See? This is real! I cannot believe that people are dissing us for reporting this! YES FOLKS, PEOPLE'S MONITORS ARE ACTUALLY BREAKING BECAUSE OF DRIVERS.
Hey there, same problem, installed 3.8 over 3.6, left system over night, blew up new 21" NEC Flat screen monitor and damaged GPU on card. I say we take legal action and pull a "Microsoft" on em. Anyone interested in getting a large suit in order, mail me.
primesuspect had this to say See? This is real! I cannot believe that people are dissing us for reporting this! YES FOLKS, PEOPLE'S MONITORS ARE ACTUALLY BREAKING BECAUSE OF DRIVERS.
I certainly believe this is important, and people pointing to the ATi release about there preliminary findings, well of course they're not going to say "hey, you're right, our drivers are destroying monitors left and right." People who are "proving" us wrong by going and retrieving some grand knowledge they found online somewhere, well, obviously they haven't actually experienced this problem, and have no right to be telling us who have that we have no grounds for this.
I thank Short-Media for responding to this issue, if only I had learned about this before it exploded into a big news event, I might have saved my monitor, however, now I get to go drop a couple hundred dollars that I really don't have right now, on a new one.
Hopefully Short-Media's as thus far unbiased reporting will help save some other people from the fate I, and many others it now seems, have suffered. I say unbiased, because news reports on here have specifically said not to jump to conclusions and are not officially commiting that this is a direct driver problem, and I respect that until enough evidence and information is collected to prove otherwise.
shaze had this to say Hey there, same problem, installed 3.8 over 3.6, left system over night, blew up new 21" NEC Flat screen monitor and damaged GPU on card. I say we take legal action and pull a "Microsoft" on em. Anyone interested in getting a large suit in order, mail me.
I do not think that is the best approach.
Tracing a possible problem is a matter of assembling the facts and being able to reproduce the issue. We are not endorsing that users try to reproduce this with the theoretical possibility of hardware damage.
We are asking readers to post as many detailed facts as possible in order to draw a better conclusion. This may be another issue altogther.
First of all it is a very real possibility to burn out a monitor with incorrect refresh rates. I've seen it and experienced it many times. The monitor will either become very blurry and/or the picture will be unreadable. If the damage is severe there will be no video signal. It is certainly possible for drivers to be written to incorrectly set the refresh rate. Heck if you can do it manually in windows or have a third party program such as those that force a refresh rate in lieu of windows setting, then you can easily write a driver to do it and can damage your monitor irreversibly. Like I said in my many years of computing I've seen it done quite a few times.
Like most of us were are very intimate with our systems; meaning that you know about and notice every glitch and flicker. I've since done two tests with fresh installs of WindowsXP and no other programs loaded. I've updated all the hardware with its latest drivers and on one load I'm using the 3.7s. On the other I'm using the 3.8s. I use Drive Image to make an image so that I can switch back and forth between drivers and insure there is no 'mix' of drivers or corruption in the update. EVERY time I load the 3.8 image the monitor loses it's signal after serveral minutes and with the 3.7s it does not. I recently emailed these findings to ATI in a driver report and customer service form.
There are too many reports of problem from various people with similar problems to this just being written of as coincidence, however keep in mind that even if ATI can reproduce the problem they will NEVER will admit to it. If so the legal ramifications of damaging people's hardware could severly hurt ATI. A discrete fix to the next drivers will be implemented and no one will ever know. At best ATI will admit a coding error in the drivers and request everyone to stop using the old 3.8s, but they will never admit to damaging hardware.
As a middle-aged airline pilot and owner of my own technology consulting firm specializing in hardware and networking, I'm positively convinced that these drivers caused my LCD to lose it's signal. Why, I do not know specifically. And why would I lie or make this up? I love my 9700 Pro.
First of all it is a very real possibility to burn out a monitor with incorrect refresh rates. I've seen it and experienced it many times.
A signal being run for a long period of time at an incorrect refresh rate could cause damage but just changing drivers cannot automatically burn out a monitor in an instant.
Where have you seen this before Tubby?
I worked for ten years in the Industry and have never seen this ever, me and my peers scoff at this lunacy,, I personally check my monitors refresh rate capabilities and set them within that standard as a normal event of driver updates,, maybe if someone does not know what they are doing they should leave working on the computer to someone who does as user error must take a seat in this scenario.
Best case scenario to support this claim:
ATI made drivers that run at a higher refresh rate than normal? Maybe (a big maybe in my book)
But: why did the person doing the driver update check his refresh rates in the control panel to make sure they where within spec before letting their monitor take a dive.
Worst case scenario against this claim
I and others in this industry who's experiance totals probably over a hundred years have never seen a problem of a driver,,software mind you,, destroy a monitor
Users destroy monitors and cards by pushing things beyong spec or not setting them correctly
I am not saying that there is not a possibility of ATI having a higher refresh rate setting although I have never seen it,, just that the user could change the refresh before it just destroys the monitor.
