9500np not working

ok, so i decided to upgrade my gf4 mx 440. found a guy selling a sapphire 9500np with 3.3ns ram in the L shap on red pcb. good deal!

so i get it today, remove all the nvidia stuff i had (control panel thing and rivatuner) turn off computer, install the new 9500np, boot up, install the drivers and control panel, then reboot. system comes back up,things look decent, says 9700/9500 in the hardware profile (2 profiles, but that's normal i guess). then it just freezes when i try to right click desktop to switch resolutions.

try new updated drivers. it's registering as a 9700pro, rightclick and get frozen again.

repeat the same process for a couple hours with various different drivers (omega, older ati ones, etc...) and they all cause the same problem. Each time i reboot, i get an error saying the ati control panel cannot start because my drivers are not installed or not working.

i wrestled with those drivers for 2-3 hours and finally got fed up and uninstalled everything, put in my GF4 again, re-installed drivers and bam, one time, works like it used too.

anyone know what could be the problem? it's annoying that i paid for this card, but it seems the drivers are conflicting with something and i have no idea what it could be. i even found a detonator remover program and it couldn't find anything.

if anyone has any solutions or suggestions i would be much appreciated.

a little confused here..
which drivers did you install? the hacked ones for modding into 9700? It shouldnt say "9700" unless you install those. Does it work with regular 9500 drivers?

also check if the card was hardmoded.

didn't do any softmods. just trying to get the thing installed properly first hehe

the card came with drivers disk, i used that and they gave me 9700/9500 in the display properties which didn't work, so i downloaded the catalyst drivers from ati.com and those gave me 9700pro in the display properties. It's crazy i know and i'm not sure what's going on.

how can i check to see if it has been hardmodded? the guy i bought it from said that he didn't condone modding or O/C'ing and he didn't guarantee or refund any cards if i attempted it. I inspected the card and it looked brand new. What signs do i look for to see if it has been hard modded?

hard modding it has to do with moving a risistor on the core of the chip i believe.

Sounds like he flashed the card and changed the bios on you. Try to track down an original Radeon 9500 bios and try flashing to it, it may solve your problem but I'm not sure. Try opening 3dmark and see what that registers your card as.

hmm, i also had another question.

on my gf4 when i boot up i get the cards bios, then then normal post and regular boot, but with the 9500, i don't see any card bios. Should this be a concern? i found it rather odd and i remember my other cards bios's showing first

ATI cards don't show a bios version on bootup. Nvidia cards do.

ok cool, i was getting worried when it didn't show a bios.

I found a sapphire 9500np 3.3ns 128ram bios and a flashing tool. I'm gonna try to do a few other things first before i try to flash the bios. It seems to me it's more of some sort of driver conflict than anything.

I mean, the card boots up, but when i try to change resolutions, it just freezes.

ok, after doing some research, i found some pictures of a before and after "hard mod". So i decided to clip the HSF from the graphic card CPU to see if in fact it had been hard modded.

what do my eyes see? seemed like a failed hard mod. in fact, it looked as if there wasn't even a top resistor! only the 2 below where the first one should be.

so needless to say i'm a little upset and i'm gonna try to get this resolved.

thank you guys for trying to help me, but i guess all i can do is sit back and hope i can exchange or get my money back.

<little rant>
this is what happens when people RMA botched overclock/mod jobs . the vendors just send it back out hoping it doesn't come back. you can't blame them. they pass on the "screwing" to someone else to cover the cost of the damaged goods.
</little rant>

Unfortunately, you are the one getting screwed. Good luck getting this resolved.

Yes drshivas I agree completely, that is why whenever a noob here asked if he should everyone should say NO!

I'm pretty sure he got this from a private sale as he said he found "some guy" selling one. This is always risky but looks like he tried to screw you. Bad luck for you but i hope you can get it resolved.

Whoops, missed that detail. Thanks NoMeD. Yeah thalzaar24, you definitly got taken. This is dicier than getting it from a retailer. If you got it through eBay, you have some options. Best of luck.

ya, unfortunately i went through Ebay. I usually don't buy things, but this seemed like a good deal and i read all of the buyers feedback (200+) and 98% were positive, those that were negative were resolved in the feedback, so i was thinking, this guy is legit.

Well, i'm not gonna lay blame on him, because i'm not sure that he is the one that did it, or if he bought it from someone cheap and resold it without checking.

*shrug* i sent him a detailed email and haven't heard back from him yet. I will give him a few days to respond as i'm not sure exactly if he checks his emails everyday (he had 2 i corresponded with).

Anyhow, i ordered another 9500np red pcb "L" mem from a dealer and it's in route so hopefully i'll have a working card while i settle this issue.

again, thanks for the inputs and help. Glad i checked the GPU cause i was getting frustrated hehehe.

That just sucks. I think that your right about the seller......he probably didn't know.

Hope the new card screams, mine does