9800 Problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter 9700Pro
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9700Pro

My mates standard 9800 has gone funny. Its showing artifacts all the time in
games like its been overclocked (albeit he has never overclocked it).

We have tried:
Running with the case open
Reinstalling the OS
Underclocking by 60Mhz

the problem is still evident after all this. I think the card is a
powercolour, based on the reference design.

Is it worth reseating the GPU cooler? I am not at his at the mo so cannot
remembr how the heatsink is attached, card is less then 12 months old but he
cannot find the receipt for it to try and return under warranty!
 
9700Pro said:
My mates standard 9800 has gone funny. Its showing artifacts all the time
in games like its been overclocked (albeit he has never overclocked it).

We have tried:
Running with the case open
Reinstalling the OS
Underclocking by 60Mhz

the problem is still evident after all this. I think the card is a
powercolour, based on the reference design.

Is it worth reseating the GPU cooler? I am not at his at the mo so cannot
remembr how the heatsink is attached, card is less then 12 months old but
he cannot find the receipt for it to try and return under warranty!
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll sleep better tonight knowing that.

Did you want help?

I'll assume something along the lines of "Why might this be happening/How
can I fix this?"

Well, what do the artefacts look like? Does it look like some calcs have
been done wrong, or like random pixels are the wrong colour?

I noticed in Aquamark, that when the memory was overclocked too far, I would
get lots of random white pixels. With the GPU overclocked too far, I would
get weird looking explosions, especially on the last "Massive Overdraw"
scene.

When you underclocked "it", what exactly did you change the clock speed of?

Ben
 
Every time that happened with my 9700 it was the memory giving up. After 2
warranty replacements, the last one with a 9800, I hope the problem is
fixed.
 
9700Pro said:
Thanks. I'll sleep better tonight knowing that.

Did you want help?

I'll assume something along the lines of "Why might this be happening/How
can I fix this?"
Click to expand...

Why it is happening is easy to answer. ATI cards are unstable. You fix one
problem, and another problem comes up. it is better to return the card and
get Nvidia.

I rest my case...
 
Ben Pope said:
Thanks. I'll sleep better tonight knowing that.
lovely

Did you want help?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't have posted otherwise
I'll assume something along the lines of "Why might this be happening/How
can I fix this?"
Click to expand...
Well duh
Well, what do the artefacts look like? Does it look like some calcs have
been done wrong, or like random pixels are the wrong colour?

I noticed in Aquamark, that when the memory was overclocked too far, I would
get lots of random white pixels. With the GPU overclocked too far, I would
get weird looking explosions, especially on the last "Massive Overdraw"
scene.
Click to expand...
Problem seems to match your second sentence
When you underclocked "it", what exactly did you change the clock speed of?
Click to expand...
well there is only 2 things to underclock, core and memory. I didnt specify
I underclocked one or the other as I underclocked the entire card (core+mem)
by 60Mhz
 
the problem is still evident after all this. I think the card is a
powercolour, based on the reference design.
Click to expand...

I guess you have already confirmed that the fan truns round, and that the computer hasnt had
anything else added to it that would affect the power supply to the card...

If your card is still salvageable, then you shoudl find that the problem doesnt occur for a bit when
you boot from cold. If you see the problem from the word go, then it sounds like the problem is
permanent.



If you are ok for a bit after cold book, then...

Does the heatsink actually get warm? If it does, then it should be working ok (a stock ATI heatsink
gets hot enough to make it uncomfortable to touch for too long, although it isnt so hot it burns...
rather like a hot cup of coffee you have to put down for a minute so it cools down :)
If it isnt that hot, check the *back* of the card. The heat has to escape somewhere, and a lot more
of it will be going through the back.

If the heatsink is ok, then it might be the memory. Powercooler cards are the low end of the Radeon
range in terms of build quality, and they sometimes tend to use slower memory. Memory doesnt
actually get that hot, so is less likely to die in the way you suggest (when it fails, it tends to
do so because of timing issues, not heat issues... and would be more likely to start failing out of
the box, not after some months). I suggest you seriously underclock the memory to see if that fixes
the problem, although I would expect that the memory would have failed a long time ago if that is
the case.

