Hi everyone

I have a brand new ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (256MB). It's just started freaking
out after a week of use, and I'd appreciate any advice that might help fix
it.

I installed it a week ago, and apart from a cryptic error message which I
just ignored in the install ('Severe: Zero Error Display') it seemed to work
beautifully with Far Cry and Doom 3. Nobody knows what the error means
(even ATI it seems), but perhaps it's not important.

Yesterday, I started getting vertical stripes of tiny dots all over the
screen. Now weird psychedelic effects appear on boot up. Booting up is
also accompanied with this error: 'VPU Recover has reset your graphics
accelerator as it was no longer responding to graphics driver commands'.
This is shortly followed by another: 'VPU Recover was unable to fully
recover from a hardware deadlock, and has switched to software rendering.
To restore hardware rendering you must restart your computer.'

Rebooting doesn't fix it though and I go through the same error messages. I
uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled them (yes, I'm on the latest
version). I get the same crazy dots, even when the drivers are uninstalled
completely. Google suggests a possible conflict with XP SP2, but I've had
SP2 longer than the card and it's been fine for the last week.

Any ideas anyone? I'm flirting with going back to nVidia, and I'm sure
nobody would like that!

TIA

Ben

"Ben C" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:cm5vs6$mlc$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi everyone
>
> I have a brand new ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (256MB). It's just started
freaking
> out after a week of use, and I'd appreciate any advice that might help fix
> it.
>
> I installed it a week ago, and apart from a cryptic error message which I
> just ignored in the install ('Severe: Zero Error Display') it seemed to
work
> beautifully with Far Cry and Doom 3. Nobody knows what the error means
> (even ATI it seems), but perhaps it's not important.
>
> Yesterday, I started getting vertical stripes of tiny dots all over the
> screen. Now weird psychedelic effects appear on boot up. Booting up is
> also accompanied with this error: 'VPU Recover has reset your graphics
> accelerator as it was no longer responding to graphics driver commands'.
> This is shortly followed by another: 'VPU Recover was unable to fully
> recover from a hardware deadlock, and has switched to software rendering.
> To restore hardware rendering you must restart your computer.'
>
> Rebooting doesn't fix it though and I go through the same error messages.
I
> uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled them (yes, I'm on the latest
> version). I get the same crazy dots, even when the drivers are
uninstalled
> completely. Google suggests a possible conflict with XP SP2, but I've had
> SP2 longer than the card and it's been fine for the last week.
>
> Any ideas anyone? I'm flirting with going back to nVidia, and I'm sure
> nobody would like that!
>
> TIA
>
> Ben
>
>

If it's new don't even bother trying to problem solve. Just take the thing
back and get a replacement.

Alternatively, I would have suggested overheating for the random white dots
and corruption. Although if it's apparent right from boot-up, it surely
can't be that. The fact that it worked for a week or whatever before doing
all this, pretty much points straight up to a hardware fault on the card.

Whatever, like I know... I've owned only two graphics cards in my life, and
both work fine (one being the 9800 pro) - so I'm really not a problem
solver.

"The Berzerker" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:41869e13$0$755$(E-Mail Removed)...
> If it's new don't even bother trying to problem solve. Just take the thing
> back and get a replacement.
>
> Alternatively, I would have suggested overheating for the random white
> dots
> and corruption. Although if it's apparent right from boot-up, it surely
> can't be that. The fact that it worked for a week or whatever before doing
> all this, pretty much points straight up to a hardware fault on the card.
>
> Whatever, like I know... I've owned only two graphics cards in my life,
> and
> both work fine (one being the 9800 pro) - so I'm really not a problem
> solver.
>
The dots are mainly red, like pinpricks in neat vertical lines all over the
screen. Moving the mouse messes them up a bit. There is even distortion in
DOS when the PC is booting up, with green splodges all over the screen and
DOS characters that aren't displaying properly with some bits of letters
missing and other extra bits appearing, many with a slight flicker. This
inspired me to run a virus scan, but all's clear.

The card might be dying. Just wondered if anyone had seem something
similar...

