Display problems

Hello, i am experiencing problems with my display using the radeon 9800 pro 128mb.

Here is a few screen shots of what is actually happening,
http://img149.exs.cx/img149/2853/proevo46iv.jpg
http://img88.exs.cx/img88/1389/wtf1cp.jpg
http://img88.exs.cx/img88/3892/wtf24bf.jpg

Im a bit lostto what is causing this problem. I have the latest cats from ATI but still have the problem.

Could this be a problem with the GFX card overheating? or could it be a monitor problem?

Another possibiltiy i thought it could be is VSYNC and tearing.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreiciated : )

 

Is this only happening after the machine has been up and running for awhile or is it immediate?

If it is only after the machine has been running for awhile it could be an overheating problem. You want to check the temp your case and processor are running at. Plenty of programs to help with that in the downloads section.

If it happens immediately you will want to check and make sure the cord from your monitor is secure and also try reseating the Vid card.

 

it tends to happen over a period of time which like you say could mean a overheating problem. Can you just advise what temp my machine should be running at roughly?

 

Please provide system's specs such as CPU, HD, RAM, PSU. On top of possible overheating of GPU, I suspect possible issue with your Power Supply Unit, how many Watts does it provide as Max and Average output? Does your PSU, System seem to get hot? If so after how many minutes of running the system? Do you have adequate cooling system? Do you have case fans, does your Video card has a fan? Are all the fans including the one on CPU and PSU working properly?

 

Ok i have a P4 1.5ghz processor running on a MSI pro5 board. I am using a seagate 40gb HDD which is 5200rpm. I have 512mb of samsung RDram. Im not too sure of the PSU outage but here is some figures from sandra,
Power / Aux fan speed = 3590rpm(min 3516rpm Avg 3590rpm Max 3668rpm)
CPU Voltage = 1.71V (min 1.68V, avg 1.71V max 1,73)


The system doesnt seem to be overheating, at the moment it is running at about 35c. I have been using it for a while with no problems at all. The case is well ventilated and all fans are running correct including the one on the card.

I should have mentioned this in my first post but i do remember installing some drivers from the MSI website and then unistalliing them and installing the cats from the ATI site but not sure how to check if there completely gone from the registry.

Thanks for the help

 

You will need to open the case to see the exact Wattage of your PSU is and that is something I am suspecting as the cause, it is either inadequate with your correct setup or it is a bad brand (or simply going bad). If you find out that your PSU is powerful enough and working fine, then my other guess would be conflicting driver references or simply outdated,incompatible video card drivers.
Boot in the safe mode and check the Device Manager. It is probably one of the best ways to check for all installed/ hidden drivers, devices, etc. I am not knowledgeable with ATI cards and their drivers since I don't use them but someone who might have more experience on ATI cards should be able to tell if the problem you are facing could be driver related or not.

I always recommend not installing one type of driver over another, even though both drivers were for the same device.
After uninstalling, deleting the driver/program folder (if one was created) and then deleting the related .sys, .vxd and .dll files (whichever ones are used) -if they still exist- could also prevent this type of problems. Generally though, after uninstalling the device drivers, I'd reboot, let the OS make it obvious that device drivers are missing and use and display the it as Standard AGP/display adapter in the Device Manager to confirm the uninstall was successful. Then I would install the new drivers. In your situation it is a bit late but I will tell you how I look up the related files used by the device:

START > RUN > compmgmt.msc > OK
Click on the 'Device Manager' under System Tools list.
Double-click on 'display adapters' to expand the section, you should see your adapter, assuming its drivers were already installed, double-click on the adapter listed. The properties window should open, click on the 'Driver' tab then the 'Driver Details' button, on the list note the files with .sys and .dll extensions mainly in either C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\System32\DRIVERS folders, delete them (to delete them you would have to open Windows Explorer and browse to these locations) to Recycle Bin but not permanently so in case you delete the wrong ones you can restore them from Recycle Bin later on.
But a smarter and quicker way to do this would be to uninstall the problem drivers, reboot, then run a good registry cleaner.
Hope this helps.

PS. Also considering your setup, I'd recommend that you use a decent brand 350Watt PSU minimum. If yours is came with the PC case and/or less than 350W, that could be the cause as well...

 

Kool. I have gone through your intructions and im starting to think it isnt driver related problem, but i could be wrong

I dont really know much much about PSU but i have looked at it and it says 300 watt power supply so that would mean its well below your recommendation yes?

If it is a power problem and my card needs more juice wouldnt this problem have started from the beginning when i installed the card over 5-6 months ago?

Thanks

 

it's not your monitor, it wouldn't show up in screen shots if it was.

same thing happens to my card when I overclock my memory too high.
so I think it's your memory crapping out on you. if your overclocking lower it down some.

