Radeon 9800 Pro AIW graphic corupting
I have a major problem, i cant play ANY games on my computer anymore, when ever i play a game within a few minutes all i can see is this kleidiscope looking effect even when i quit the game if i can. I have tried updating to 4.11 catalyst drivers but its still there, also running directx9.0c. I have also tried emailing ati but all I ever get is this stupid form letter :shakehead and no help, i have included a screen shot of what it looks like. So whats up, could this be my card overheating because it is hot to the touch, or what? 
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It could be just your graphic is dying
when my ti4600 is dying, graphics on games were corrputing like crazy, and couple days later, it finally died.
system would not boot with the video card installed, but good thing it was within warranty, RMAed it back to newegg, and got refund for it.
w00t!!!
3D games were working fine until for me until I reorganized my cables and moved both my surge protector and mini UPS closer to my PC tower case, which is aluminum with clear side windows. My best guess is that because my PC case isn't solid metal the contents are more easily subject to electrical interference. So, I tried moving both the surge protector and the mini UPS about 3 to 4 feet away and the corruption problem has totally gone away.
I just thought I should post this in case you receive your replacement card and start experiencing the same problem again. If you have any surge protectors, extension cords, UPS units, or even an electrical outlet less than a foot from your PC, try moving them (or in the case of an outlet, your PC). Of course, your milage may vary. . .
Good luck!
get some sheiled cables
Well, i got my card back, same card same problem. So what were you saying about EMI? what is that, and what are sheiled cables, and could i fix it without buying anything?
- parts of the screen would start flickering after some time
- the flickering would rapidly get worse despite the fact that my system was still responsive and I could control my character
- the rapid flickering would quickly turn into a full screen of what you previously described as a kaleidoscoping effect radiating from the center with an occasional multicolored checkerboard pattern appearing here and there
- I was able to close the 3D game and return to a fully functional desktop, except there was still slight graphics corruption in the form of wavy vertical lines
- a reboot would always remove the graphics corruption
Catalyst driver updates/rollbacks did nothing for the problem, nor did flashing my motherboard’s BIOS.
The *GOOD* news is my ATi Radeon 9800 Pro AIW isn't dead. . .it's either simply overheating or there is a voltage issue with my PC.
I suspected overheating may be the culprit because the problem didn’t occur all the time. Sometimes I played 3D games for 10 hours a day with no issue and other times it would occur after playing a few minutes. The problem most frequently occurred when playing EQ2, but didn’t happen at all when playing Star Wars Galaxies. It appears that the latest 3D games (EQ2, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Far Cry, etc) are capable of driving the Radeon 9800 really hard and the stock fan that comes with the card is not able to keep it cool enough to function properly. As a quick check, the next time I started getting the corruption I put my hand on my PC case in the area of the graphics card and noticed it was much warmer that the rest of the case. My PC fans were all louder than usual, indicating they were working overtime to cool my system.
I ran a Google search on “symptoms of graphic card overheating” and found this link at the top: http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/34179/. Of course, upon re-reading the first few posts to *THIS* forum thread, I now realize the problem has probably been staring me in the face. I guess I just didn't want to believe my card is overheating.
It seems that others have experienced this problem and resolved it by ordering a more advanced cooling solution (i.e. heatsink and fan) for their card. I’ve ordered an Arctic Cooler VGA Silencer revision 3 from NewEgg.com for about $21, including FedEx supersaver shipping. I was just advised today that it has shipped, so it should be here in a few days. You can see the item here: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=35-186-110&depa=0
This solution will require some assembly: I’ll have to take my card out, remove the fan & heatsink and install the new cooler. Also worth noting is that the fan will take up another PCI slot right below my card in order to exhaust the heat from the card out the back of my PC. In short, if you’re not comfortable installing this on your card and voiding your warranty with ATi, or if you don’t have a spare slot below your graphics card, this solution won’t work for you.
Please note that there are specific versions of this cooler depending upon the model number of the card you have. Since I have an All-in-Wonder version of the 9800 Pro, the only cooling solution for me was the unit I mentioned above. If you go this route, be sure to know your exact model of card and find the ideal cooler model from this site: http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga1.php. I believe NewEgg.com carries most models.
