Video card help. Graphics corruption on a 9800 pro.

[kholdstare121]

Alright, when doing normal every day tasks on my computer, there is no screen corruption. However, when I decided to play counter-strike:source, there was massive screen corruption(lines and different colored boxes etc...). And I loaded up some other games and the corruption was still there. I even loaded up bridge builder(not a very graphical game at all), and there was corruption! So I don't know whats wrong, and this is only happening in games(they all run full-screen). So could this be a full-screen problem or what? And yes I have updated my ati catalyst drivers and have direct X 9.0c.

 

[DonNagual]

Classic overheating symptoms.

Open up your case, and blow a house fan on your card to test, but I'd say you need better cooling.

How many case fans do you have now?

 

[kholdstare121]

Well, I'm feeling guilty now because I know I'm doing my computer wrong, with only 1 case fan. I haven't had the money to invest into a new case as I should. But could it really be because of overheating, I mean bridgebuilder is very easy to run.

 

[DonNagual]

Unfortunately, the 9800pro cards don't have heat sensors built in to them, so we can't confirm that way, but try my suggestion above.

Open you case, aim a house fan right at the graphics card and then try and see if you still get the distortions.

 

[kholdstare121]

Yes the distortions still happen, maybe i should restart my computer. And yes I do have a fullsized house fan blowing on the computer with the case panel open

 

[DonNagual]

Interesting.

It still COULD be an overheating issue.

Stupid question just to rule it out: do you have a connection going directly from your PSU to the 9800pro? (a 4 pin connector is needed).

 

[kholdstare121]

Interesting.

It still COULD be an overheating issue.

Stupid question just to rule it out: do you have a connection going directly from your PSU to the 9800pro? (a 4 pin connector is needed).

Yea, a plug from my power supply connects to my 9800pro.

 

[DonNagual]

How long have you had it? Is there a chance that it has some dust build up? You can either use a can of compressed air, or a vaccum cleaner to try and take some off.

Usually screen artifacts like you describe are a tell-tale sign of overheating.

Can you post a screenshot of what happens?

 

[kholdstare121]

I have a pic of what happens in world of warcraft, here

 

[DonNagual]

I guess wait and see what some others say. I had the 9800pro in my old computer, and when I went to overclock it, I got screens that looked a lot like what you have posted above. It told me that my card was overheating.

 

[kholdstare121]

Well i took the card out for about 4 minutes, put it back on, put a big fan right next to it blowing on it, and the glitchyness calmed down, but it was still there. And I'm wondering if maybe the overheating damaged the card completely.

 

[Sharkfood]

And I'm wondering if maybe the overheating damaged the card completely.

I hate to say it, but those most definately look like VRAM errors.. which are indeed either caused by too high a temperature.. or worse yet- fried memory on the card.

A couple things you may wish to try:
a) Try adjusting your AGP Aperture settings (if you have this) in your BIOS. Try 64MB, 128MB and 256MB if available.
b) What chipset does your mainboard have? Some mainboards require a mini-port or specialized AGP driver that could possibly (albeit very rarely) cause this issue.
c) You may want to try downloading ATI Tray Tools from: http://www.guru3d.com/article/atitraytools/189/
In ATI Tray Tools, you can adjust the core and memory clock rates. For a test, try bumping these down a bit (say 10-15mhz each..) a couple times and see if this clears up your issue at all. If so, I'd say it's very safe to say you have bad/flakey hardware.

Good luck!

 

[PlatinumMike45]

Same Problem

I too have the same problem. My 9800pro shows this really wierd sort of red/green "grid" in the background of a videos I try to play...and has distortion in the form of "blocks" when I try to play videogames...HELP!

 

[SvB4EvA]

Same problem here...

9800 Pro... Ive had it for about 2 years I guess. Started to notice that games would have slight corruption. One day got so bad I could hardly see anything in the game. It was weird to me because i did not make and video driver or software changes of any kind, and the problem started off slowly and got worse and worse. My first thought was over heating... So I opened my case, cleaned out the entire case with the vacum (usually do it more often but ive been lazy, lol), and pulled the suspect card out of its AGP slot.

It looked that everything was fine upon inital inspection, that is until I removed the heatsink/fan combo from the GPU. First off, the heatsink isnt really that tight to the GPU wich I didnt like... second was that the thermal paste that came with it was dried up and useless on it... I cleaned the GPU and heatsink off with a razor until they both looked new, then cleaned them with 99% rubbing alcohol. I reapplied a high quality thermal paste to the GPU, reset the heatsink/fan combo, and magically it was like new again.

Not for long tho... After about 5-6 days it started to happen agian, not as bad as before but it came back. With the help of keeping my case open and a huge fan blowing in there it was ok for a little while longer. Then it started to get worse and worse until even in Windows i could see corruption. Then got even so bad to the point that in my BIOS load screen I could see corruption!

I called ATI, they said it sounds like the memory on the card is failing. I could send it in for warranty service. I chose the easier route and bought a new Radeon X1900 GT 256mb.

I cant see the screen shot above to compare, but here is a screen shot of World of Warcraft that I took... http://users.rcn.com/svb4eva/WoWScrnShot_080706_163628.jpg