I am not saying anyone is lying either but not knowing the entire steps in a driver update could account for most of these problems.
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited October 2003
Doc Overclock, I agree with what you're saying, but how else can you explain these reported monitor deaths? I'll reserve final judgement until we've got more evidence, but it seems to me that if this many people are having monitor issues after going to the Cat 3.8s, that there must be something wrong with them...
Doc:
Ati's not exactly on a good track record. By this I mean......
You'll find alot of these people ARE haveing issues, and it DOES exsist. Juming on a bandwagon effect? yeah partially Im sure of that, but can ALL these people posting the exact same effect, be wrong? I can't hardly think so.
Just a side note, I am in a channel on irc, with 4 ati beta testers, that have also had the drivers WAY before release, and they to had no issues, but I will note this......the beta drivers vs. the official released drivers, the beta drivers did NOT have 2 ati2evxx.exe files in under task manager ither, yet the official release HAS 2 of those exe's. Not one beta tester has 2 exe's, yet every one of the 3.8 cats that I have asked, and are useing the official release 3.8, have 2 exe files. Coinicidence? no, it's a fact, the "beta" drivers don't, the "official" drivers do. From what I have read and was told, the 2 exe files were an error of recompileing the drivers for release, and got messed up some how. So what else has been messed up? if 2 exe's being there were messed up during recompileing, who's to say ati has overlooked something, or, maybe hideing something, and don't want to fess up to it.
Also the fact that ati when they released the 3.6 cats, broke 32 bit gl, and was setting it to 16 bit, and when the 3.7's came out the exact same thing was there, and was admited by catalyst maker, aka: Terry, head of the driver team, that ati DID indeed goof and set the drivers to 16 bit by accident, instead of what was spose to be 32 bit. This was fixed in the 3.8's, but those goofs, along with the 2 exe files, tell me something is NOT right with the 3.8's and that ati is overlooking something, that IS causeing these drivers to ruin monitors.
So given this, can we really say it's NOT an issue with 3.8's? with 2 drivers sets with broken 32bit gl, becasue ati made a mistake and was reported as such by the lead ati driver team person, and now the 2 exe's because of the recompileing of the drivers.
Dunno, jsut doesn't seem like everything is on the up and up if you ask me, and no I'm not saying ati is lying, I'm simply saying they are probably overlooking something.
Okay that being said easyrider the driver issues you mentioned did not destroy hardware it just made it run crappy.
ATI has a foul history of driver issues that there is no denial but buggy drivers is a far cry from THESE DRIVRES JUST SUDDENLY BLEw UP MY MONITOR,,:banghead: :banghead: :confused2
There is an issue at hand here. That is most certain. The sheer amount of attention this subject is getting is proof enough that users are looking to this as a plausible explanation.
At this time there is no substantiated repeatable proof to verify but there is indeed cause for further investigation. It is our hope that with further information that the exact cause or possible cause be uncovered.
Short-Media did not originate this topic, rumor, claim, what have you. I feel it is our responsibility, due to the fact this forum and subject are getting so much attention, to investigate it by way of gathering as much data as possible and looking at this from as non-biased point as possible.
By way of the information in this thread...If ATI or another suddenly puts the pieces together and discovers that it is related to people who wear digital watches given out free with a certain cereal box...then at least there is an answer.
The coincidence of the user experiences is too much to ignore. This should not be a lynch mob against ATI or any other manufacturer.
It should be a best effort to collect data and help others to solve an alleged issue or determine that the book should be closed on the ATI suspicion.
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited October 2003
//Begin small OT conversation
doesn't seem like everything is on the up and up
Yah, well that's pretty much par for course, is it not? I mean, I'd think that we'd have come to expect this from most of the computer industry by now... I mean, just to review (in roughly chronological order):
nVidia 3dmark "issue"
Apple's insistence that the G5 is the first 64 bit PC
Apple's insistence that the G5 is the "world's fastest, most powerful personal computer"
Apple's G5 vs. P4 benchmarks
Intel's insistence that the real thermal output of the P4-3.06 is 85w, when in reality, it's 105.
ATi Quake 3 "driver optimization"
Athlon XP 3200+, 3000+, and 2800+ PRs
Intel's "netburst architecture" (now that's a marketing ploy if I've ever seen one. How many computer-illiterate people do you think bought a P4 based on the fact that "netburst" made it sound like it'd make their internet connection faster?)
Two words: OEM PCs
The computer industry does not exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to honesty...
// End OT
Let me ease your confusion about my post doc. I did not say or mean that I've seen a driver ruin a monitor. In fact I've never seen that. What I have seen is incorrect refresh rates on a monitor ruin it. And no it wasn't me who did it. It's was friends/customers who set it or their kids set it and then wondered why the monitor is now so fuzzy or didn't work at all. Several of the folks set the high refresh rate only for a few moments and that's all it took to permantely ruin the picture. You ever notice the big warning in Windows and monitors that say, "Incorrect refresh rates can damage your monitor"? Well then I guess it can.