Another thing, which is a long shot, but might be worth a try, is to press all the memory pins down
with a pin. I had a bad memory problem occur on an old voodoo card some years ago, and it was due
to a bad solder on a memory chip. Pressing the pin down was enough to get the chip leg back in
contact :)

hope at least some of that helps...

S
 
Remove the heatsink, remove old and dry white stuff, re-apply some thermal
compound (arctic silver is better), re-set the heatsink. Problem should get
solved. If not, talk to the place you purchased the card, they might rma it.
 
Ryan Atici said:
Why it is happening is easy to answer. ATI cards are unstable. You fix one
problem, and another problem comes up. it is better to return the card and
get Nvidia.

I rest my case...
Click to expand...

So nVidia cards have no problems at all hardware wise?
 
Lets see... There are more than a million 9800 cards out there and how many
of them are defect? 1000 or maybe 3000? That does not mean ALL ATI cards are
bad. I had 2 nvidia cards dying on me (Gf2-GTS, and GF4 ti4200) and 1 ATI
card 8500LE. I don't say nvidia or ati make bad / faulty cards.
 
Ryan said:
Why it is happening is easy to answer. ATI cards are unstable. You fix one
problem, and another problem comes up. it is better to return the card and
get Nvidia.

I rest my case...
Click to expand...

How many times can you rest your case and then continue to comment?

http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?q="driver+problem"&meta=group=alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia

Looks like there are 1770 "driver problem"s for nVidia

http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?q="driver+problem"&meta=group=alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati

And 713 for ATI.

Guess ATI must have less than half the driver problems of nVidia.

Absolute, indisputable proof that ATI has at least half the number of
problems of nVidia

:-p

Ben
 
"Asestar" <a s e said:
Lets see... There are more than a million 9800 cards out there and how many
of them are defect? 1000 or maybe 3000? That does not mean ALL ATI cards are
bad. I had 2 nvidia cards dying on me (Gf2-GTS, and GF4 ti4200) and 1 ATI
card 8500LE. I don't say nvidia or ati make bad / faulty cards.
Click to expand...
But...

I've just got a Powercolor Rad 9800 Pro today. Its knackered. Worked OK
initially then started getting artifacts now I've got a pattern of
blocks from bootup.

Found out the cause...manufacturer has no quality control otherwise
they'd have notice the heatsink retaining posts hadn't clipped into the
PCB properly.

Would seem Powercolor, an American company, is like most other American
companies and produces shoddy goods with unacceptable levels of quality
control.
 
Conor said:
But...

I've just got a Powercolor Rad 9800 Pro today. Its knackered. Worked OK
initially then started getting artifacts now I've got a pattern of
blocks from bootup.

Found out the cause...manufacturer has no quality control otherwise
they'd have notice the heatsink retaining posts hadn't clipped into the
PCB properly.

Would seem Powercolor, an American company, is like most other American
companies and produces shoddy goods with unacceptable levels of quality
control.


--
Conor

If you're not on somebody's shit list, you're not doing anything
worthwhile.
Click to expand...


Whatever reason would you have you think that that Powercolor board
was built in America or an American company?

"Tul Corporation, established in 1997 , is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan.
Tul
is a leader within the PC industry, and owns the brand of POWERCOLOR
which already well-known as the world¡|s third largest provider of graphic
cards
and the number one supplier of graphics boards powered by ATI graphic
processors."

Its possible that your heat sink got loosened when a big wave hit the
container ship
it was on. The heatsink retainers are not the most robust design either.

Sooooo.... go RMA the board if you wish and don't bash the wrong
country next time.--
<{{ MudFish (Co30){('>
Click to expand...
www.Co30.com
"Careful with that Axe Eugene."
 
Sooooo.... go RMA the board if you wish and don't bash the wrong
country next time.--
Click to expand...

Seems to me he was angling for a bash at the US - regardless of what
fake reason he used to do it.
 
Found out the cause...manufacturer has no quality control otherwise
they'd have notice the heatsink retaining posts hadn't clipped into the
PCB properly.
Click to expand...

First thing i ever do is to check, remove, clean, re-apply thermal compound,
and re-set ANY heatsink I ever see in my pc. Powercolor cards are cheap, and
you get what ya pay for. Cards are good otherwise, manufacturing is quite
poor and simple.
 
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