WARNING ATI users: Catalyst 3.8 can kill your Card / Monitor

[FlyTSI]

I didnt know if it was real or not when I came across the original post but figured it was important enough to go ahead and post it. I know nVidia had a similiar thing going on awhile back. using screensavers that used 3D graphics would make the GeforceFX 5800 overheat and die. That was later fixed with newer drivers.
You wouldnt think a driver could cook a card.

 

[solo]

I'm using the omega 2.4.96b drivers, which omega claims is newer than 3.8, but not 3.9

i did notice my hsf and ramsinks get burning hot when 3dmarkin', but since i added 2 80mm fans on either side blowing away air, the card has been relatively cool

i think ati would have already addressed the issue if it was causing cards to die and fail

 

[ZXIII]

the omega 2.4.96b drivers cause this too, I was just on them and all my temps (not just gpu) were higher, and got artifacts in d3d/ogl... just switched back to the 3.7 based omegas and everything's back to normal.

 

[juliendogg]

Solo, those are the drivers i was testing with. Like i said. I have a temp probe installed under the hsf on my 9800. there was a 5c difference in 3dmark 03. that wouldn't be enough to freak me out but my gpu temps are high allready, so the cat 3.7's knocking off 5c is enough to keep me sticking to them for a while.


J.

 

[germanjulian]

thats why it was so warm!!!!!!!!!!
dam

 

[shiyan]

Maybe this thread should be made a temporary stickie until a fix comes out?

I'm sure glad I saw this in time. My 9800 Pro might be here in a week or so.

(after over a year of hassling the RMA guy to replace my Ti4600, I got to buy my 9800 Pro for around $50 plus credit for my Ti4600, which I bought when they were around $500)

 

[germanjulian]

weird nothing on ati website or

 

[ManOfKnight]

I mentioned this about 15 days ago that my Sapphire 9500 was artifacting REALLY REALLY bad with 3.8 while I had ZERO at 3.7. No matter if I had it softmodded or not I still got artifacts that I could not control. I went back to 3.7s and all was fixed. People said my card was dying, but I was questioning the Catalysts. I am glad I was right.

 

[germanjulian]

Just told my g/f to switch of her PC. I dont understand though, ATI tests the drivers and so did quite a few hardware sites etc etc. how come this wasnt noticed before.

this kinda explaisn who so many XT fans fail though.

 

[ManOfKnight]

has anyone played Madden 2004 with these Catalyst 3.8s? I didn't notice the problem with the 3.8s until I played Madden (as madden uses DX9.0). I think there is a problem with the Dx9 part of the driver...because my Dx8 games play fantastic

 

[jrbob]

I just sent an Email to ATI lets hope that I get some thing back.

 

[Fallen Phoenix]

Thanks for posting this, and thank you very very much to stan03 who pointed me to this thread. My 9800np is less than 2 weeks old and it's been having stability problems since I installed the Catalyst 3.8 drivers. Rolled back and everything is fine. Stock BIOS and no overclock on mine but still caused pausing in games.

 

[DDR-PIII]

so why would they release these drivers if they knew that they coulddo this ?

 

[jrbob]

I rolled back to the 3.7's 2hrs after I installed them, Because of all the crashes.

 

[germanjulian]

I been to 3 forums all have it.

www.rage3d.com driverheaven.net and sysopt.com

OMG. i read about 2 people who monitors went bust up in the last 2 weeks........... ATI are you paying them?

 

[Dragonprince]

This thread is bogus. Software cant cause hardware to fail unless it forces an overclock and ATi wouldnt release something that exceed's its cards capabilities. Ati knows the temperature range of it's GPU cores and wouldnt do anything to ruin thier current position as top 3D dog.

A much more likely scenerio is that people are not taking thier card down from its OverClock prior to upgrading drivers and this is forcing their hardware past acceptable temp's when combined with some driver optimizations done by ATi to boost GPU processing. Anytime you update drivers for anything you should be resetting OC's and retesting your gear regardless if it's a video card or a motherboard's chipset driver.

The post about "shaders" causing these problems is rediculous.

Come on people think ..... sheesh

By the way both my 9500 Pro and my softmodded 9500 show no problems whatsoever after going to the Omega 3.8's...

 

[humdinger]

Have to say this does look fake. The only ATI card which has "auto overclocking" is the 9800XT. No other ATI reference card has built in temperature probe for that overclocking feature! My 9700 Pro is working perfectly fine too and I've gone through every Catalyst driver (and most of the Omegas) there is!

From Rage3D:

Terry Makedon (aka CATALYST maker) about this, and this is what he had to say:

1) Overheating. We have spent a great deal of time analyzing the temperatures due to the CATALYST 3.8 drivers. We do not under any circumstance see anything near a 10 degree Celsius increase in temperature (but we don’t overclock our test cards either). We do see a slight increase in temperature in certain cases (3Dmark2003 Nature Scene for example). However any temperature increase is well within our safety range. Investigation continues and we are trying to determine why this change in temperature exits
2) Monitors. We have spent a great deal of time trying to reproduce this problem and analyzing the driver code. There is nothing to be found. At this point we are working very closely with an ATI Beta Tester who experienced a monitor loss. There have been zero reports in our customer support of monitors dying.

 

[jrbob]

Software cant cause hardware to fail unless it forces an overclock and ATi wouldnt release something that exceed's its cards capabilities. Ati knows the temperature range of it's GPU cores and wouldnt do anything to ruin thier current position as top 3D dog.

People should reed up before thay start going off, because it is right in the driver release notes what the drivers do.
Check it out

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/Catalyst_38_Release_Notes.html
ATI OVERDRIVE
The new ATI OVERDRIVE (patent pending) tab, currently available for the RADEON™ 9800XT only, provides a safe and intelligent graphics processor clocking utility. ATI OVERDRIVE is constantly monitoring the graphics processor and pushing the graphics frequency to its maximum, while always ensuring that the processor temperature stays at a safe level. If the temperature of the graphics processor were to become too hot, ATI OVERDRIVE automatically decreases the clock speed until a safe temperature is reached. ATI OVERDRIVE never reduces the graphics processor speed below the pre-set factory default clock speed.

 

[juliendogg]

whichever, i've seen enough evidence on my own rig, as well as what i've seen from others posted here and other forums, to keep me from putting the 3.8's back on until i hear something rock solid about why there is a temperature difference in the first place with nothing but drivers being changed.


J.

 

[Spacepiston]

I have to throw a bit of gas on the fire...

A few weeks ago I got a "sync ot of range" or something along that lines when I tried loading battlefield. It was definitely something I have never experience before..the monitor clicked a few times and then it dropped back to desktop. I tried it again like 3-4 times in a row same thing. After I rebooted it was back to normal.

It hasnt happened again since.. But now that think back, I definitely had the 3.8 driver installed when it happened.

As for the high temps..im watercooled so I would probably never notice.