ATI 9600 ... Can't figure this one out?

[stlhead]

Hi I am new to the forum. I have been trying to solve a video problem for awhile now. Most any motion or anything that needs constant updating is a bit hesitant or jerky not terrible but enough so you notice it . I have replaced the video card the mother board,the proccesor, added ram (768 total) the video card has 256 ddr on board,larger power supply (430 watts),New monitor (Sharp 17" LCD). The jerkyness seems to be in time with the hard disk acces light.(Hard drive - Western Digital 160 ,7200rpm, w/8meg buffer). I have loaded the newest VIA 4 in one drivers. There is a utlity that came with the video card called "Power strip that will let you give more proccesor time to specific applications,this seems to help alot. I have a fair amount of stuff running in the background,but when i shut down everything in the task bar it does not seem to help that much. I am out of ideas. Anyone have a suggestion.

 

[Ayasha]

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Well I"m not sure what your OS is so I can't give you any optimizations for OS memory or HD access specifically. But it very well could be a poor refresh rate on your new LCD screen that is causing this stuttering, or ghosting? COuld you be any clearer on the problem. Be sure to include your OS and other such things.

 

[stlhead]

Hello Ayasha:
Thanks for the reply. I am running Windows XP with Service patch one. The problem occured before the new monitor on the old CRT also . The video problems are mostly confined to games and MPEG movies,although strangley enough DVDs work great.Digital photos are great. The proccesor is an AMD Atholon 2800+ . Memory is ddr @ 333. I had a P4 before this and it did not work and a Celeron 2400 still no luck. I tried a 9200 ATI to start with,same thing. I uninstalled everything and reinstalled,no help.
What do you think?

 

[h_pavon]

Don't understand very well your problem, I assume you monitor isn't displaying as it should...... I has that same problem about a year ago, it wans't my computer!..... it was the poor voltage of the electrical power stream we where receiving...... you might wanna check that out.

 

[paulfiona]

Hey all - I am posting this info. wherever I go so that hopefully no one else goes through the same pain and frustration I and many others have gone through with their custom-built systems.

First off: I will never buy a Sapphire product again - as a rule from here on out.

Background: I purchased a custom built system from Newegg about a month back. with the specs. listed in my signature. I immediately started to experience strange and unexplained system shutdowns and hangs. I tested EVERYTHING including a different CPU, memory, and harddrive - except my video card (9600 XT). At one point I even switched to a different CPU case/mobo - a Shuttle XPC.

Problem: My original Sapphire 9600 XT vid. card has no external power hookup for its fan and instead uses the built-in power coming from the AGP slot. I read recently some posts on other forums saying this was a problem with no known workaround. I tried setting the AGP bus speed to 4x even and still had intermittent shutdown and lockups. Finally, out of frustration I went to Frys and bought an ATI 9800 Pro card and plugged it into both systems (Shuttle and iDEQ). Much to my surprise and satisfaction both systems started and ran flawlessly.

The only difference between these cards (Sapphire 9600 XT and ATI 9800 Pro) is that the 9800 Pro has a separate power supply cable used to power its fan. I dunno if the techies over at Sapphire know about this and it probably wouldn't be an issue on traditional desktop systems but in my case using a Sapphire 9600 XT on a small form factor system is playing with fire. I am a little concerned even about putting this card in my desktop system as I don't know how it will perform (lock-up or shutdown).

Final conclusion: I spent an extra 250.00 to find out I should have never bought and used a 9600 XT from Sapphire for my system. In the future I will stay away from Sapphire products unless proven otherwise that they will work as advertised. Add to this all the time spent sending my stuff back to Newegg to try and fix a problem I had with the vid. card all along and shipping - it has been a costly learning experience.

Be forewarned and good luck.

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Athlon XP 2500+ "Barton"
iDEQ Nvidia NForce 2 system
2 512 mb. Corsair mem. modules
WD 120 gb. Special Edition HD
Radeon 9600 XT - Sapphire
Plextor PX-708A DVD+-RW