On 11/1/2004 1:08 PM Ben C brightened our day with:

>"The Berzerker" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:41869e13$0$755$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>
>>If it's new don't even bother trying to problem solve. Just take the thing
>>back and get a replacement.
>>
>>Alternatively, I would have suggested overheating for the random white
>>dots
>>and corruption. Although if it's apparent right from boot-up, it surely
>>can't be that. The fact that it worked for a week or whatever before doing
>>all this, pretty much points straight up to a hardware fault on the card.
>>
>>Whatever, like I know... I've owned only two graphics cards in my life,
>>and
>>both work fine (one being the 9800 pro) - so I'm really not a problem
>>solver.
>>
>>
>>
>The dots are mainly red, like pinpricks in neat vertical lines all over the
>screen. Moving the mouse messes them up a bit. There is even distortion in
>DOS when the PC is booting up, with green splodges all over the screen and
>DOS characters that aren't displaying properly with some bits of letters
>missing and other extra bits appearing, many with a slight flicker. This
>inspired me to run a virus scan, but all's clear.
>
>The card might be dying. Just wondered if anyone had seem something
>similar...
>
>
>
>
If you're seeing graphical errors during the POST screen, you've got a
hardware problem with the card.

--
Steve ¤»Inglo«¤
www.inglostadt.com

Follow my posts. I'm working with AMD, Gigabyte,
Mwave, ATI, and Connect3D to solve exactly this
problem. Your card is probably OK, but there's always
that. I'm seeing data corruption from somewhere, and
it is a total bitch to pin it down. It could be something
as simple as a bad data cable. If your card is showing
weird colors during post, that is normal if the on-card
BIOS settings got screwed up during running or shut
down. You could be coming up with a 43hz interlaced
setting or some garbage like that. If the card is crapping
out after the OS is up, then I suspect data corruption
when the system sets up the video card. I'm getting
there, and I'll post on it when I do.

johns

> The dots are mainly red, like pinpricks in neat vertical lines all over
the
> screen. Moving the mouse messes them up a bit. There is even distortion
in
> DOS when the PC is booting up, with green splodges all over the screen and
> DOS characters that aren't displaying properly with some bits of letters
> missing and other extra bits appearing, many with a slight flicker. This
> inspired me to run a virus scan, but all's clear.

If your PC is not overclocked at all then I'd say that one of three things
were happening:

- Card not inserted into the slot properly
- Card is failing
- Not enough power (Try unplugging extra drives, etc. to reduce power usage
and see if symptoms change at all)

Try disabling VPU Recovery.

"Ben C" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:cm5vs6$mlc$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi everyone
>
> I have a brand new ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (256MB). It's just started
> freaking out after a week of use, and I'd appreciate any advice that might
> help fix it.
>
> I installed it a week ago, and apart from a cryptic error message which I
> just ignored in the install ('Severe: Zero Error Display') it seemed to
> work beautifully with Far Cry and Doom 3. Nobody knows what the error
> means (even ATI it seems), but perhaps it's not important.
>
> Yesterday, I started getting vertical stripes of tiny dots all over the
> screen. Now weird psychedelic effects appear on boot up. Booting up is
> also accompanied with this error: 'VPU Recover has reset your graphics
> accelerator as it was no longer responding to graphics driver commands'.
> This is shortly followed by another: 'VPU Recover was unable to fully
> recover from a hardware deadlock, and has switched to software rendering.
> To restore hardware rendering you must restart your computer.'
>
> Rebooting doesn't fix it though and I go through the same error messages.
> I uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled them (yes, I'm on the latest
> version). I get the same crazy dots, even when the drivers are
> uninstalled completely. Google suggests a possible conflict with XP SP2,
> but I've had SP2 longer than the card and it's been fine for the last
> week.
>
> Any ideas anyone? I'm flirting with going back to nVidia, and I'm sure
> nobody would like that!
>
> TIA
>
> Ben
>
>
>

The only time i've had video corruption is when I installed a new
silicon image controller card on an old BX chipset motherboard - the old
bios{updated to the last revision} could not handle the modern
controller, pulling it solved the problem.

if you can raise the 3.3volt rail, try it, what mobo are you using?

