9800 Problems....HELP!

[acelesson]

I have this problem with some of the games I run. The video in the game is totally crapped out and glitchy. At first I thought it was the card, but it wasnt. I returned the card and still had the problem. My system must hate Radeons or something. My Geforce MX-440 works these games just fine...but the Radeon doesnt. I dont have a clue what the problem is. One odd thing is that I have a 9800...but when I put the catylist drivers in, it says its a 9800 Pro.

That is the only odd thing. I have reformatted, but still have these problems. I have also unintalled the drivers, and installed them again, but nothing happens.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[tfr2087]

hmm.. you might want to try flashing the bios on the card, that might help. There is info on flashing the bios on a 9800 in the forums.

[acelesson]

I just flashed the BIOS and I still get the problem....any other suggestions anyone?

[El<(')>Maxi]

If the problem is only with some games and not all the time, then I would have to say that it is specific to the settings of those games that are having problems.

Can you run a benchmark program like 3DMark03 successfully?

[acelesson]

Its only certain games like BF1942, Operation Flashpoint, and GTA: Vice City.

I will run benchmarks now and post results.

[acelesson]

Ok, I ran 3dMark03 and it starts off pretty good. It does the Wings of Fury demo on low detail and about half way thru the Wings of Fury, the FPS jumps to 600, then it glitches out milliseconds later.

Any insights are apprectiated.

[Melhisedek]

It maybe your PSU mate... you need at least 350 W.
Check your rails.
Temps as well....
Give your card some more juice through BIOS (AGP V).

Just some random thoughts.

BTW did you uninstall Nvidia drivers before installing Radeon ?

[PreservedSwine]

Just guessing here, but be sure you have a proper PSU, current chipset drivers, and the latest BIOS from your mobo manufacturer.

Also, what specifically do you mean by "glitches out"

Might want to up your AGP voltage 1/10th of a volt to 1.6v in BIOS in case the mobo isn't providing enough juice. The R9800 puts alot of stress on your mobo and PSU, and components that are a little out of spec will tank when stressed.

[acelesson]

Ok, Heres what I am going to do....Im gonna do a reformat after I get a new PSU. I am using a generic one from an old 50 dollar case. It is 300 watts but im pretty sure it never could support it. Also, the PSU seems like it easily adds another 7-10 degrees in my case. Ill up the coltage right now and see what it does. 1.6v sounds ok.

When I say glitching out, I mean the screen starts flashing, and random objects just apper on the menus of games, as well as texture problems.

Thanks for your guy's help

[acelesson]

Heres a little update after I upped the voltage...I was able to load the game to the menu(finally) with out any problems....then about 5 seconds into the game, it started up with the texturing problems and the random objects.

[juliendogg]

Try this, only applicable if you have a via chipset mainboard. change agp driving control value from auto to manual. change setting from DA to EA. the result will be a slightly higher agp signal. see if that helps at all. it fixed similar problems for me.

http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=4&var1=28

there's a tidbit ^ of info on the subject if your interested. It basically sets the timing for the agp bus. you should be careful with this setting, EA is only slightly higher than default and is a safe setting. if you were to go trying random settings with this u could damage your card and that jus wouldn't be ma fault cuz i jus warned ya ;).

good luck man,

J.

*hey if that doesn't help try and underclock your ram.. maybe the card has a problem and if so my first suspect would be ram. u could try and underclock the gpu as well. at least then u'd know for sure you want to RMA if possible.

[El<(')>Maxi]

I would do the follwing in this order.

-Get a decent power supply

-Update and insure that ALL drivers are installed correctly in device manager. Use a program like DriverCleaner to make sure all other previous drivers are not causing any problems.

-Install DX9b

-Try running the card in another system if available, or running another card in your main rig.

If card is still acting up in stock form and you are sure everything is in order, then RMA it again.

[acelesson]

just got a 430 Watt Antec PSU....everything looked fine, but it still acted up. Is DirectX 9b even out yet?

[Mustanley]

yeah, it's out.
www.microsoft.com/directx

[acelesson]

installed it, udated my mobo bios and I STILL get these damn problems. I am starting to really disline ATi. My old nVidia MX-440 doesnt have these problems....but a top of the line video card does? This is serious bull****! I have done EVERYTHING. I even exchanged it for another card and I still get the problems. WHat are the odds of getting two bad cards IN A ROW! I am just stumped. The card worked for the first 2 months I had it...now all of the sudden it doesnt want to work.

[PreservedSwine]

What mobo are you running?

Did you re-formatt?? How about newest chispset drivers? If it was working fine, then got all screwy, and a new card does exactly the same thing, I'm guessing either you have some software conflict, or another peice of hardware is crapping out other than the video card. Re-fromatting will of course solve the software conflict, but if there's something elese screwy, well, good luck tracking it down

:(

[El<(')>Maxi]

Dammit Ace, sorry bout that. OK, give us some more system specs -MB, Memory, case, ect.

Did you download and run the DriverCleaner program? Try running only one stick of RAM if you have 2 or more. Review BIOS settings to make sure everything is set properly.

How are your temp's inside the case? If they seem hot then try running with case side off and maybe a fan blowing on the card. If that works, then you will need a better airflow in the case.

If the card worked great for two months, can you remeber making any system/hardware/software changes around the time it started acting up?