 

I dont overclock bud. Is there any programme i can use to check if my ram is damaged?

 

you may try downloading a overclocking program and underclocking your memory a little and see what happens.

 

I ran mem test and that didnt seem to find any errors

 

I hate to say it but mem tests are rather stupid IMO. Why?
Well if there are any problems with the RAM that is obvious enough for a mem test program to catch 99% of the time you will know it without using one, at least that goes for me. But I found out compatibility problems between RAM sticks or RAM stick and the mobo which the RAM testing software didn't catch even under burn-in tests of 20+ hours...
In any case, possibility of overclocking could cause problems like that, I agree but if you didn't o/c anything then what I am thinking is you have a low grade RAM that is causing the problem. Sometimes low quality RAM (less layers than more common 6-layers and also build by lower desnity material instead of the better ones) will start to give away problems like the one you are experiencing AFTER they start to overheat! Excessive heat is bad for all components but especially harmful to CPU, RAM, GPU (video card cpu). After a certain temperature your system could reboot, freeze, or even worse permanently damage CPU, GPU and RAM but yours may not be getting to that level but high enough to make RAM/CPU act the way it is acting. RAM sticks do not have fans under normal circumtances and at the best they might have a heat spreader but without proper air circulation in the case and cooling, the heat spreader would trap the heat and make it even more worse for RAM.
If you are certain it is not the PSU than I am thinking it was the video card drivers that you installed and then uninstalled and then installed different one... after all did you have this problem prior to the driver changing ?

Either way good luck.

 

I was talking about the video card memory. sorry, i should have been more clear.

 

Thanks for the replies and time but im really lost as what to do. My main problem is not having spare equipment/systems so i can test my hardware. I guess im just gonna have to wait until i can afford new parts.

Do you guys think that the 300 watt PSU could cause a problem like this?

 

I have never heard of a power supply causing problems like the ones your having.
my instincts tell me your video card is crapping out on you.

 

Is there any programmes available so i can test my gfx card and see if its damaged? ATI customer support is shocking to be fair. I have emailed them on numerous occasions and just get automated replies.. Ive only had the card about 7-8 months, maybe less

 

give this program a try

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=725

do the memory and core artifact testing and see what happens

good luck.

 

thanks man. Will give it a bash and see if it helps.

 

I got the programme but im a bit lost as what to do with it..

 

open it up and do the "scan for artifacts" and see if it gives you any errors
if it does, do the "find Max Mem" and see what it does, it may lower your memory speed, let it run for a while, just to get a ball park figure. If it doesn't find any error, or starts to raise/overclock your memory then your video card memory is probably okay.

 

When i run 'scan for artifacts' i get this error and the screens goes all weird like in the screenshots i posted. Here is the error,

Could not compare images. If you are running the debug version of Direct X switch to the retail version. Otherwise please report this bug.


Not too sure what it means and cant seem to find any info on it.

 

sounds like a bad video card.

 

Thanks for all your help buddy and everyone else who contributed to this thread. Looks like im now going to have to spend weeks upon weeks trying to get ATI to change this card and probably end up forking more money out. On top of that i have no computer to use. Why does god hate me so much

 

I you didn't have this problem from the start, kinda hard to blame the card either, it could as I siggested before be corrupted or conflicting video card drivers. If you are not able to manually or via some apps able to clean up the mess, a fresh re-install might show you if it was indeed the card or the drivers that were installed/uninstalled/re-installed...always try the easier, simpler and cheaper approach first.
Either way good luck.

 

Thanks for the advice.

I did do a fresh win xp but that didnt seem to fix the problem. I have now been using driver cleaner and it did indeed find some nvidea files(doh!) on my system which i have just managed to get rid off, they were stubborn to say the least. I also founds loads of other crap so i have completely removed most the drivers i could in safe mode and i am now re-installing them.

 

Have still got the problem after using driver cleaner.

 

Let me ask you again: Did you have this problem first time when you installed the video card and its drivers? Has it always been problematic like this?

If you did format and re-installed XP (hence fresh install), why would you still have to cleanup old drivers? I am missing something?
Anyhow, if you indeed destriyed the existing partition, then re-partitioned and re-formatted the drive and then installed XP, you would have a clean copy of the OS. Did you install the most current video card drivers after that and still experienced the problem?
If so then yeah your problem is not the OS, drivers or software based...

 

yeah i did a fresh install of win xp but there was still nvidea drives on my HDD. They wouldnt budge but i eventually got rid of them through driver cleaner.

Last night got to a stage that i couldnt even browse the net so i had a good look at my computer. I realised that i had a faulty PSU fan that was stopping and heating the system up. So today i went out and bought a new PSU and this has improved the overall stability of my sytem but as soon as a boot a game up it will go back to as shown in the screenshots i provided.

