9800pro on its way to the AGP graveyard?

Hi,

Wondering if any of you guys can help with a problem with my tired and sad setup.

I recently bought an 9800pro (upgraded from a 9600pro) on ebay, it works great in my old dusty box. However I get the following corruption when using my PC:

http://systekonline.com/upload/public/pview/30/bug.JPG

This seems to happen very intermittently, sometimes it can go for days without this problem, other times it keeps happening(sometimes a reboot will fix it,sometimes not).

I have a Enermax 431Watt PSU, I think this is enough for my system. I am not overclocking anything, and this problem does not occur with my 9600Pro(I have tried switching back and forth).

I dont think my gfx card is overheating - i have left the case off and the fan is spinning on tha card, and the heatsink is warm but not "hot". The corruption happens when playing games or just normal windows use.

I recently updated to the latest 6.5 Cats too...no difference.

Any ideas?

I see this happen all the time with older ATI cards. So many of them have the problem and people RMA them for a new card. I just used ATITool to throttle down the thing a bit and never saw that issue again.. I'm lazy that way.

Yep, this happened to mine and I RMAed it and got a new one that has worked great ever since. ATi does have a great replacement program.

OK thanks.

As mine is second hand I guess I can`t RMA it...

I noticed if I turn down the graphics acceleration in windows a notch, it seems to clear it up(need to play more to confirm tho).

I`ll try underclocking it a little too if it still occurs.

thx.

BrainDanceR said:

OK thanks.

As mine is second hand I guess I can`t RMA it...

I noticed if I turn down the graphics acceleration in windows a notch, it seems to clear it up(need to play more to confirm tho).

I`ll try underclocking it a little too if it still occurs.

thx.

Click to expand...

Seems like it is overheating. Buying a new cooler would not be a bad idea.

yea, it sounds like an overheating problem. I would try the following..

1) Check the temps (download ATItool or just use the in catalyst control panel). If you have a 9800 that doesn't have a heat sensor on it, chances are that your gpu is already toast because that card is old.. especially for a 2nd hand card that im sure was overclocked to kingdom come.

2) check for dust (look deep into the heatsync and blow out all the dustbunnies)

3) this is a last ditch effort because if you are artifacting in windows, there is already damage done to your core from heat. But go spend a few bucks and get some new thermal compound. On an old card like that, the cheap compound that card makers use could be stale and hard as a potato chip. Remove the fan and apply a new coat after removing the old one.

3) pray to whatever god you worship and hope that TOO much damage hasn't been done.

I had an old PNY Ti 4200 that was exhibiting the same problem. Before trashing the card, I decided to remove the HSF for inspection. Sure enough, the old "white putty" had become brittle and was no longer providing a stable contact between the GPU and the HSF. I removed all the old paste with 92% rubbing alcholol I purchased at Walgreens, and applied AS5. Voila! The old card runs good as new.