I personally can not attest to these claims of the drivers "burning out" monitors. I'd have to see it to believe it. I can tell you though it caused the signal between my 9700 and LCD to quit several times and that's enough for me.
It's not me who is saying it but I discovered a manufacturer, HANSOL, who does state that "Note that your monitor will have limitations as to how high the refresh rate can be set, but there is no limitation to the number of colours your monitor is capable of producing. If you do not know the maximum refresh rates for your monitor, check the Specifications Chart. Setting this value too high can cause permanent damage to your monitor."
Doc overclock, coming to a technology site new (I assume you are here as a result of this issue, seeing your 3 or 4 post count) and saying that the people experiencing this problem are not the type who should be working on computers and should "let someone who knows what they are doing" fix it, is insulting. We are not pinning this on ATi right now, as MediaMan said, we are trying to find the cause of it because with so many similar cases. this can not be coincedence.
I consider myself and expert of computer knowledge, and I am not one to cry wolf if I messed up my own hardware and attemp to RMA something that I borked on my own, but, my relatively new monitor is dead, I have a 9700 pro, I recently upgraded to 3.8s, and I've seen the flicker symptons. Does this mean I am totally blaming this problem on ATi/3.8 Drivers? No. It means, other people have experienced this exact same thing and we are trying to figure out why. Just because you personally have not witnessed this does not mean that those who have do not know what they are doing and are trying to pin their own stupidity in hardware configuration (of which I did NONE when I get the new drivers, just installed them and went, no OCs, no changes from defaults) on a common problem. Your faith in ATi statements and past experience are not the problem we're looking at here, we want to know how and why are hardware is dying, be it the drivers or otherwise.
I figure that was somewhat targeted at me, and I was not insinuating that he was a newb at all, but it seemed to me that he was trying to say that this problem is the fault of the user not knowing how to upgrade their own drivers.
I am not saying anyone is lying either but not knowing the entire steps in a driver update could account for most of these problems.
Of the hundreds of video driver installs I've done, none has ever destroyed a monitor because I didn't know how to install it. I didnt realize there was an incorrect way to double click an installation icon.
and I mean no offense to you MediaMan, but, are we to be cautioned at rebutting someone elses claims if they question ours, simply because you know them personally? maybe I misunderstood you when you were 'cautioning' us.
MediaMan had this to say Just to caution everyone.
I know Doc personally and he knows his side of the story. He's not a newb in the tech site arena.
Passionate he is but he's also an incredibly nice guy.
Thanks Doug shared feelings from this end as well..
My point is this:
after numerous and I do mean numerous tests benchmarkes beta evaluations and pure tech geekhood I have never seen a driver just suddenly break hardware.
I run a site dedicated to education and free knowledge and just feel if you are unsure of what you are doing ask first before you make a costly mistake.
In the end who knows exactly what is the problem but user error cannot be ruled out in all fairness.
Camman had this to say and I mean no offense to you MediaMan, but, are we to be cautioned at rebutting someone elses claims if they question ours, simply because you know them personally? maybe I misunderstood you when you were 'cautioning' us.
Nope...not at all...butt away but I just thought I'd insert the fact that Doc does know his stuff and I sensed a potential wrong road being taken. A simple misunderstanding because of lack of information.
Doc also is a bit too passionate in his rebuttals...perhaps he can remember that forums ignite fast.
Camman...by all means...rebut away. I know Doc enjoys a good arm wrestle sometimes.
The fact that I know him personally has no bearing on this.
Of the hundreds of video driver installs I've done, none has ever destroyed a monitor because I didn't know how to install it. I didnt realize there was an incorrect way to double click an installation icon
Okay that being said: did you always check your monitors refresh rates or are you the newb who just got lucky...? This is not an insult but a valuable question as if you did not you were just lucky and not finishing the driver update procedure yourself further enhancing my point!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And flaming the site editor sucks man I never flamed anyone only points of view that were intangable journeys into unreality.
Drivers do not break monitors users break monitors or monitors just fail. I am done with this as people seem to believe what they want not whats reality.
I did not get where I am today by feeding into a media frenzy of unproved posting on the net.. I live by facts and what I have seen and dealt with. In the end we will see where the truth was.;)
Doc Overclock had this to say Okay that being said easyrider the driver issues you mentioned did not destroy hardware it just made it run crappy.
ATI has a foul history of driver issues that there is no denial but buggy drivers is a far cry from THESE DRIVRES JUST SUDDENLY BLEw UP MY MONITOR,,:banghead: :banghead: :confused2
Blew up, no, monitors don't just BLOW up, but being burnt out, well, I can say for a fact I too have seen monitors burnt out from to high of rfresh rate. A monitor is raed at 85hz, and you run it at 120, it's not bound to last very long, jsut as if you oc a cpu or video card, it's bound not to last very long, but in alot of cases it does last, but by all rights, it's not spec'd at the oc rate, therfor it has a 50/50 chance of burning up, be it monitor or cpu or vid card.