Also, my Google search revealed some utilities that might help you determine the temperature in your case and voltages while gaming and possibly even your ATi card’s temperature. These could help in diagnosing whether your problem is overheating or voltage issues. Everest is a free tool from Lavasoft that will poll the internal temperature monitoring chip on your motherboard and report the CPU and chipset temperatures in realtime. It also reports the fan rotation speed and the voltages of your PC components. I was somewhat shocked to find that when playing EQ2 my P4 3.06 GHz CPU temp went all the way up to 66 degrees Celsius (or 151 F!). You can download the tool here: http://www.lavalys.com/products/overview.php?pid=1&lang=en&pageid=1
The other tool is called ATiTool and it was designed to help you easily and safely overclock your card. It has the capability of reporting your ATi GPU temperature *IF* you card has a temp monitoring chip. Alas, my AIW doesn’t have the chip, so I couldn’t use this tool to see what the GPU temp was when I started experiencing corruption. You can download this tool here: http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/. IMPORTANT: if you have an AIW card do *NOT* use the 0.22 version of ATiTool as the website indicates it can temporarily disrupt the functioning of the TV tuner hardware on your card. You should download and use the 0.23 beta 10 version with an AIW card.
Sorry for the length
Good luck!
Asus P4C800 Deluxe
Intel P4 3.06 GHz w/HT
1 GB Corsair 3200 DDR RAM
ATi Radeon 9800 Pro All-in-Wonder
Western Digital 250 GB HD
Western Digital 120 GB HD
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 eX Platinum
Enk1du, your guess is as good as mine as to why your problem occurs within 5 minutes of firing up a new game. What kind of case do you have? A theory on this: if you have a small case with only a few fans cooling your system, your card could overheat fairly quickly. I have a Super Flower mid-tower aluminum case with two intake fans at the front, two exhaust fans at the back and one exhaust fan at the top, which seems to keep things cool for awhile. But with that 3 GHz P4 chip only a few inches away from my 9800, things get really hot in that area quickly when a recently released 3D game is running.
This problem doesn't seem to occur when I play older 3D games, which IMO points to an overheating card. The 9800, even while being eclipsed by the X800 Pro XL (which I'm drooling over), is still a beast of a card and should handle older games with ease. Thus, I wouldn't expect the card to overheat while playing older games. Then again, I haven't played any older games in a while.
Perhaps there’s a bug in the 9800 firmware that controls the fan speed, thus it doesn’t always maximize the fan rotation speed when the card heats up. But then if that were the problem I would have expected ATi to update the firmware when they serviced your card and it should be working fine now. The ATiTool I mentioned in my previous post will let you adjust the parameters so you can force the fan to spin at its max rotation when a temperature that is lower that the default is reached, but again this feature of the program only works if your card has the temp monitoring chip. Thus, it wasn’t an option for testing with my system.
As Justin mentioned above, there could be another issue that hasn’t been identified, which quite frankly would suck because I really wouldn’t know where to help you from here.
Of course, I could end up getting the Arctic Cooler and finding out it doesn’t solve my problem, which puts me in the same boat as yourself. . .but looking at the symptoms I’m experiencing, I strongly suspect the Arctic Cooler is gonna’ make my gaming problems a thing of the past.
My cooler should be here early next week, so expect another post on whether it appears to be working for me soon.
Cheers!
Asus P4C800 Deluxe
Intel P4 3.06 GHz w/HT
1 GB Corsair PC3200 DDR400 RAM
ATi Radeon 9800 Pro All-in-Wonder
Western Digital 250 GB HD
Western Digital 120 GB HD
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 eX Platinum
Super Flower Mid-Tower Aluminum Case
I was just going out on a limb suggesting that maybe its instability is contributing to the corruption issue as it's always running, even when you disable the realtime scan.
Cheers!
Asus P4C800 Deluxe
Intel P4 3.06 GHz w/HT
1 GB Corsair PC3200 DDR400 RAM
ATi Radeon 9800 Pro All-in-Wonder
Western Digital 250 GB HD
Western Digital 120 GB HD
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 eX Platinum
Super Flower Mid-Tower Aluminum Case
Anyway, I'll be installing that badboy today, which will give me a good excuse to play EQ2 for 10 hours to see if it's working! LOL
By the way, if you don't hear back from me it's probably because I destroyed my 9800 during the install. You'll also probably hear an earth-shattering scream coming from the general vacinity of San Francisco, CA too. . .
Cheers!
Asus P4C800 Deluxe
Intel P4 3.06 GHz w/HT
1 GB Corsair PC3200 DDR400 RAM
ATi Radeon 9800 Pro All-in-Wonder
Western Digital 250 GB HD
Western Digital 120 GB HD
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 eX Platinum
Super Flower Mid-Tower Aluminum Case
Update: just crahsed in Day of Defeat (HL 1), now officaly does it in all games)
I'm happy to report that the installation of the Arctic Cooler VGA Silencer was a piece of cake (the only real tricky part is applying the thermal compound without destroying the GPU). I've been playing EQ2 for the past 5 hours with no problems. It will take a few more heavy-duty playing sessions before I'm confident the problem has been resolved, but so far so good
Frankly, given we're experiencing nearly the same symptoms, I'd be surprised if it wasn't a heat issue, although the fact that your problem seems to be getting worse doesn't exactly match what I've been experiencing.
