ATi All in Wonder 9800 video problem...help please!

[leipies]

Ok, I have an ATi All in Wonder 9800. I got it with my new computer which I purchased about a year ago. It has always run smooth and never had any problems.

I recently started playing World of Warcraft, (which is not the first 3D MMORPG I played so that's not the problem) and everything was running perfect.

All of a sudden every once in a great while when playing the game the monitor would completely scramble the image shooting random lines and colors rapidly all over the screen. I would then exit to desktop and the desktop itself would be a bit scrambled but usually not as bad and was usually more sublte patterns that would change with mouse cursor movement...so I would simply restart and it would remedy the problem.

But the scramblings have become more and more frequent lately, and more intense. Now not just does it almost instantly scramble anything that uses 3D graphics but it also sometimes scrambles the image while surfing the net or something. It has gotten to the point where I can barely do anything other than the internet and simple files.

I checked to make sure all the cooling fans where working because I thought maybe it was overheating the graphics card but they were all working properly.

I then went on the ATi website and reinstalled the Catalyst all in Wonder drivers but the problem still persists. Please help me with any information you may have as it is coming to the point where it's a hassle to do anything on my computer. Thanks in advance!!!

 

[gospelmidi]

Do you have access to another system for testing?

I'm assuming you don't overclock it and you have checked for viruses.

Plug it into another machine and try it.
If it doesn't work there either, the card is bad. End of story.
If it does work on the test machine, put it back in the original machine.
Replace your current hard drive with a spare drive and install Windows.
If it doesn't work, the AGP slot is bad.
If it does work, the registry on the original drive is corrupt, and
you must save your files from it, reformat, and reinstall Windows.

 

[leipies]

Thanks a ton!

No I dont overclock or have any viruses.

Thanks a ton for the info, it really did help.


THANKS!!!!

 

[olefarte]

It sure seems like an overheating problem. Did you check for dust buildup on your cpu and video card heatsinks. If there is, this could be the cause, especially since it seems to be getting worse. Get a can of compressed air and gently blow out any dust you see, it might cool things down a bit.

 

[Mr.MuFf]

First of all

1. Update to your latest drivers (even though everyone says this.....just do it to be on the safe side!)
2. If you have your computer inside a cabinet or what ever underneath your desk take it out, open the side panel and get a normal house fan to continually blow on the computers insides. (if this fixes it your computer is getting too hot.....get better cooling solutions)
3. If it still isn't working take out the card and put in another computer (your mates or a computer techy if possible) and run the progam that causes it to stuff up.....if it doesn't then theres something wrong with your computer. If it still screws up you've got a faulty card...replace it under warranty or if you cant do that...buy a new card

 

[Giannired]

Same problem with an ATI Radeon 9600 mobility

Hey Leipes,

i'm having the same exact problem with an ATI Radeon 9600 mobility. it started small and now it can't be avoided., I can't play any games and video is iffy at times. Please let me know how you solved the problem.

 

[Mohatu]

Sounds similar to what I "had". I also have an ATI AIW 9800 Pro. Any 3D games I would play, I'd see random graphical anomolies pop up all over the place and long polygons stretch out from buildings and sometimes characters. Although in my case it was always doing that from day one when I installed the card. This would at least occur in Neverwinters Night, Tribes Vengeance and EQII. You can see my sob story in my thread just a few doors down.

I tried installing all the latest graphics drivers, chipset drivers, etc and even went so far as to reformat my hard drive to get rid of any old drivers from my nVidea card. What finally did the trick (and I credit this to PreservedSwine that I read this in another thread) was to go into the CATALYST control center and under the Graphic Settings click on SMARTGART. After that turn off "Fast Write". "This will prevent the graphics accelerator from writing directly to the computers main memory".

When I did that and rebooted, no more random stuff flying around!

Another problem I had (don't know if you also had this) was on my desktop, I also had vertical lines going down the screen and corrupted icons wherever they touched those lines. This was fixed by toning down the hardware acceleration.

To do this simply right click on your desktop and hit properties. Then Settings/Advanced/Troubleshooting. You'll then see a "Hardware acceleration" slider switch. What did the trick for me was move it down one notch till it says "Disable cursor and bitmap accelerations".

But then I recently downloaded and installed the latest and greatest drivers for everything (like I did before some months ago, but those versions didn't fix the problem) and am now able to push the hardware acceleration back to full power!! *Tim Allen grunts*

Hope that this helps you! I know how frustrating it could be.

 

[Giannired]

Thanks for the advice

Thanks for the advice dude. I had the same problem on the desktop too. I'll try turning off Fastwrites and setting the hardware acceleration to a lower level. Anything to keep from having to ship this sucker back to the States for servicing.