No you cna't overclock a monitor, but you can however crank it past it's rated specs refresh rate, wich in turn can burn it out. I've persoanlly been doing pc's around 20+ years, so i'm not exactly stupid to installs or how to do this or that, and I certainly agree if you d not know, ask, the worst that can happen is they tell you to get lost. I am not pointing the finger at the drivers, but I don't really have anything else to point at, or speculate, as the only thing I did was change driver sets, and had the issues. I was lucky, I didn't burn my monitor out, because my monitor will not go past it's refresh rate, it will give a signal loss instead.
I to haev seen many monitors go past thier specs, but I have also seen them burn up because of it also.
Software can btw, damage hardware, I have seen it....this was awhile back, but he had a virus, and it did physically damage his hard drive. I thougth this was odd that a "software" could do "hardware" damage, so Iw as curious and looked it up as to what it efected, and sure enough, in more than one finding on the web, I found out that it does indeed destroy hardware physically, and was meant for that purpose. As long as I have been doing pc's I do not put anything past anything, because anything IS possible, and alot of times CAN happen.
Again I am not saying the 3.8's are or are not doing this, I am going from MY personal experiences, and saying that the only thign I DID change was drivers, that is it. No modding, NO oc'ing, nothing.
Beleive what you will, about software, not destroying hardware, but I have seen it, and know for a fact it does happen. I won't say until further proof has been showed, but for now, I'll be watching very close how this turns out.
I hope no ahrd feeling were made of this, as I said before this is a debate to me, not a fight, or flame fest .
I hope we can all be friends.
That virus actually just made the boot sector of the hard drive unreadable not bad. A quick trip back to RMA and they would just reintialize the drive and send it back. And to point out in all friendlyness a virus is a bit different than a driver dude...And it just altered the way the drive could be read not really destroyed it...
But the fact that the virus (a piece of software) altered a drive in the way that it reads could cause damage, temporarily or permanently. The armature could be caused to go into a twitch thus causing mechanical breakdown.
So then...could not the same be said for another piece of software altering the way a piece of hardware operates and thus causing damage temporarily or permanently?
In your own statement there is food for thought...
(I shoulda been a lawyer...lol)
Now a large majority of users are not as experienced as some others. They put faith in the software that they install that it should work correctly with a bit of help from the manual. If everyone was as saavy as the top percentile then we wouldn't be having an email virus epidemic.
Now I know you think that this supports your theory of user error.
But my theory is...I don't know....and this is what this thread is all about....trying to find out by piecing together user experience.
SimGuy had this to say We try to be a friendly bunch
How did you go about removing the Catalyst 3.8's? In my experience, I've found that simply uninstalling them and installing older (or newer) Catalyst drivers doesn't completely remove the original installation.
I first uninstalled all drivers without restarting WinXP, then ran the uninstaller over and restarted. The problem with WinXP is that I could not install the standard VGA drivers so I had to use the original installation CD of the graphics card where there is a inf File.
WinXP has a VGA Mode Option when you press F8 during bootup, maybe it works with that better, I didnt try it yesterday.
btw, my problem was not only due to the Catalyst drivers, I also had a too weak power supply which I swapped yesterday and have some memory problems where I'm not 100% sure yet where the problem is exactly.
Of the hundreds of video driver installs I've done, none has ever destroyed a monitor because I didn't know how to install it. I didnt realize there was an incorrect way to double click an installation icon
Okay that being said: did you always check your monitors refresh rates or are you the newb who just got lucky...? This is not an insult but a valuable question as if you did not you were just lucky and not finishing the driver update procedure yourself further enhancing my point!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And flaming the site editor sucks man I never flamed anyone only points of view that were intangable journeys into unreality.
Drivers do not break monitors users break monitors or monitors just fail. I am done with this as people seem to believe what they want not whats reality.
I did not get where I am today by feeding into a media frenzy of unproved posting on the net.. I live by facts and what I have seen and dealt with. In the end we will see where the truth was.;)
This is insanity, you say its not an insult yet you just said the exact thing I pointed out as being insulting. No I'm not the "newb who just got lucky" , you are making yourself look like a newb because you would know that windows by default will not set by default or display refresh rates a monitor is not capable of, if the monitor is correctly detected by windows, you have to manually force it to do so. Sorry, but I haven't helped you prove your point at all, only your ignorance to the situation and persistence in not discovering the root of the issue but rather just shrugging it off as "damn newbs can't install video drivers." Which is not that case.
In the end we WILL see where the truth is", and how is what I'm telling you not fact? Seeing as how this issue arose on MY computer and caused MY monitor to die, as I said I have yet to say it IS the drivers just all the sysmptons of everyone else is there, I think I would be qualified, since I actually know what happened to MY own system.
And flaming the site editor sucks man I never flamed anyone only points of view that were intangable journeys into unreality.
