WARNING TO ALL CATALYST 3.8 Users
Picked this up over at short-media.
WARNING: ATI R300/350/360 USERS SHOULD READ
I've got some distrubing news that, if left unchecked on your system, will severely damage your video card and monitor systems to the point of RMA.
Cards Affected:
All Radeon 9800 XT's
All Radeon 9800 Pro's
All Radeon 9800 Non-Pro's
All Radeon 9700 Pro's soft-modded to 9800 series.
All Radeon 9700 Non-Pro's soft-modded to 9800 series.
All Radeon 9500's soft modded to 9800 series.
Note: Radeon 9600, 9200, 9100, 9000, 8500 or previous generations are NOT affected by this serious issue.
Software Causing Hardware Failure:
ATI's Catalyst 3.8 Driver Series
OMEGA Catalyst 3.8 Driver Series
1) While we're not quite sure what part of the Catalyst 3.8 drivers are causing this, some part of the driver (whether it's the new VPU Recovery feature, HyperZ Enhancements or the ATI Overclocking software) is causing the core on BBA and OEM Radeon cards that are identified as "RADEON 9800 XT", "RADEON 9800 PRO" and "RADEON 9800" in Windows to have their GPU's overheat by as much as 15*C over normal during 3D graphics sessions. This has caused a number of fans on the Radeon 9800 XT series to fail, allowing the heat to completely destroy the card.
This news is especially important for individuals who performed the 9800 to 9800 Pro BIOS flash and did not include additional cooling on your card, as the GPU is already overclocked and producing more heat than normal.
As a safety precaution, I am strongly encouraging that anyone with any of the affected cards above roll their drivers back to the Omega Catalyst 3.7 drivers or the ATI Catalyst 3.7 drivers, as they are verified not to cause this overheating issue.
I did some testing with my Radeon 9800 NP BIOS-flashed to a 9800 Pro. The results are not encouraging.
Running looping 3DMark2003 for 30 minutes and utilizing a temperature probe on my GPU (regular cooling), the following temperatures were recorded:
Catalyst 3.8: 135 Fahrenheit
Catalyst 3.7: 117 Fahrenheit
The heatsink on my Sapphire Atlantis 9800 was so hot during the Catalyst 3.8 test that I burnt my hand when I accidently touched it.
2) The Catalyst 3.8's seem to have a bug in some systems that allows the driver to process the SECONDARY adapter settings when a game is started and tries to switch to the resolution and refresh rate specified in the program.
Normally, the card is limited by the INF file settings for the PRIMARY adapter, so that no resolution or refresh rate is attempted that is beyond the capability of the monitor hardware. But in the 3.8's, it seems to be processing the SECONDARY adapter settings first. In a system without a monitor plugged into the second adapter, there is no INF file limiting refresh rates and resolutions, so, the system is trying to force refresh rates and resolutions beyond what the monitor on the PRIMARY adapter is capable of.
So instead of having the monitor "flicker" once when it switches to the desired resolution/refresh, monitors are "flickering" between 4 and 8 times, with resolutions and refresh rates that are beyond the capability of the actual monitor.
As a result, some monitors have been damaged, while others have blinked out and recovered. Some users monitors are under warranty and can be RMA'd, but for those who don't have a monitor under warranty, their monitor is damaged and they must buy a new one.
Again, as a safety precaution, I am strongly encouraging that anyone with any of the affected cards above roll their drivers back to the Omega Catalyst 3.7 drivers or the ATI Catalyst 3.7 drivers, as they are verified not to cause this monitor refresh-related problem.
Mod Edit://
You can download the Catalyst 3.7 Drivers from the following links.<ul><li><A HREF="http://www2.ati.com/drivers/wxp-w2k-7-93-030812a1-010735c-efg.exe">Windows XP & 2000 Driver</a></LI><LI><A HREF="http://www2.ati.com/drivers/control-panel-7-93-030812a1-010735c-efg.exe">Windows XP & 2000 Control Panel</A></LI><LI><A HREF="http://www2.ati.com/drivers/wme-7-93-030812a1-010735c-efg.exe">Windows ME & 98 Driver</A></LI><LI><A HREF="http://www2.ati.com/drivers/control-panel-7-93-030812a1-010735c-efg.exe">Windows ME & 98 Control Panel</A></LI></UL>
WARNING: ATI R300/350/360 USERS SHOULD READ
I've got some distrubing news that, if left unchecked on your system, will severely damage your video card and monitor systems to the point of RMA.
Cards Affected:
All Radeon 9800 XT's
All Radeon 9800 Pro's
All Radeon 9800 Non-Pro's
All Radeon 9700 Pro's soft-modded to 9800 series.
All Radeon 9700 Non-Pro's soft-modded to 9800 series.
All Radeon 9500's soft modded to 9800 series.
Note: Radeon 9600, 9200, 9100, 9000, 8500 or previous generations are NOT affected by this serious issue.