This entire affair is becoming a royal pain in the arse. I have emailed Sapphire who made my card and had no reply. I have tried to join there forums but for some reason can not join there forum as they already have a email account in my name which i found odd as it was the first time i have ever visited them.

I do really appreiciate all the help i have got here but now im serioulsy getting stressed...

I used a nvidia card for 4 years non stop with no problems at all..This affair has put me of ATI card forever.

 

sorry missed a bit.

I have been using the card since september with no problems at all. Then sometime 2 weeks ago the problem started.

 

Due to overheating/overclocking (if that ever was the case) the card could have been damaged/degradd somehow but I doubt it, if they work, they work, if they don't then it wouldn't not work at all....most commonly overclocking excessively or overclocking without increasing the voltage to the component that was o/c'ed could create this type of problem....possible cheapo RAM...but more than likely bad device drivers.

I am still having hard time understanding how the NVidia drivers which has nothing to do with ATI cards could ever end up on the OS when you did a 100% fresh install.....you are not using any kind of system recovery/restore CD, right?
If not then what you are fiding that you mentioned as 'NVidia drivers' would be the default registry keys that comes with the default installation. Certain generic files and registry keys come pre-iinstalled with Windows too so make sure you are not mistakenly that way....I don't have much to say on this, I'd advise you have a professional tech service your system (or at least you bu/borrow anothe video card and test to see if it was indeed the card or not). Stressing over it won't help, use logical steps to narrow down the potential suspects and eventually find the actual cause...

 

I installed from the origianal windows cd and i was as surpirsed as you to find the nvidia drives on there after the fresh installation. Getting rid of them was a task too but they eventually went. Your right in saying it wont help me getting frustrated but i was more annoyed with the customer support i recived but i should know better that big companies just dont care these days.

I bought another cheap card today to test it and will do so tonight but knowing my luck recently it will probably be a ram problem like you mentioned and i will be forced to buy new ram

Anyways i will let you know what happens later on tonight when i install the new card.

 

I have installed the new card and the porblem has gone

But now my games are running slow because its a cheap radeon 7000 series

Anyways thanks for your time

 

Hey Steve,

You're not the only one who has had problems with Sapphire Radeon cards. I've read in other forums about the same graphical artifacts appearing in other Sapphire Radeon cards as well. Previously I owned a Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 256MB AGP card. I had the same artifacts that you descriped. I've read in other forums that people said monitors, speakers and other devices sometimes interfere with the video cards operation. Personally, I think that's BS! Before that I even owned an Asus 9600XT 128MB AGP but I never had any artifacts. So maybe Sapphire Radeon cards have some serious problems. I doubt THAT many cards could go bad. It must be a software or driver related problem.

The problem got so bad that when I was simply browsing the Internet, all these different colour lines would appear around the edges and eventually cover the entire screen rendering everything unreadable. The more I moved my icons and windows around, the worse it got. After a quick reboot, it would go away for a couple minutes then come back. Shutting down the computer for a long period of time seems to help a bit. But after I run "some" games, the artifacts would reappear. Sometimes, nothing would go wrong for days, on other days, it would appear almost all the time. Very strange. I wouldn't put off buying Ati cards forever, just avoid Sapphire cards!!

I hope you find the problem, nobody else seems to have cracked it yet. I recently got fed up and replaced it with a nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra

good luck,

Bry

 

Yeah i had the same problem with reguards to browsing the net and games. Got to a point like you say where i couldnt see anything.

Well at least i know now for certain that its the card. Ive emailed Sapphire yet again but dont expect a reply. I will have to call them on monday to try and get a replacement. Ive had more support of these forums then Sapphire

A thumbs up for MajorGeeks

 

That last screen shot looks like something you might see when the monitor is being overdriven by trying to run it at a resolution or frame rate it can't handle.

When you got that screen, was the monitor also whining audibly? That's another clue to the above. It also means that your monitor is under severe stress.

I've no idea whether an inappropriate frame rate might also be responsible for the other display errors you've shown. But it's not impossible.

 

Yeah i actually thought about it being a frame rate problem so put the frame rate down to 60hrz but that didnt fix the problem. I think its defiantly the old card because im running everything ok now on the new cheap card

 

What's the warranty on these cards? I don't beleive I have the receipt for mine anymore. If you get in contact with Shappire, please update me on the situation. I'd like to get a replacement as well and sell the card.

thanks,

Bry

 

Off the top of my head im not too sure bud. I would think you get at least a years manufacture warranty, possible two. I will let you know when i call them tomorrow.

 

ok i contacted sapphire and they advised me to contact the company who sold me the card which i have but to answer your question as how long the warranty is im still in the dark on that one.

Id think its at least a a year or two. Usually over here in England most things bought always come with a three year manufacture warranty.

Hope that helps