And you are incorrect, I never 'flamed' MediaMan, I was just questioning if he was bringing the fact that he knew you personally into the issue. I have a lot of respect for MM as a matter of fact, largely because of his unbiased stance and willingness to look deep into an issue rather than just coming to some conclusion and ending it there because thats what HE thinks the problem is, which is less than I can say for you.
And by telling me that relating my own experience and suggesting what I think the problem is is an "intangible journey into unreality" is a flame in itself, so you might want to just check yourself before you go pointing fingers at others.
Were you here when I installed my Cat 3.8s? Were you here to experience my monitor flickering and odd behavior? Were you here as my monitor died for no apparent reason? No. But I was, so you can't tell me I'm wrong in the fact that those things happened, because I witnessed them, they happened. Whether it was a result of the Catalyst 3.8 driver upgrades is what is in question, and as I stated so many times before, that is what we are trying to find out. I can without a single doubt tell you that the death of my monitor is not the result of me being a "lucky newb", and I recognize the fact that you have a lot of experience with computers, so do most of the rest of the people around here, myself included, and to associate us/me with the word "newb" is just an insult and causes an immediate loss of credibilty for yourself.
Urm folks, the problem in my case now is that I can uninstall Cat 3.8 but I can't install earlier version like 3.4 or 3.6. When I try to install a version before 3.8, my PC will reboot as its booting up. I then get some msg.
The only way I can avoid this msg is by installing 3.8, which gives me tons of white lines all over. Some of my friends were able to uninstall 3.8 & revert to earlier versions. I can uninstall but not install earlier versions. I even used CabCleaner & DriverCleaner to remove all traces of 3.8. But my PC just refuses to work with 3.4 or 3.6.
Do u think my Windows and/or registry is screwed?
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited October 2003
Sounds like it. I don't think you'll get out of this one without a format and reinstall.
wheek had this to say Urm folks, the problem in my case now is that I can uninstall Cat 3.8 but I can't install earlier version like 3.4 or 3.6. When I try to install a version before 3.8, my PC will reboot as its booting up. I then get some msg.
The only way I can avoid this msg is by installing 3.8, which gives me tons of white lines all over. Some of my friends were able to uninstall 3.8 & revert to earlier versions. I can uninstall but not install earlier versions. I even used CabCleaner & DriverCleaner to remove all traces of 3.8. But my PC just refuses to work with 3.4 or 3.6.
Do u think my Windows and/or registry is screwed?
Have you tried installing the Catalyst 3.7 drivers? Those were the ones I reverted to, and it went back without a hitch
Okay man and ouch that hurts talk about serious misinterpetation
So did you or did you not check the refresh rate of your monitor immeidiatly after installing the driver..???
If yes: What did you have the refresh set at prior to the failure?
If no: maybe it was set too high and that caused the failure.
I was not trying to flame you just strongly point out a procedure possibly missed by many in the driver update procedure.
I have not entered a forum in years as strong opinions always result in eventual flames if there is strong disagreement even in times of peace!!
Oh well such is life: I write how to guides as Doug now should outlining procedures for driver updates as help for new users to avoid any could be hurdles.
It's ok doc, just put a bandaide on it, it'll get better ....or I have some salt you can rub in it if you like, hehe.
Sorry had to break the posting and have a lil fun.
Comments
I certainly believe this is important, and people pointing to the ATi release about there preliminary findings, well of course they're not going to say "hey, you're right, our drivers are destroying monitors left and right." People who are "proving" us wrong by going and retrieving some grand knowledge they found online somewhere, well, obviously they haven't actually experienced this problem, and have no right to be telling us who have that we have no grounds for this.
I thank Short-Media for responding to this issue, if only I had learned about this before it exploded into a big news event, I might have saved my monitor, however, now I get to go drop a couple hundred dollars that I really don't have right now, on a new one.
Hopefully Short-Media's as thus far unbiased reporting will help save some other people from the fate I, and many others it now seems, have suffered. I say unbiased, because news reports on here have specifically said not to jump to conclusions and are not officially commiting that this is a direct driver problem, and I respect that until enough evidence and information is collected to prove otherwise.
I do not think that is the best approach.
Tracing a possible problem is a matter of assembling the facts and being able to reproduce the issue. We are not endorsing that users try to reproduce this with the theoretical possibility of hardware damage.
We are asking readers to post as many detailed facts as possible in order to draw a better conclusion. This may be another issue altogther.
Like most of us were are very intimate with our systems; meaning that you know about and notice every glitch and flicker. I've since done two tests with fresh installs of WindowsXP and no other programs loaded. I've updated all the hardware with its latest drivers and on one load I'm using the 3.7s. On the other I'm using the 3.8s. I use Drive Image to make an image so that I can switch back and forth between drivers and insure there is no 'mix' of drivers or corruption in the update. EVERY time I load the 3.8 image the monitor loses it's signal after serveral minutes and with the 3.7s it does not. I recently emailed these findings to ATI in a driver report and customer service form.
