Radeon 9600 XT problem with DVI output

[Mehmet Boyaci]

Hi,

I recently bought three Asus Radeon 9600 XT cards.

I am using the cards in two different types of systems (P4PE and P4C800) with
two types of monitors (Sony SDM-X93 and Iiyama AS-4821). All three systems are
connected to the monitors with DVI to DVI cables.

Occasionally when a PC is turned on the display is garbled (snowy, almost
illegible). The problem sometimes starts when the PC is booting (i.e. nothing is
loaded) and corrects itself when Windows starts. Sometimes the reverse happens
and the boot screens are fine but Windows display is garbled. In the case of
Windows if I change the color depth of the screen from 32 to 16 bits and back
(or do something similar) the display corrects itself.

I have tried every combination of the three PCs and displays and all have the
problem. It sometimes occurs a couple of times a day and sometimes it doesn't
happen for several days.

The problem disappears when I use the analog connector on the 9600 XT. This can
go either to the analog input of the Sony monitors or the DVI input of the
Iiyama monitors with no problem. However this somewhat defeats the purpose of
using a digital monitor and there is a appreciable difference in quality with
DVI to DVI.

I would be grateful for any help.

Regards,

Mehmet Boyaci

 

[Hp]

Hi,

Occasionally when a PC is turned on the display is garbled (snowy, almost
illegible). The problem sometimes starts when the PC is booting (i.e. nothing is
loaded) and corrects itself when Windows starts. Sometimes the reverse happens
and the boot screens are fine but Windows display is garbled. ......

Have exactly the same issue on an ASUS mainboard P4G8X deluxe.....

May boot into XP recovery console where you will see a scrolling NONE stady
pictures... this is very wired!

I asked the asus support and curent received not any usefull information to
get ride of this!

I asked also to rise this issue to ATI and still hanging around with this
problem!

Cheers

Hp

 

[Jan van der Staaij]

Thanks Mehmet, this is the message I was looking for. I have the same
problem with the Asus Radeon 9600 XT and the IIyama AS4821DT ever since I
have been using this couple on a P4C800E-DLX MB (that is about 2 months
now). I complained about it and IIyama Benelux (Amsterdam/The Netherlands)
sent me a new AS4821DT monitor this afternoon. OK for the service by IIyama,
but as it turns out the problem hasn't been solved. As it seems to me now,
the problem is probably the DVI-output of the Asus 9600 XT or maybe it is
the combination of the 9600 XT and the AS4821DT.

Jan

 

[Mehmet Boyaci]

Jan,

It definitely is not the combination of 9600XT and the AS4821DT because I have
the same problem with the 9600XT and Sony SDM-X93 monitors.

The only difference is that IIyama actually displays something albeit almost
illegible while the Sony monitors simply display "no input". I have seen other
cases in these forums where monitors connected to the DVI port show "no input"
and don't display anything which probably is the same problem.

Maybe there is someone technical from Asus who is listening.

Mehmet

 

[Jan van der Staaij]

Mehmet,

I am not so sure about your statement "It definitely is not the combination
of 9600XT and the AS4821DT", because it is always possible that more
combinations of GC and TFT have the same problem. However, considering my
own experience and having read yours, I intend to believe the problem is
with the Asus 9600 XT. Having said this I think it may be wise for us to
repost this threat to another NG, e.g.: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati. I
did post a message about this problem to that NG a while ago, but no
reactions whatsoever. Maybe we 'll have better luck this time.

Finally I don't think that the solution to our problem will come directly
from Asus, because Asus, unlike IIyama, likes to solve problems via
resellers and in principle I'm quite happy with that attitude provided this
will lead to a solution at the end. In my opinion we should try to get as
much "evidence" from NG posts as possible in order to persuade our suppliers
of the 9600 XT to offer us a suitable solution.

Jan

 

[Paul]

Jan,

It definitely is not the combination of 9600XT and the AS4821DT because I have
the same problem with the 9600XT and Sony SDM-X93 monitors.

