Problems with Radeon Video Cards

[Terry]

I recently needed a new video card for my arcade cabinet running a 27"
TV. I was originally using an older Radeon 7000 card with s-video out.

It started having a strange problem that when I boot up the computer
(before the windows drivers load), the screen would be black and white
and scroll vertically very fast. Once the drivers were loaded it
stopped this. It never did it before, but started doing this so I
figured it was time for a new card.

I have since tried 3 different cards and now I have no idea whats going

on.


First I tried a Radeon 9550, and this actually worked pretty well with
s-video. The boot up scrolling issue was gone. Though I wanted a little

more power for some of the PC games I played on the arcade cabinet. And

I wanted component video without having to spend 30 bucks on an
adapter. So I returned this.


I then purchased an Nvidia 7600GS from Gigabyte. This also worked
pretty well. The boot up scrolling issue was still fixed, and the
performace was great. I could boot up using s-video and component
video without any problems. Though the card was slightly defective.
It would overheat and cause my games to stop running (I have plenty of
cooling), and the screen would flicker randomly. Tech support asked me

to return it.


So I decided to try the Radeon X1650pro. The second I installed this
card, the vertical scrolling issue during bootup was back!?!?!??!?!
With this card, I have had all kinds of driver problems and
configuration issues. Spent about 4 hours messing around with it. I
couldn't get the TV display to work properly using component video.
Sometimes it would work, then I would re-boot the machine and it would
quite. And during bootup, the display was always blank (with component

video). S-video was OK, except for the bootup scrolling.


Now the funny thing is I used the Nvidia s-video to component out
breakout box with the Radeon card and it would actually display the
bootup screens using the component video connections, except it would
still scroll. But with the Radeon s-video to component cable, it would

not display anything during bootup.


To sum it up, the 7600GS card worked perfectly except for the quality
of the hardware.


The Radeon 7000 worked well (but very low performance) except for the
bootup scrolling issue which just started happening).


The Radeon 9550 Card worked great, but no component output, and still
not the performance I was looking for. (no scroll issue)


The Radeon X1650Pro had all kinds of problems. Scrolling during
bootup, component video not displaying during bootup (except with
nvidia adapter box), and component video not working 100% in windows.


Any ideas of why I am seeing this issues? Mainly the scrolling during
bootup. This is totally independant of the drivers.


If there is any more information I can give to try and figure out what
is going on, please let me know. I still have both the 7600GS and
X1650Pro on hand.


Thanks.

 

[Captain Midnight]

I recently needed a new video card for my arcade cabinet running a 27"
TV. I was originally using an older Radeon 7000 card with s-video out.

It started having a strange problem that when I boot up the computer
(before the windows drivers load), the screen would be black and white
and scroll vertically very fast. Once the drivers were loaded it
stopped this. It never did it before, but started doing this so I
figured it was time for a new card.

I have since tried 3 different cards and now I have no idea whats going

on.


First I tried a Radeon 9550, and this actually worked pretty well with
s-video. The boot up scrolling issue was gone. Though I wanted a little

more power for some of the PC games I played on the arcade cabinet. And

I wanted component video without having to spend 30 bucks on an
adapter. So I returned this.


I then purchased an Nvidia 7600GS from Gigabyte. This also worked
pretty well. The boot up scrolling issue was still fixed, and the
performace was great. I could boot up using s-video and component
video without any problems. Though the card was slightly defective.
It would overheat and cause my games to stop running (I have plenty of
cooling), and the screen would flicker randomly. Tech support asked me

to return it.


So I decided to try the Radeon X1650pro. The second I installed this
card, the vertical scrolling issue during bootup was back!?!?!??!?!
With this card, I have had all kinds of driver problems and
configuration issues. Spent about 4 hours messing around with it. I
couldn't get the TV display to work properly using component video.
Sometimes it would work, then I would re-boot the machine and it would
quite. And during bootup, the display was always blank (with component

video). S-video was OK, except for the bootup scrolling.


Now the funny thing is I used the Nvidia s-video to component out
breakout box with the Radeon card and it would actually display the
bootup screens using the component video connections, except it would
still scroll. But with the Radeon s-video to component cable, it would

not display anything during bootup.


To sum it up, the 7600GS card worked perfectly except for the quality
of the hardware.


The Radeon 7000 worked well (but very low performance) except for the
bootup scrolling issue which just started happening).


The Radeon 9550 Card worked great, but no component output, and still
not the performance I was looking for. (no scroll issue)


The Radeon X1650Pro had all kinds of problems. Scrolling during
bootup, component video not displaying during bootup (except with
nvidia adapter box), and component video not working 100% in windows.


Any ideas of why I am seeing this issues? Mainly the scrolling during
bootup. This is totally independant of the drivers.


If there is any more information I can give to try and figure out what
is going on, please let me know. I still have both the 7600GS and
X1650Pro on hand.


Thanks.

Power supply?

 

[Terry]

I have an Antec 400W supply. I could try another one. But if it were
the supply why would the Radeon 9550, and the Nvidia 7600GS work
perfectly, and the Radeon 7000, and Radeon X1650Pro give me problems
during bootup. Just trying to make sense of this before I buy some
new parts.

I have been playing around with the X1650Pro. I finally have the
component video working pretty decent. The only thing that bugs me is
that when the computer boots, the display is completely blank. It
finally comes on after the windows drivers are loaded right after the
welcome screen. But with the 7600GS using component, it boots up
normal.

The component looks really great on a TV. It really made a difference
over the s-video. So now I really want to get it working properly.