There are too many reports of problem from various people with similar problems to this just being written of as coincidence, however keep in mind that even if ATI can reproduce the problem they will NEVER will admit to it. If so the legal ramifications of damaging people's hardware could severly hurt ATI. A discrete fix to the next drivers will be implemented and no one will ever know. At best ATI will admit a coding error in the drivers and request everyone to stop using the old 3.8s, but they will never admit to damaging hardware.
As a middle-aged airline pilot and owner of my own technology consulting firm specializing in hardware and networking, I'm positively convinced that these drivers caused my LCD to lose it's signal. Why, I do not know specifically. And why would I lie or make this up? I love my 9700 Pro.
A signal being run for a long period of time at an incorrect refresh rate could cause damage but just changing drivers cannot automatically burn out a monitor in an instant.
Where have you seen this before Tubby?
I worked for ten years in the Industry and have never seen this ever, me and my peers scoff at this lunacy,, I personally check my monitors refresh rate capabilities and set them within that standard as a normal event of driver updates,, maybe if someone does not know what they are doing they should leave working on the computer to someone who does as user error must take a seat in this scenario.
Best case scenario to support this claim:
ATI made drivers that run at a higher refresh rate than normal? Maybe (a big maybe in my book)
But: why did the person doing the driver update check his refresh rates in the control panel to make sure they where within spec before letting their monitor take a dive.
Worst case scenario against this claim
I and others in this industry who's experiance totals probably over a hundred years have never seen a problem of a driver,,software mind you,, destroy a monitor
Users destroy monitors and cards by pushing things beyong spec or not setting them correctly
I am not saying that there is not a possibility of ATI having a higher refresh rate setting although I have never seen it,, just that the user could change the refresh before it just destroys the monitor.
I am not saying anyone is lying either but not knowing the entire steps in a driver update could account for most of these problems.
Ati's not exactly on a good track record. By this I mean......
You'll find alot of these people ARE haveing issues, and it DOES exsist. Juming on a bandwagon effect? yeah partially Im sure of that, but can ALL these people posting the exact same effect, be wrong? I can't hardly think so.
Just a side note, I am in a channel on irc, with 4 ati beta testers, that have also had the drivers WAY before release, and they to had no issues, but I will note this......the beta drivers vs. the official released drivers, the beta drivers did NOT have 2 ati2evxx.exe files in under task manager ither, yet the official release HAS 2 of those exe's. Not one beta tester has 2 exe's, yet every one of the 3.8 cats that I have asked, and are useing the official release 3.8, have 2 exe files. Coinicidence? no, it's a fact, the "beta" drivers don't, the "official" drivers do. From what I have read and was told, the 2 exe files were an error of recompileing the drivers for release, and got messed up some how. So what else has been messed up? if 2 exe's being there were messed up during recompileing, who's to say ati has overlooked something, or, maybe hideing something, and don't want to fess up to it.
Also the fact that ati when they released the 3.6 cats, broke 32 bit gl, and was setting it to 16 bit, and when the 3.7's came out the exact same thing was there, and was admited by catalyst maker, aka: Terry, head of the driver team, that ati DID indeed goof and set the drivers to 16 bit by accident, instead of what was spose to be 32 bit. This was fixed in the 3.8's, but those goofs, along with the 2 exe files, tell me something is NOT right with the 3.8's and that ati is overlooking something, that IS causeing these drivers to ruin monitors.
So given this, can we really say it's NOT an issue with 3.8's? with 2 drivers sets with broken 32bit gl, becasue ati made a mistake and was reported as such by the lead ati driver team person, and now the 2 exe's because of the recompileing of the drivers.
Dunno, jsut doesn't seem like everything is on the up and up if you ask me, and no I'm not saying ati is lying, I'm simply saying they are probably overlooking something.
ATI has a foul history of driver issues that there is no denial but buggy drivers is a far cry from THESE DRIVRES JUST SUDDENLY BLEw UP MY MONITOR,,:banghead: :banghead:
At this time there is no substantiated repeatable proof to verify but there is indeed cause for further investigation. It is our hope that with further information that the exact cause or possible cause be uncovered.
Short-Media did not originate this topic, rumor, claim, what have you. I feel it is our responsibility, due to the fact this forum and subject are getting so much attention, to investigate it by way of gathering as much data as possible and looking at this from as non-biased point as possible.
By way of the information in this thread...If ATI or another suddenly puts the pieces together and discovers that it is related to people who wear digital watches given out free with a certain cereal box...then at least there is an answer.
The coincidence of the user experiences is too much to ignore. This should not be a lynch mob against ATI or any other manufacturer.
It should be a best effort to collect data and help others to solve an alleged issue or determine that the book should be closed on the ATI suspicion.
Yah, well that's pretty much par for course, is it not? I mean, I'd think that we'd have come to expect this from most of the computer industry by now... I mean, just to review (in roughly chronological order):
nVidia 3dmark "issue"
Apple's insistence that the G5 is the first 64 bit PC
Apple's insistence that the G5 is the "world's fastest, most powerful personal computer"
Apple's G5 vs. P4 benchmarks
Intel's insistence that the real thermal output of the P4-3.06 is 85w, when in reality, it's 105.
