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

[ZXIII]

I don't see why anyone is arguing about this. The tests posted were are facts, not speculations. I had problems when I installed 3.8, was getting artifacts even at stock clock speeds.. went back to 3.7 and the problem is gone. Ofcourse not everybody's gonna have problems, since everyone has different hardware. And the reason why there have been no customer reports to ATI about monitors dying is because lots of people wouldn't even know what would be causing their monitor to die, if it happens. If I see multiple people on multiple forums posting about the same issues then I'd have to be ignorant to think they're all coincidentially lying.

 

[Dragonprince]

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.

You should read your own links first. It applies to the 9800XT ONLY.

 

[Dragonprince]

If your monitor is new and has a feature that won't let it use a refresh rate that it can't support, you won't be affected by this (as far as it affecting your monitor, not the overheating issue).

I assure you, that if your monitor doesn't have this protection, and your 3.8 Cats are indeed running your monitor at refresh rates out of spec, it's only a matter of time before it goes belly-up. I suspect, older monitors like mine, that have been around the block will die alot quicker than a newer one.

Oh yeah, I've created a ticket on mine.

The fact of the matter is that any monitor will die if your trying to force a refresh rate that is not supported. I doubt ATi would spec a non-standard refresh rate...much more likely that people were trying to force something unsupported....

 

[litghost]

The fact of the matter is that any monitor will die if your trying to force a refresh rate that is not supported. I doubt ATi would spec a non-standard refresh rate...much more likely that people were trying to force something unsupported....

not completely true. a monitor will only die if it is forced to a res/refresh AND it doesnt have bound checks. alot of monitors i use check the bounds and will display input out of range. this is still a problem, but it wont always kill the monitor

 

[Dragonprince]

I may be a victim of this mystry driver problem.

As I said in an older thread I smoked my 9800 pro with a volt mod but I was able to use the card for a couple weeks (fat yellow lines) before it up and died once and for all. But I installed the 3.8's just proir to the volt increase and used it until the card died. I bought a Radeon 9000 as a backup and installed that but my Nokia 21"moniitor (sony trinitron tube) won't display anything...even with the new ATI 9000. I was thinking mobo issues, now after reading this thread I am not so sure. I will do some more testing because I have a brand new benQ fp767 lcd and my replacement 9800 pro will be here tomorrow.

Are you kidding me ? You do a volt mod and try to blame ATi for a hardware failure.....I suppose people will start blaming ATi's drivers for not getting laid on thier prom dates soon....

 

[krag]

Are you kidding me ? You do a volt mod and try to blame ATi for a hardware failure.....I suppose people will start blaming ATi's drivers for not getting laid on thier prom dates soon....

No I'm not blaming ATI for my card getting smoked. Where did you EVER read that?

I'm saying there maybe a correlation in my monitor not displying even with a new vid card but the same drivers.

Show me anywhere....anywhere, where a volt mod to a vid card would ruin a monitor. Maybe this is news to you?

I can see right now that your're gonna be a short timer around here.

Go in peace young prince..he he!

 

[NCtramp]

I have a Sapphire 9700 PRO (not o/c). I had problems when I installed 3.8, was getting artifacts even at stock clock speeds.. went back to 3.7 and the problem is gone.

nctemper

 

[Dragonprince]

I can see right now that your're gonna be a short timer around here.

I've been around a few years to long already most likely....
It sounded like you where hopping on a bandwagon to take the same ride some others are trying...no insult intended bro...just tired of the lamers in some of these threads...

 

[Dragonprince]

I have a Sapphire 9700 PRO (not o/c). I had problems when I installed 3.8, was getting artifacts even at stock clock speeds.. went back to 3.7 and the problem is gone.

nctemper

Artifacting is usually the first sign of an overclock gone bad...you OC'd ?

 

[krag]

I've been around a few years to long already most likely....
It sounded like you where hopping on a bandwagon to take the same ride some others are trying...no insult intended bro...just tired of the lamers in some of these threads...

Heh! What kind of jet is that in your avatar? That thing looks sweet!! Is it sometype of airforce prototype? Looks like it came right out of one of my sci-fi games.

 

[MassiveOverkill]

The fact of the matter is that any monitor will die if your trying to force a refresh rate that is not supported. I doubt ATi would spec a non-standard refresh rate...much more likely that people were trying to force something unsupported....

