared to the 500 and before.
      It really seems that the GTX580 is really the last one of the Geforce I can buy for CG work, but at the same time I've reading how nvidia on purpose cripples their drivers in such way that it is no longer worth the money. I read stats of 4fps with 3mill polys on viewport (not viewport 2.0). While on consumer AMD or quadros it can get waaaay higher.
      Or maybe I should look on buying cheap quadros (old, low speced, or 2nd hand).
      Which would be your choice?
      
      Which one do you think I could buy from these (extracted from autodesk certified cards) for less than 200$ and same or better performance than GTX580?

NVIDIA Quadro 2000		Fermi	1024
NVIDIA Quadro 400		Fermi	512
NVIDIA Quadro 4000		Fermi	2048
NVIDIA Quadro 5000		Fermi	2560
NVIDIA Quadro 600		Fermi	1024
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800		Tesla	768
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800		Tesla	1024
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800		Tesla	1536
NVIDIA Quadro FX 580		Tesla	512
#13

Nope, but that is easily identified and replaced, usually they are swollen.

#14

I will try the oven method with the fx4600, first I need to buy thermal pads to replace them (need to order them), then clean the PCB, test, and if it doesn’t work then do the heat up thing.

I’ve been also reading about some quadro cards, I’m leaning towards the quadro 2000, and quadro 600, do you think they are better/faster on viewport (in maya) than the FX 4600?

edit: Where can I check quadro cards side to side, or over meaningful (opengl, etc) benchmarks?
edit2: I think that if I were to buy the Quadro 600, I would rather go for the newer Quadro K600 which has same price. How does it compare to my old FX 4600? Is there any kind of equation I can do to estimate power?

#15

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