ATi Quake 3 "driver optimization"
Athlon XP 3200+, 3000+, and 2800+ PRs
Intel's "netburst architecture" (now that's a marketing ploy if I've ever seen one. How many computer-illiterate people do you think bought a P4 based on the fact that "netburst" made it sound like it'd make their internet connection faster?)
Two words: OEM PCs
The computer industry does not exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to honesty...
// End OT
I personally can not attest to these claims of the drivers "burning out" monitors. I'd have to see it to believe it. I can tell you though it caused the signal between my 9700 and LCD to quit several times and that's enough for me.
http://www.hansol-uk.com/support/support_answers.htm#sixteen
Pushing any piece of equipment past its recommended maximum values or settings is to run risk of damage.
I consider myself and expert of computer knowledge, and I am not one to cry wolf if I messed up my own hardware and attemp to RMA something that I borked on my own, but, my relatively new monitor is dead, I have a 9700 pro, I recently upgraded to 3.8s, and I've seen the flicker symptons. Does this mean I am totally blaming this problem on ATi/3.8 Drivers? No. It means, other people have experienced this exact same thing and we are trying to figure out why. Just because you personally have not witnessed this does not mean that those who have do not know what they are doing and are trying to pin their own stupidity in hardware configuration (of which I did NONE when I get the new drivers, just installed them and went, no OCs, no changes from defaults) on a common problem. Your faith in ATi statements and past experience are not the problem we're looking at here, we want to know how and why are hardware is dying, be it the drivers or otherwise.
I know Doc personally and he knows his side of the story. He's not a newb in the tech site arena.
Passionate he is but he's also an incredibly nice guy.
Of the hundreds of video driver installs I've done, none has ever destroyed a monitor because I didn't know how to install it. I didnt realize there was an incorrect way to double click an installation icon.
and I mean no offense to you MediaMan, but, are we to be cautioned at rebutting someone elses claims if they question ours, simply because you know them personally? maybe I misunderstood you when you were 'cautioning' us.
My point is this:
after numerous and I do mean numerous tests benchmarkes beta evaluations and pure tech geekhood I have never seen a driver just suddenly break hardware.
I run a site dedicated to education and free knowledge and just feel if you are unsure of what you are doing ask first before you make a costly mistake.
In the end who knows exactly what is the problem but user error cannot be ruled out in all fairness.
Nope...not at all...butt away but I just thought I'd insert the fact that Doc does know his stuff and I sensed a potential wrong road being taken. A simple misunderstanding because of lack of information.
Doc also is a bit too passionate in his rebuttals...perhaps he can remember that forums ignite fast.
Camman...by all means...rebut away.
The fact that I know him personally has no bearing on this.
Okay that being said: did you always check your monitors refresh rates or are you the newb who just got lucky...? This is not an insult but a valuable question as if you did not you were just lucky and not finishing the driver update procedure yourself further enhancing my point!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And flaming the site editor sucks man I never flamed anyone only points of view that were intangable journeys into unreality.
Drivers do not break monitors users break monitors or monitors just fail. I am done with this as people seem to believe what they want not whats reality.
I did not get where I am today by feeding into a media frenzy of unproved posting on the net.. I live by facts and what I have seen and dealt with. In the end we will see where the truth was.;)
Blew up, no, monitors don't just BLOW up, but being burnt out, well, I can say for a fact I too have seen monitors burnt out from to high of rfresh rate. A monitor is raed at 85hz, and you run it at 120, it's not bound to last very long, jsut as if you oc a cpu or video card, it's bound not to last very long, but in alot of cases it does last, but by all rights, it's not spec'd at the oc rate, therfor it has a 50/50 chance of burning up, be it monitor or cpu or vid card.
No you cna't overclock a monitor, but you can however crank it past it's rated specs refresh rate, wich in turn can burn it out. I've persoanlly been doing pc's around 20+ years, so i'm not exactly stupid to installs or how to do this or that, and I certainly agree if you d not know, ask, the worst that can happen is they tell you to get lost. I am not pointing the finger at the drivers, but I don't really have anything else to point at, or speculate, as the only thing I did was change driver sets, and had the issues. I was lucky, I didn't burn my monitor out, because my monitor will not go past it's refresh rate, it will give a signal loss instead.
I to haev seen many monitors go past thier specs, but I have also seen them burn up because of it also.
Software can btw, damage hardware, I have seen it....this was awhile back, but he had a virus, and it did physically damage his hard drive. I thougth this was odd that a "software" could do "hardware" damage, so Iw as curious and looked it up as to what it efected, and sure enough, in more than one finding on the web, I found out that it does indeed destroy hardware physically, and was meant for that purpose. As long as I have been doing pc's I do not put anything past anything, because anything IS possible, and alot of times CAN happen.