The only difference is that IIyama actually displays something albeit almost
illegible while the Sony monitors simply display "no input". I have seen other
cases in these forums where monitors connected to the DVI port show "no input"
and don't display anything which probably is the same problem.

Maybe there is someone technical from Asus who is listening.

Mehmet

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=ISO-8859-1&[email protected]

There is a web page somewhere, showing all the possible combinations
of DVI style connectors. One, for example, has both digital and
analog on it.

The post above mentions that there can be two TDMS links, which would
be enough to express more resolution/refresh rate combinations than
just one TDMS link. It is possible your video card is coming up with
too high a refresh rate, and the digital link is operating so close
to the edge, that the digital data is being misclocked, leading to
snowy data.

This is just a guess, and somehow you are going to have to figure out
what refresh rate the video uses at startup. It could be it is exceeding
the capabilities of the hardware.

http://www.pacificcable.com/DVI_Tutorial.htm

Paul

 

[Hp]

Some more any may the real case .....

I just installed the 9600XT on a brand new ASUS K8V SE Deluxe with a
2GHz 64 bit system.

The big difference to the my previous system was that the DVI was by
an older Belinea 1024 * 768 screen size.

The scrolling on "Recovery XP boot" was not there and also the given
game "Gun Metal" was playing fine (my sun's business).

Now we switched the bigger 17" DVI Philips monitor who has 1240 * 1024
resolution hand had now the same problem and one more :

1) scrolling on "Recovery XP boot"

2) pixel war after game termination

3) complete system hang using the "Gun Metal" after several seconds >>
reset button was required


for me it seams clear that DVI 1240 * 1024 size has an unfixed
issue....

My question : what is your monitor's resolution ?

Hp

 

[Mehmet Boyaci]

Hp,

In my case the monitor's resolution is irrelevant because the problem starts
with power on. The display is garbled when it is booting (i.e. nothing is yet
loaded no Windows, no DOS, nothing).

FYI the usual resolution of my monitor is 1280x1024 but the problem happens in
Windows even when my daughter is playing VGA games at 640x480.

Mehmet

 

[Hp]

Hi,

FYI the usual resolution of my monitor is 1280x1024 but the problem happens in
Windows even when my daughter is playing VGA games at 640x480.

May you did not read my lines careful enough!!!

As I wrote: in case you connect a DVI monitor with 1024 * 768 resolution the
problem would
NONE exist!

Even changeing the a 1240 * 1024 Monitor to Windows resolution 1024 * 768
the problem still exist's!

While the graphic card has to fill-up physically all 1240 * 1024 pixels
......
on a smaller Monitor screen there is mutch less to fill-up!

Cheers

Hp

 

[Mehmet Boyaci]

Hp,

I misunderstood your post. I will try the card with a lower resolution monitor
if I can get hold of one.

Thanks,

Mehmet

 

[Mehmet Boyaci]

I have just discovered a solution to the display problem that has worked for
just over 24 hours now so it looks promising.

Yesterday I installed the ATI control panel utility. In the advanced options of
this utility there are two settings specifically relating to problems with flat
panel monitors and DVI connections.

1. Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displays:

If you are experiencing display corruption when connected to a DVI Flat Panel
display via the DVI-Output at high resolutions (1024x768 +) try Ticking this
option to resolve the issue. In all other instances you can leave this Unticked.

2. Alternate DVI operational mode:

If you are experiencing display corruptions when connected to a DVI Flat Panel
display via the DVI-Output try ticking this option to resolve the issue. In all
other instances you can leave this Unticked.

I checked both options and in the last 24+ hours I have not experienced any
corrupt windows screens. Occasionally the BIOS screen is corrupted but when
Windows XP desktop comes up the display is always correct. It appears "hp" was
right in that this problem only affects monitors with high resolution.

Hopefully the problem is gone for good.

Thanks for all the replies.

Mehmet Boyaci