Do you recall making any system changes before the problem started? BIOS flashes, a new piece of hardware or software installed? Justin mentioned the AGP slot may be defective, but then I suspect you wouldn't see 2D (or any) graphics if that were the case. . .
P.S. i am scared to death of both of thoose things, this stuff is getting above my head for computer stuff. lol, yah so any help would be appreciated!
What they said was to disable acip (SP?) (something that allows windows to manage IRQ settings) but when i disable it i cant figure out how to move my card to a free IRQ #, how do i do this? Also, how would i go about updating Bios in lamens terms for an asus p4p8x?
qucik question, in the ATI email, it says to check AGP BIOS, how would i go about doing this?
Since you’ve indicated the problem starting occurring on the Rome: Total War demo, unless you recall updating or changing parameters in your motherboard’s BIOS or installing new hardware into your PC I don’t see how either would have been altered to the point of causing your problem. That said, stranger things have happened with my PC before. . .
I don’t know what ATi is talking about when they say “AGP BIOS”. All references I’ve run across upon doing a Google search for AGP BIOS indicate this is the BIOS that runs on the graphics card. If this is accurate then ATi support should walk you through determining the AGP BIOS version and whether or not there is an update for your version.
Before you do anything else, I would try this simple change first as it has been reported to resolve issues with 3D game graphics corruption on Asus motherboards (for some people anyway). You’re going to change the “Graphics Aperature Size” to 64 MB if it has been set to some other value:
• Reboot your PC and when it starts up press the “DEL” (delete) key.
• After a minute you should be taken to a screen with text graphics. This is BIOS menu.
• Use your arrow keys until the “Advanced” menu item is highlighted near the top.
• Use your arrow keys to move down the Advanced menu to until “Chipset” is highlighted and press enter.
• Look for “Grahpics Aperature Size” on the list and look at what it is set to. If it is set to anything other than 64 MB, change it to 64 MB by using your arrow keys to move down until the parameter next to the Graphics Aperature Size is highlighted and pressing the + and – keys to change the value. Press the F10 key to save your changes and follow the prompts. Your system will then reboot.
• If it is already set to 64 MB this fix won’t work for you. Exit out of the BIOS menu by pressing the Esc key and do not save your changes.
Try playing a game and seeing if the corruption appears. 64 MB is the default setting, but some system builders change this to match the amount of memory on your video card. If your ATi 9800 has 128 MB of RAM, your system builder may have changed this value in BIOS.
If you want to update your motherboard’s BIOS, you need to visit Asus’s website and download the latest BIOS version. Go here, http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/mbindex.htm, choose your motherboard from the list, then click on the Downloads link to the left of the page. The latest updates will be displayed first, but you can choose the “BIOS” link near the top of the page to see all the BIOS versions. You want the latest version of the BIOS for your motherboard. It is *VERY* important that you download the correct BIOS file as an incorrect version can cause problems. To update the BIOS, you’ll need to consult your motherboard manual. If you motherboard supports “EasyFlash” (I believe all modern Asus boards do), you just need a floppy disk with enough space to hold the BIOS file (typically about 512 KB). Consult your motherboard’s manual on how to perform the update. You can download the manual if your system builder didn’t give you one (or if you can’t find it!).
**Be advised that updating my motherboard’s BIOS did nothing to resolve the graphics corruption problem with my ATi Radeon 9800 Pro AIW**.
Regarding ATi’s suggestion of disabling ACPI in Windows, I don’t know much about this. First, I would use Microsoft’s System Information tool found in Windows XP to see what IRQ your 9800 card is using. From within System Information, expand “Hardware Resources” then click on IRQs. Scan the list on the right until you find your graphics card, then note the IRQ number. See if any other items on the list are sharing the same IRQ along with the 9800. If so, ATi is saying that it’s possible the other device(s) on that IRQ may be causing the problem, and putting the 9800 on its own IRQ may resolve your problem. Actually accomplishing this may prove to be tricky, so try the Aperature thing I suggested above and see if that does anything for you. . .
PC specs
AMD 2600+
1024 PC2700 DDR
PS 450w
2 harddrvies
1 dvd rom
ATI 9800 pro
Thinking it could be a driver problem? using the lastest ones so dont see why thinking about cleaning the drivers and trying the cards stock ones.