New 9800 Pro card nearing death?

[Ben C]

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 Berzerker]

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.

 

[Ben C]

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...

 

[Inglo]

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.

 

[johns]

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

 

[Noozer]

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)

 

[Reggie Hillier]

Try disabling VPU Recovery.

 

[Mark H]

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?

 

[Chip]

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

 

[Villain]

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

 

[Ben C]

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)

Noozer - you rock! Well, the card looked and felt pretty solid in the
slot - it's held in place by a clip which was firmly closed, and I haven't
touched it since it was installed a trouble-free week ago. I also just
upgraded my PSU from 300W to 450W, so power's not an issue either. But I
took the card out and put it in again, and the problems have all gone away!
Hopefully it's fixed for good. Maybe that slot is not as firm as it looks.
If the problems come back then I'll probably send the card back, but for now
I'm a happy customer! Thanks very much for your help...

Ben

 

[mhicaoidh]

Taking a moment's reflection, Ben C mused:
|
| 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. [snip]

I just replaced a GF4 Ti4400 with a 9800 Pro because the GF4 was doing
things similarly to what you are reporting. It was due to some faulty VRAM
on the GF4. It was actually my second GF4 Ti4400. The first one arrived
with one of the VRAM modules broken off the board. For kicks I installed it
anyway ... the replacement card (after a year of use) started showing the
exact same symptoms as the original card with the broken VRAM.

 

[mhicaoidh]

Taking a moment's reflection, Chip mused:
|
| 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.

Though, if it were strictly monitor related, he shouldn't get getting
the VPU reset messages from the ATi drivers.

 

[Chip]

Taking a moment's reflection, Chip mused:
|
| 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.

Though, if it were strictly monitor related, he shouldn't get getting
the VPU reset messages from the ATi drivers.

True. That would make the monitor theory pretty unlikely.

Chip

 

[Ben C]

Damn! The problem is back. Oh well. Time for a new card I think...

 

[callsignviper]

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.

Hmmm.........shrink wrapping customer returns without testing! Sounds like
Best Buy or Fry's.



--
callsignviper


The truth is out there. You just have to look in the right places and ask
the right questions.

 

[Si]

Damn! The problem is back. Oh well. Time for a new card I think...

I just saw this thread, I was getting the exact same problems. It turned out
it was a MoBo issue, try turning your AGP down to 4X and fast writes off.

See if that fixes things. My MoBo was Asus P4S800 SiS chipset.

Si

 

[Ben C]

I just saw this thread, I was getting the exact same problems. It turned
out
it was a MoBo issue, try turning your AGP down to 4X and fast writes off.
See if that fixes things. My MoBo was Asus P4S800 SiS chipset.

Thanks Si. I returned my 9800 Pro and a new card should arrive tomorrow.
I'm temporarily running with a cheap nVidia card and it seems fine at the
moment, but the screen colour in Windows occasionally gets a faint yellow
tinge to it and that might imply my problems go beyond the 9800 Pro I was
using. If I have any problems with the new card when I install it I will
look more closely at your MoBo theory. Did you ultimately replace your MoBo
or was this sufficient to fix it?