[acelesson]

PSU: Antec TruePower 430 Watt
Motherboard: Giga-byte 7VAXP
Athlon 2000+
768 DDR RAM
80 Gig HDD
Audigy 2
ATi 9800
Thermaltake Xaser III Case

System runs at about 46 Celcius. The only other thing I have installed since then hardware wise was a new heatsink for my CPU, which was a Zalman. I cant remember the model, but its one of the big flower heatsinks. I checked my ram by running one stick at a time to see if it went bad, but that wasnt the problem. The only other thing I have done since was putting a 40 Gig backup HDD that has a bunch of install programs on it. I have installed my VIA drivers for the chipset and still get these problems. I have reformatted to see if it was a software issue...but I still get the problems.

Edit: Also, I when I run 3dMark2003 I get the same issues(textures, lines going down screen, shapes on screen, etc)

[acelesson]

I have some interesting news. I used Rage3D and turned down the core clock and the memory clock and I dont experience ANY problems whatsoever. Im going to start tweaking with it to find the point of no return....It was pathetically low...the core was at 351 MHz and the memory clock was at 319.5 MHz


Also, when I was running these tests, I was seeing a noticable difference on my temp gauges when I was using 3dMark2003. My average temp on desktop is usually around 49-51 Celcius, and the temp went up to about 58.5 Celcius. Also, the stock heatsink on the ATI is pretty hot. I can feel heat emitting from it about 2 inches away. Do these cards usually run this hot?

[El<(')>Maxi]

Yes the 9700/9800 series cards do put out some heat. So it was overclocked huh?.......man the most obvious reason right under us there. So when you say "My average temp on the desktop is 49-51 Celsius", what temperature exactly are you referring to?

* The on die diode temp?

* The socket diode temp?

* Or the Motherboard/system temp?

It all seems to be coming down to a heat/overclock issue. And if you were only mildly overclocked then I would focus mainly on the heat side of it right now. I recently upgraded my LianLi case fans to Panaflo 12h's and that really made a difference for me.

If when you said your system temp is 46 C, and that temp is the board temp.........then that's pretty much smokin. Board temp's imo should be below 40C. And from what I have heard about Zalman, they are good in a non-overclocked setup, especially someone who can't stand a bit of fan noise.

[acelesson]

It is the CPU temp. My system uusally runs at about 30C. I am still stumped about this problem. The card WAS NOT overclocked...I just tried out Rage and underclocked it to see if I get similar problems. Also, sometimes, I will reboot randomly. I dont have a clue why its doing this. These are the problems i had when I built this system almost a year ago.

[greasyjoe81]

Take a weekend and take your whole sys apart and rebuild it. Maybe you have a ground or some thing thats not right and you cannot see it. I would try flashing the bios on the MB. Or your agp slot may be going out dude. These things happen to MB's all the time. Try the 9800 in your friends system and see if it does the same thing. Good Luck-

[Cyrix_2k]

I don't know if this would do anything, but would it help if he flashed it to a 9800 pro? I heard you could oc further with it flashed. If it lets you oc further, wouldn't it have some effect at defaut speeds? Maybe it will help. Also, do a COMPLETE format of all drives and reinstall the ATI drivers. DONT INSTALL NVIDIA DRIVERS. even after you uninstall them, they still interfere with the ATI drivers and cause problems. Also, is there a power connector on your card? Make sure you have a floppy power cable plugged into that sucker, otherwise it will cause problems like you are describing.

[AznPride]

Hey I feel your pain! Like you I also have a 9800 pro. When I installed it, and tried to play cs it would crash. Also my case temps went up like 4-5*C. I thought that the h/s wasn't making very good contact w/the GPU so I took it off wiped the gray thermal "stuff" off, and put some thermal grease on the GPU. I can kinda play cs now, but windows and other programs won't randomly crash like they used to. I used to have a GF2 Pro, and could run cs at 60fps and i can't even come close now. From what i hear, however, it is a cs engine problem. I still have problems with this card, though. Here are some specs:
Abit NF7-S
1800+@2.00GHz
Crucial DDR 333x2--256mb
9800 Pro 405/710
450W PSU w/Chieftec case
Case temps-- idle-20-22 load--23-25
CPU temps-- idle-30-33 load--34-38
DX9.0b
I have run through 3dmark2k1 sucessfully @405/710 15-20 times on a loop. Yet, i still experience problems in GTA:VC and BF1942 like you. I have 4 case temps @ full speed blowing 52CFM a piece. I have two of them blowing over the card too. This card is driving me nuts! I have the most recent drivers(3.6) and bios for my comp. I just rebuilt my comp, and still run into these stupid problems. Any sugestions?
Thanks

[PreservedSwine]

Any sugestions?

Try running at stock (Both cpu and GPU) and see if the crashing perisists...then leave it at stock while you do your troubleshooting...

[tweaker]

I would also check your 5v rail and make sure it is at 5v. Also, if you have more than one overclock program in your sys. you may have a conflict there , Mine did it when I first installed the 9500pro in my sys. Also, one other thing, I don't know what monitor you are using but if its a digital flat screen like my sony 19" I had to set it to analog to get it going and then put in the Sony digital drivers before switching to that setting. Hope U find your answer.

Tweaker

PS dont use 3.3 cats in you sys. Every one I know had bad stuff, the 3.4 and up seem to be cool