Also one more thing I noticed is that the Radeon cards do not support
both component out and s-video out at the same time. The Nvidia cards
do. I have a pair of light guns that run off the s-video. So with
the Radeon card I can't use them if I have the component connected.
They work great with the Nvidia.

I really want to get this working well. I just bought a Northwood
3.4Gig, and this AGP video card. If the motherboard has problems,
then I'm screwed because I couldn't really find anything nice that
still has a socket 478 and AGP on it. Maybe its just time to go with
a Core 2 Duo, and a PCI Xpress card. Hmmm.

 

[Captain Midnight]

I have an Antec 400W supply. I could try another one. But if it were
the supply why would the Radeon 9550, and the Nvidia 7600GS work
perfectly, and the Radeon 7000, and Radeon X1650Pro give me problems
during bootup. Just trying to make sense of this before I buy some
new parts.

I have been playing around with the X1650Pro. I finally have the
component video working pretty decent. The only thing that bugs me is
that when the computer boots, the display is completely blank. It
finally comes on after the windows drivers are loaded right after the
welcome screen. But with the 7600GS using component, it boots up
normal.

The component looks really great on a TV. It really made a difference
over the s-video. So now I really want to get it working properly.

Also one more thing I noticed is that the Radeon cards do not support
both component out and s-video out at the same time. The Nvidia cards
do. I have a pair of light guns that run off the s-video. So with
the Radeon card I can't use them if I have the component connected.
They work great with the Nvidia.

I really want to get this working well. I just bought a Northwood
3.4Gig, and this AGP video card. If the motherboard has problems,
then I'm screwed because I couldn't really find anything nice that
still has a socket 478 and AGP on it. Maybe its just time to go with
a Core 2 Duo, and a PCI Xpress card. Hmmm.

The power supply is common to all the video boards. Your having problems at
boot up during the systems heavy draw. The 9550 is a low draw card. The
NVIDIA overheating could be PS related. No it doesn't fit the problem
exactly but trying to troubleshoot the cards without knowing the PS is good
could be very frustrating. Usually when someone doesn't mention their PS it
means they hadn't given it any consideration, as in cheap. I'd check it at
least with software or preferably with a DMM.

Antec is considered a good supply and 400W is probably enough. They
occasionally put out a bad one though. No MFG. is perfect. If you decide to
get another supply double check your needs here.
http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

It's surprising how many people with video card problems actually have power
supply problems.

 

[First of One]

Fast vertical scrolling in black and white is typically a symptom of
incorrect NTSC/PAL setting. If it disappears after the drivers are loaded,
there is nothing to worry about. Let things be.

 

[Terry]

The only thing I worry about is that I normally don't have a VGA
monitor connected and it is actually a real pain to hook one up. So
if I ever need to get in the bois, or if the system has any type of
bootup error, I won't be able to see whats going on.

This system is in an arcade cabinet, and moving that thing away from
the wall and digging out a monitor to hook up is a real pain. And it
just looks bad when people come over to play the machine.

But it is good to know that I most likely don't have a problem.

You mention it is a setting. Can this be changed to accomodate my
setup? The reason I ask is because my Radeon 7000 card worked for
about 3 years that I was using it. Then I had to move the arcade
cabinet from one room to another, and when I hooked all the
connections back up, all of a sudden the black and white scrolling
started with this card. I even took another Radeon 7000 out of
another computer I had and swapped them, but the problem stayed with
the PC.

So this 7000 card worked, then it stopped (or a setting changed).
That's why I am a bit confused with this whole thing. I thought it
was the video card, then I thought it was the motherboard, but the
9550 and 7600gs work just fine. Hmm.

Thanks.

 

[First of One]

A few possibilities:

1. On some ATi cards there is a jumper for selecting between NTSC/PAL TV
output. Make sure there is indeed a jumper block on the appropriate pins,
and it is set to the right position.

2. You mentioned the symptoms started appearing after a move. Did you use
the same cables, connected to the same ports on the back of the TV?
Something stupid like an extra adapter or gender-changer along the chain can
break the auto-detection.

3. Is there a 50/60 Hz switch on the back of your TV?

The other workaround is to drill a hole on the back of the arcade cabinet
and snake a long VGA cable out of it. Connect it to a small LCD monitor in
the rare event you need to make a BIOS adjustment. This may in fact be
just a limitation of the card. It was not designed to operate with only the
TV as its primary monitor.

 

[Sharanga Dayananda]

ATi Radeon X1k series card's don't have POST screen visible on the component
output. This is by design.

 

[Terry]

Well, I think all my questions have been answered.

Thank you First of One for the tip on the jumper between PAL and
NTSC. Sure enough, their was a jumper and it was set to PAL. I
switched it over to NTSC and the vertical scrolling is gone during
bootup.

And also thank you Sharanga Dayananda for your input on the component
output. Unfortuneately, this is going to be a problem for me since I
really want to use component out (looks significantly crisper on a
TV), and I also need the POST to show in case of any problems during
boot.

One thing I want to note that is interesting, when I take the s-video
to component break out box that came with my Nvidia 7600GS and plug it
into my X1650pro card, the POST actually does display using component
out, but it is in black and white, and once the drivers load, it stops
displaying. So X1k cards are fully capable of displaying POST through
the component out with the right hardware connected (but nothing else
after that!!).

At least I know my system is functioning properly and I can just focus
on finding a video card that will work for all my needs such as
displaying POST through component out, and being able to use both
component out and s-video at the same time.

Thanks again.