Software Causing Hardware Failure:
ATI's Catalyst 3.8 Driver Series
OMEGA Catalyst 3.8 Driver Series
1) While we're not quite sure what part of the Catalyst 3.8 drivers are causing this, some part of the driver (whether it's the new VPU Recovery feature, HyperZ Enhancements or the ATI Overclocking software) is causing the core on BBA and OEM Radeon cards that are identified as "RADEON 9800 XT", "RADEON 9800 PRO" and "RADEON 9800" in Windows to have their GPU's overheat by as much as 15*C over normal during 3D graphics sessions. This has caused a number of fans on the Radeon 9800 XT series to fail, allowing the heat to completely destroy the card.
This news is especially important for individuals who performed the 9800 to 9800 Pro BIOS flash and did not include additional cooling on your card, as the GPU is already overclocked and producing more heat than normal.
As a safety precaution, I am strongly encouraging that anyone with any of the affected cards above roll their drivers back to the Omega Catalyst 3.7 drivers or the ATI Catalyst 3.7 drivers, as they are verified not to cause this overheating issue.
I did some testing with my Radeon 9800 NP BIOS-flashed to a 9800 Pro. The results are not encouraging.
Running looping 3DMark2003 for 30 minutes and utilizing a temperature probe on my GPU (regular cooling), the following temperatures were recorded:
Catalyst 3.8: 135 Fahrenheit
Catalyst 3.7: 117 Fahrenheit
The heatsink on my Sapphire Atlantis 9800 was so hot during the Catalyst 3.8 test that I burnt my hand when I accidently touched it.
2) The Catalyst 3.8's seem to have a bug in some systems that allows the driver to process the SECONDARY adapter settings when a game is started and tries to switch to the resolution and refresh rate specified in the program.
Normally, the card is limited by the INF file settings for the PRIMARY adapter, so that no resolution or refresh rate is attempted that is beyond the capability of the monitor hardware. But in the 3.8's, it seems to be processing the SECONDARY adapter settings first. In a system without a monitor plugged into the second adapter, there is no INF file limiting refresh rates and resolutions, so, the system is trying to force refresh rates and resolutions beyond what the monitor on the PRIMARY adapter is capable of.
So instead of having the monitor "flicker" once when it switches to the desired resolution/refresh, monitors are "flickering" between 4 and 8 times, with resolutions and refresh rates that are beyond the capability of the actual monitor.
As a result, some monitors have been damaged, while others have blinked out and recovered. Some users monitors are under warranty and can be RMA'd, but for those who don't have a monitor under warranty, their monitor is damaged and they must buy a new one.
Again, as a safety precaution, I am strongly encouraging that anyone with any of the affected cards above roll their drivers back to the Omega Catalyst 3.7 drivers or the ATI Catalyst 3.7 drivers, as they are verified not to cause this monitor refresh-related problem.
Mod Edit://
You can download the Catalyst 3.7 Drivers from the following links.<ul><li><A HREF="http://www2.ati.com/drivers/wxp-w2k-7-93-030812a1-010735c-efg.exe">Windows XP & 2000 Driver</a></LI><LI><A HREF="http://www2.ati.com/drivers/control-panel-7-93-030812a1-010735c-efg.exe">Windows XP & 2000 Control Panel</A></LI><LI><A HREF="http://www2.ati.com/drivers/wme-7-93-030812a1-010735c-efg.exe">Windows ME & 98 Driver</A></LI><LI><A HREF="http://www2.ati.com/drivers/control-panel-7-93-030812a1-010735c-efg.exe">Windows ME & 98 Control Panel</A></LI></UL>
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Comments
BTW, I am adding the links to the 3.7 drivers to your post Jolyon.
Well, today the computer was fine, BUT did lock up on me at one point, frozen screen, and I had to do a hard reset. When it came back to windows, I had a msg that my drivers had crashed and that had caused the problem. But everything was OK, so I kept going...big mistake.
9800 Pro is now DEAD, went to use the computer tonight and NO SIGNAL. Tried the card in another computer, no signal. Put my old 9700 Pro in, and it is fine. Obviously I can not 100% blame the 3.8's, but pretty damn fishy that after converting to 3.8's, my card goes dead.....
Just a warning, to back up the information from Jolyon33, GO BACK TO 3.7...
http://www.overclockers.com/tips00479/
Well, it's listed as a 'possible'. I wouldn't take the chance, should you?
Well, as Ed says...
Maybe you're willing to go through the trouble of RMA'ing another card, but I'm not in that big a need for 2-3 fps more in some lousy benchmark.
You may read it on www.rage3d.com in entirement.
I think this is enuf said.
I have been running the 3.8's since the day one they were available and we have a 9800 Pro as well as a 9700 Pro and neither has given us a problem one. A big "0" problems, also this is addressed at ATI's site, as very as the tech statements on this hoax. Cause a HOAX is just what this is.
Also, if Nvidia (mind you, I'm an Ati user and proponent here
Not saying it's out of the question, but frankly, I don't think Nvidia's that smart
Not a problem one with these drivers.
I have just installed the 9800SE and the problem I am having is that every time I reboot into the desktop the resolution has been set from my choice of 1024 to 800 at 60hz. I have done all the usual things of uninstalling/reinstalling latest cat drivers, getting monitor latest driver etc but to no avail. I have a Soyo Dragon Plus, Athlon 2000+, and a new 400w psu. I had a radeon 7200 which was working fine with the cat drivers. Could the 3.8 drivers cause this problem?