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Need some SERIOUS HELP with my 9600xt

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achaye

Registered
Joined
Nov 29, 2004
I don't know what happened, but one day, my Sapphire Radeon 9600xt 128mb AGP card just started acting up. I'm pretty sure it's not a software problem because I've done just about everything short of a format/complete windows XP reinstall. I've tried reinstalling service pack 2, doing sfc /scannow to check for all system files, tried different versions of Catalyst (from 5.7 to 5.10), but the card is still messy.

What happens is that if I do anything related to 3D for periods greater than 3 minutes or so, HUGE amounts of artifacts flood in, and usually ends up crashing the program. While the artifacts are around in a program, alt-tabbing to Windows desktop distorts the entire desktop viewing screen. I have a screenshot of my desktop after alt-tabbing from an artifact-heavy Frozen Throne game. It is strange though, that alt-tabbing into desktop and back to Frozen Throne or whatever game open gets rid of the artifacts for maybe 10 seconds or so, then the artifacts build up again. The third shot is from the F.E.A.R. single player demo, where the distortion is insane. Another interesting note is that the desktop distortion could be remedied by opening any window and dragging it all over the screen to "wipe" the distortion away.

Finally, running dxdiag, some of the Direct3D tests fail (mostly the first test, the Dx7 one) if I test right after exiting an artifacted 3D game or after a 3D game crashes. However, from a fresh boot, the Direct3D tests will ALWAYS pass successfully and no matter how many times afterwards (if I don't open any full screen 3D games though).

Things like the Worldeditor that comes with Warcraft 3 will run perfectly despite all my attempts to have it produce artifacts, leaving me to believe it has something to do with the Directx aspect of the video card.

Also, the screeshots were done with "print screen" directly on the computer, not from some digital camera or other external devices.

I'm out of ideas and I have no clue what is wrong with my video card. It might not even be my video card, but I'm pretty sure it is. Are these signs of a failing card? My entire setup is only about 2 years old, it'd be really sad if this video card croaks this fast. If any one has any experiences like this or know anything about this problem, please help me out.

Winchester 3500+ OCed to 241x10=2410Mhz, at 1.45V (20 hours Prime95 stable)

2x512mb Corsair Value Select RAM at 166:200 ratio to give stock setting of 200Mhz with 241Mhz CPU core speed, stock voltages. 8 hours Memtest86 stable.

4x241MHz = 964MHz HTT

Sapphire RADEON "Atlantis" 9600xt AGP 128mb, stock speed/voltage.

MSI Neo2 Platinum Mobo, AwardBios 1.8 official version.

Windows XP SP2, with all the latest security patches from Windows Update.
 

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Any ideas at all? Is this a common occurence on stock cards at stock settings?
 
Hmmm damn Thats really funky man. My 9600xt was being a little wierd but then again it sure wasnt like that. My card was working better when i put a 92mm fan running over the card.....Could it be a cooling issue or software/bios corruption?

was it flashed or anything?
 
I'm not sure how hot the card is running, but it doesn't seem like it's too hot. The heatsink is warm to the touch during full-screen 3D usage. But then again, I've also read artifacts are symptoms for an overheating card :shrug:

Although I'm 99% sure it's not a software problem (repair installed Windows, reinstalled SP2, tried a bunch of catalyst drivers, etc), I completely forgot that video cards also has a bios. I guess there's no surefire way to test for that is there?

My card has a "Rev 3.9" written on the backside of it. Is that referring to a bios or a manufacturing set of chips?
 
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