Dang Dragonprince, you figured it out!!!! Our game is up. Me and all the other peeps who lost our monitors are just a bunch of scammers. We figured we'd take our $300+ monitors and put them to the test and see who could run theirs farthest out of spec before blowing. And when it blew, we all decided that we'd blame it on the ATI catalyst 3.8 drivers. SURELY they'd pay us without blinking an eye!! How did you ever figure it out??!?

Kudos to you Dragonprince!! I'll tell everyone else the game is up and that our little gambit failed

 

[Steven4563]

well i changed from 3.8 to 3.7 before they had chance to blow anything not sure if it would off not but better to be safe then sorry

 

[Showstoppermd]

long thread....didn't read everyone post

Sound pretty scary if its a real thing. Ive never heard of new drivers wrecking a monitor.

i think some people(like me) are a little sceptical since they haven't seen any problems whatsoever with the 3.8.
my brother's comp has a 9800pro using cat 3.8 with no probs
Rolled them back just in case.

I am wondering if the people who are having problems have tweaked their cards in one way or another.
Have any of the problems occured on a "virgin" (original bios, no volt mod, no overclocking etc.) card?

 

[Fallen Phoenix]

The problems I listed up a few posts were on a two week old card, straight out of the box.

 

[kct2]

Heh! What kind of jet is that in your avatar? That thing looks sweet!! Is it sometype of airforce prototype? Looks like it came right out of one of my sci-fi games.

That is the 'Bird of Pray.' It was a stealth technology demonstrator made by Boeing. It was not an X plane, but technologies developed for it are showing up in current X plane projects.


BTW - why is the killed monitor survey thread gone?

 

[MassiveOverkill]

One of the mods and I had a disagreement over whether OC'ing info should be included in the survey, then the only other jerk who replied, flamed the thread.

 

[Silversinksam]

One of the mods and I had a disagreement over whether OC'ing info should be included in the survey, then the only other jerk who replied, flamed the thread.

No disagreement, if you want to Post a fact finding thread, make it include the facts. You can't turn a blind eye and look at some of the info, you need all the info you can get. There's a TON of variables that may be the cause of this situation. THE ONLY way to seperate opinion from fact is to get all the facts, not just some of them.

 

[MassiveOverkill]

I'm sure there are ATI employees and affiliates that lurk in various forums that would love to gather information about everyone who's overclocked their cards in this matter, and then try to deny their claims because they overclocked their cards, even though that has no bearing on refresh rates.

Like I said before...........show me of ANY instance where ANYONE has overclocked their video card, and it has caused their MONITOR to blow. Overclocking your video card has absolutely nothing to do with the refresh rate problem. Please furbish proof that changing your video cards clock rates affects your refresh rates. If you go over to Rage3D, you'll find peeps who haven't overclocked their cards one bit and they have lost their monitors.

If you want to collect data on who's video cards have overheated and died from using the 3.8 cats, and if they overclocked, then yeah, that's pertinent information and your point is valid.

I guess the only way to make us both happy (I guess I don't matter since I'm not a mod) is to hide the identity of those who submit info to the thread.

 

[Silversinksam]

I'm sure there are ATI employees and affiliates that lurk in various forums that would love to gather information about everyone who's overclocked their cards in this matter, and then try to deny their claims because they overclocked their cards, even though that has no bearing on refresh rates.

Like I said before...........show me of ANY instance where ANYONE has overclocked their video card, and it has caused their MONITOR to blow. Overclocking your video card has absolutely nothing to do with the refresh rate problem. Please furbish proof that changing your video cards clock rates affects your refresh rates. If you go over to Rage3D, you'll find peeps who haven't overclocked their cards one bit and they have lost their monitors.

If you want to collect data on who's video cards have overheated and died from using the 3.8 cats, and if they overclocked, then yeah, that's pertinent information and your point is valid.

I guess the only way to make us both happy (I guess I don't matter since I'm not a mod) is to hide the identity of those who submit info to the thread.

Just because this is Overclockers.com doesnt mean that EVERYone overclocks their video card. And frankly its absurb to think ATI can match up a persons Username to their real name. We do not provide this info to ATI or anyone unless we have a court order.

You've seen conspiracy theory one time to many

Like I said If you want to collect facts, collect them all.

 

[UnLoadeD]

One other thing I noticed before my card died that I forgot to mention. Most of the time my monitor wouldn't shut itself down after the time I specified in power profile. I had it set to shutdown after 15min. I'm just wondering if anybody else has noticed this? I'm running the 3.8's now on 9500np with no problems, card has original bios and stock speeds (it artifacts with softmod). Like I said in my original post, the aiw 9800 pro was a refurb, so all problem I had can possibly be attributed to that fact.

peace.
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