Ben C wrote:
> Hi everyone
>
> I have a brand new ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (256MB). It's just started freaking
> out after a week of use, and I'd appreciate any advice that might help fix
> it.
>
> I installed it a week ago, and apart from a cryptic error message which I
> just ignored in the install ('Severe: Zero Error Display') it seemed to work
> beautifully with Far Cry and Doom 3. Nobody knows what the error means
> (even ATI it seems), but perhaps it's not important.
>
> Yesterday, I started getting vertical stripes of tiny dots all over the
> screen. Now weird psychedelic effects appear on boot up. Booting up is
> also accompanied with this error: 'VPU Recover has reset your graphics
> accelerator as it was no longer responding to graphics driver commands'.
> This is shortly followed by another: 'VPU Recover was unable to fully
> recover from a hardware deadlock, and has switched to software rendering.
> To restore hardware rendering you must restart your computer.'
>
> Rebooting doesn't fix it though and I go through the same error messages. I
> uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled them (yes, I'm on the latest
> version). I get the same crazy dots, even when the drivers are uninstalled
> completely. Google suggests a possible conflict with XP SP2, but I've had
> SP2 longer than the card and it's been fine for the last week.
>
> Any ideas anyone? I'm flirting with going back to nVidia, and I'm sure
> nobody would like that!
>
> TIA
>
> Ben
>
>
>


--
Mark H --- Frag on !
NF7-S v2.0 Win2k-sp4
WinXp-sp2rc2

"Inglo" <ioo@??.¿¿¿> wrote in message
news:Jgyhd.3522$(E-Mail Removed)...
> On 11/1/2004 1:08 PM Ben C brightened our day with:
>
>>"The Berzerker" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>>news:41869e13$0$755$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>
>>>If it's new don't even bother trying to problem solve. Just take the
>>>thing
>>>back and get a replacement.
>>>
>>>Alternatively, I would have suggested overheating for the random white
>>>dots
>>>and corruption. Although if it's apparent right from boot-up, it surely
>>>can't be that. The fact that it worked for a week or whatever before
>>>doing
>>>all this, pretty much points straight up to a hardware fault on the card.
>>>
>>>Whatever, like I know... I've owned only two graphics cards in my life,
>>>and
>>>both work fine (one being the 9800 pro) - so I'm really not a problem
>>>solver.
>>>
>>>
>>The dots are mainly red, like pinpricks in neat vertical lines all over
>>the screen. Moving the mouse messes them up a bit. There is even
>>distortion in DOS when the PC is booting up, with green splodges all over
>>the screen and DOS characters that aren't displaying properly with some
>>bits of letters missing and other extra bits appearing, many with a slight
>>flicker. This inspired me to run a virus scan, but all's clear.
>>
>>The card might be dying. Just wondered if anyone had seem something
>>similar...
>>
>>
> If you're seeing graphical errors during the POST screen, you've got a
> hardware problem with the card.

I would tend to agree. The symptoms point to memory errors, probably caused
by some other fault on the card.

It is remotely possible that his monitor is playing up, however. If it is
an LCD monitor you can also get these effects if the monitor's electronics
get borked.

Chip

On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 21:08:55 -0000, "Ben C" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>"The Berzerker" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:41869e13$0$755$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> If it's new don't even bother trying to problem solve. Just take the thing
>> back and get a replacement.
>>
>> Alternatively, I would have suggested overheating for the random white
>> dots
>> and corruption. Although if it's apparent right from boot-up, it surely
>> can't be that. The fact that it worked for a week or whatever before doing
>> all this, pretty much points straight up to a hardware fault on the card.
>>
>> Whatever, like I know... I've owned only two graphics cards in my life,
>> and
>> both work fine (one being the 9800 pro) - so I'm really not a problem
>> solver.
>>
>The dots are mainly red, like pinpricks in neat vertical lines all over the
>screen. Moving the mouse messes them up a bit. There is even distortion in
>DOS when the PC is booting up, with green splodges all over the screen and
>DOS characters that aren't displaying properly with some bits of letters
>missing and other extra bits appearing, many with a slight flicker. This
>inspired me to run a virus scan, but all's clear.
>
>The card might be dying. Just wondered if anyone had seem something
>similar...
>

Oh, yeah. First 9800 Pro I bought ....... same sort of problem from
day 1, took it right back. Second card was fine in 2d but got all
sorts of weird stuff when gaming in 3d. Took it right back 3rd card...
no problem. Have a 9700 Pro in one machine, 9800 Pro in another, and
an 9800 AIW in this one. Not even a little glitch in any of them in
close to a year.

BTW, during my earlier card problems is when I discovered that, my
local outlet for a major electronics retail chain (although they
vehemently denied it) would re-shrink wrap returns and put them back
on the shelf.

Villain