Again I am not saying the 3.8's are or are not doing this, I am going from MY personal experiences, and saying that the only thign I DID change was drivers, that is it. No modding, NO oc'ing, nothing.
Beleive what you will, about software, not destroying hardware, but I have seen it, and know for a fact it does happen. I won't say until further proof has been showed, but for now, I'll be watching very close how this turns out.
I hope no ahrd feeling were made of this, as I said before this is a debate to me, not a fight, or flame fest
I hope we can all be friends.
All of us at Short-Media appreciate your comments and I hope you will keep on posting. This is a flame free zone and I don't tolerate it at all.
You just keep on helping us sort out this issue.
That virus actually just made the boot sector of the hard drive unreadable not bad. A quick trip back to RMA and they would just reintialize the drive and send it back. And to point out in all friendlyness a virus is a bit different than a driver dude...And it just altered the way the drive could be read not really destroyed it...
So then...could not the same be said for another piece of software altering the way a piece of hardware operates and thus causing damage temporarily or permanently?
In your own statement there is food for thought...
(I shoulda been a lawyer...lol)
Now a large majority of users are not as experienced as some others. They put faith in the software that they install that it should work correctly with a bit of help from the manual. If everyone was as saavy as the top percentile then we wouldn't be having an email virus epidemic.
Now I know you think that this supports your theory of user error.
But my theory is...I don't know....and this is what this thread is all about....trying to find out by piecing together user experience.
I found a catalyst uninstaller here
http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/misc/catalystutils.html
I first uninstalled all drivers without restarting WinXP, then ran the uninstaller over and restarted. The problem with WinXP is that I could not install the standard VGA drivers so I had to use the original installation CD of the graphics card where there is a inf File.
WinXP has a VGA Mode Option when you press F8 during bootup, maybe it works with that better, I didnt try it yesterday.
btw, my problem was not only due to the Catalyst drivers, I also had a too weak power supply which I swapped yesterday and have some memory problems where I'm not 100% sure yet where the problem is exactly.
Cya,
Vordack
This is insanity, you say its not an insult yet you just said the exact thing I pointed out as being insulting. No I'm not the "newb who just got lucky" , you are making yourself look like a newb because you would know that windows by default will not set by default or display refresh rates a monitor is not capable of, if the monitor is correctly detected by windows, you have to manually force it to do so. Sorry, but I haven't helped you prove your point at all, only your ignorance to the situation and persistence in not discovering the root of the issue but rather just shrugging it off as "damn newbs can't install video drivers." Which is not that case.
In the end we WILL see where the truth is", and how is what I'm telling you not fact? Seeing as how this issue arose on MY computer and caused MY monitor to die, as I said I have yet to say it IS the drivers just all the sysmptons of everyone else is there, I think I would be qualified, since I actually know what happened to MY own system.
And you are incorrect, I never 'flamed' MediaMan, I was just questioning if he was bringing the fact that he knew you personally into the issue. I have a lot of respect for MM as a matter of fact, largely because of his unbiased stance and willingness to look deep into an issue rather than just coming to some conclusion and ending it there because thats what HE thinks the problem is, which is less than I can say for you.
And by telling me that relating my own experience and suggesting what I think the problem is is an "intangible journey into unreality" is a flame in itself, so you might want to just check yourself before you go pointing fingers at others.
Were you here when I installed my Cat 3.8s? Were you here to experience my monitor flickering and odd behavior? Were you here as my monitor died for no apparent reason? No. But I was, so you can't tell me I'm wrong in the fact that those things happened, because I witnessed them, they happened. Whether it was a result of the Catalyst 3.8 driver upgrades is what is in question, and as I stated so many times before, that is what we are trying to find out. I can without a single doubt tell you that the death of my monitor is not the result of me being a "lucky newb", and I recognize the fact that you have a lot of experience with computers, so do most of the rest of the people around here, myself included, and to associate us/me with the word "newb" is just an insult and causes an immediate loss of credibilty for yourself.
The only way I can avoid this msg is by installing 3.8, which gives me tons of white lines all over. Some of my friends were able to uninstall 3.8 & revert to earlier versions. I can uninstall but not install earlier versions. I even used CabCleaner & DriverCleaner to remove all traces of 3.8. But my PC just refuses to work with 3.4 or 3.6.
Do u think my Windows and/or registry is screwed?
Have you tried installing the Catalyst 3.7 drivers? Those were the ones I reverted to, and it went back without a hitch
So did you or did you not check the refresh rate of your monitor immeidiatly after installing the driver..???
If yes: What did you have the refresh set at prior to the failure?
If no: maybe it was set too high and that caused the failure.
I was not trying to flame you just strongly point out a procedure possibly missed by many in the driver update procedure.
I have not entered a forum in years as strong opinions always result in eventual flames if there is strong disagreement even in times of peace!!
Oh well such is life: I write how to guides as Doug now should outlining procedures for driver updates as help for new users to avoid any could be hurdles.
Sorry had to break the posting and have a lil fun.