Author Topic: Video Upgrade gone bust (Read 552 times)

Boat · « **on:** November 02, 2003, 10:11:17 PM »

I'm running a homebuilt P4 2.66 on an Intel 845 chipset board. I've been using a NVidia Ti4200 card with 64 megs. Recently I saw a "deal" on a Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro so I bit the bullet and went for it. I installed it after carefully cleaning out all the old 4200 drivers and it seemed to be fine until I began noticing all sorts of screen corruption. I would get blue green lines in AH and experienced a loss of video quality. There was corruption not only in games but any kind of video that I ran. I searched the forums and found lots of similar problems with Sapphire cards. I tried a reinstall and afterward the problem was even worse with extreme screen corruption intermittently at boot. I tried new drivers (37's 38's Omegas) and finally decided to RMA the card. The old 4200 reinstalled and ran perfectly.

I'm left wondering if this was just a defective card or something with my machine configuration and ATI cards? My next upgrade choice is the ATI 9600XT but I'm thinking maybe I should stay with the somewhat lower rated Nvidia 5700 Ultra. Any thoughts?

bloom25 · « **Reply #1 on:** November 02, 2003, 10:12:19 PM »

It was probably just a bad card, or the card was overheating.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #2 on:** November 03, 2003, 01:05:36 AM »

Boat did you accidentally remove or corrupt the vga drivers for your mainboard ???

this may have effected it also ...

reload the mb vga drivers ... then try the omega drivers for the 9500 ...

then just to cover all bases reinstall direct X ...

If this doest fix it then id say its a bad card .

Skuzzy · « **Reply #3 on:** November 03, 2003, 06:59:45 AM »

Excessive heat, or power supply problems would have caused those symptoms. The new high end video cards from both ATI and NVidia use considerably more power than the predecessors.

NVidia actually uses more power than ATI right now in the top end cards.

Might note that ATI's Smargart feature will enable Fast Writes on motherboards that have it broken. You can manually override this in the ATI control panel.

Boat · « **Reply #4 on:** November 03, 2003, 10:47:24 AM »

I'm using an Antec 330 True power supply which I think should be enough since I'm only running one hard drive. I never checked to see if the fan on the card was actually working so maybe heat was an issue. I'll probably try the 9600XT next.

I got the 9500 Pro from Zipzoomfly (formerly Googlegear) for $176. It seemed like a great deal as the same card was going for $219 at Allstarshop and those were the only two places that still had them. I guess it wasn't such a great deal after all but I've finally learned not to buy from vendors who charge a 15% "restocking fee" to return defective components.

Thanks to all who replied.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #5 on:** November 03, 2003, 01:46:14 PM »

With that CPU, you are pushing that 330W supply. Add a hungry video card like the 9500Pro and you may have over extended the supply.
The 9600XT uses less power, so it should be ok. But the 9500Pro, 9600Pro, 9700Pro, and 9800Pro or XT will require more power supply.
I had to up mine to a 480W TruPower when I went to the 9800Pro.

BB Gun · « **Reply #6 on:** November 03, 2003, 02:10:07 PM »

*shrug*

Running a 9500 Pro, CD-ROM, CDRW, 80 GB SATA HD, Athlon 2500 OC'd to 2800, 512 MB RAM on a generic 350 watt PSU with decent, though not stellar, amperages on each line. Actually really close to the amperages on the Antec true330.

I don't think its his PSU. Yes, squirrely PSUs can be a problem, but unless you have wildly varying voltages, and your amperages and rated wattages are way below advertised spec (I've seen some "400W" PSUs with amperages and wattages BELOW typical 300W PSU levels) a decent 350, or that 330 should be fine for most people.

BB

Replicant · « **Reply #7 on:** November 03, 2003, 02:19:44 PM »

I've had the same problem. I upgraded from a Ti4200 to a Sapphire Radeon 9800. I spoke to Skuzzy and he recommended ensuring the old Detonator drivers are completely removed. I used a NV stray file remover and the performance of my Radeon (with Catalyst 3.8) improved by about 10%.

One other thing, have you overclocked your Radeon? I've got mine overclocked to just under Pro speed but if I go higher then I get the occasional graphic glitch you mentioned.

So, you could be a combination of both stray files and overheating?

Roscoroo · « **Reply #8 on:** November 03, 2003, 02:53:05 PM »

the card may have been a messed up overclock also if it was used ... btw ive seen the 9500 going for $130 in several places ..

Boat · « **Reply #9 on:** November 03, 2003, 07:48:14 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Roscoroo
the card may have been a messed up overclock also if it was used ... btw ive seen the 9500 going for $130 in several places ..

You may be right. The card looked a little banged up too.

And yep, you can find the 9500 at $130 or a few bucks less but the 9500 Pro, if you can find one at all, is going to cost you more than $200 according to the latest Price Watch check. Even the two places I found it are now reporting it out of stock which is not too surprising for a discontinued card.

See ya up!