Help! Graphical Artifacts with new x1950pro @ stock

Hi,

I recently set up a new system:

Asus P5B Deluxe
C2D e6600
Scythe Ninja HS with 120mm Scythe fan
ATI Sapphire x1950 Pro Ultimate Edition
3gb Corsair Dominator 8500
Corsair 620HX Psu (620 watt)
1 x 200gb Seagate (sata)
2 x 500gb Samsung HD501LJ (sata)
2 x Pioneer 212 dvd r/w (sata)
Antec P182 with 3 120mm case fans (All set to lowest speed)
Win XP sp2 (32)

Everything was fine untill I started playing games... After about 5-10mins of BF2 (Battlefield 2) I had some serious graphical artifacts eventually resulting in a blue screen. In AOE3 (Age of Empires) I would get severe artifacts just from being on the menu screen (which you may or may not know displays in game graphics in the background of the main menu). I also tried the benchmark feature in F.E.A.R which after about 2 mins had the same horrible artifacting. I'd never had this happen before with any of the systems I'd built so I assumed it was a faulty card. I contacted the retailer and arranged a replacement to be sent out to me.

I recieved the replacement yesterday and much to my dispair it has the same problem! I'm now thinking that this could be something other than the card (unless it's a faulty batch which I highly doubt). Could it be that 620watt PSU isn't enough to power the whole system?

I'm gonna try unplugging things (HD, DVD r/w, fans etc) when I get home from work and I'll let you know if that solves it but if you have any other thoughts on what could be causing this, or if you've encountered it before I'd really appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks!

The 620W with 50A on the +12V rail is definately enough, but that doesnt mean your particular unit isn't bad. You could try disconnecting any drives not needed to run 3DMark06 loop, and see if it still crashes.

EDIT: nm, I just re-read your post... yah, let us know the outcome of unplugging things.

Is the system OC'd? If so, is the PCI-E clock set to 100Mhz? If not, try that.

I'd been posting on the Sapphire forum as well and found out that the Corsair HX series seems to like killing innocent GFX cards... I was recommended to change PSU and so I ordered a new one...

Got the new Enermax Infiniti (650w) installed today, but much to my dismay got the same result - Does this mean that the VGA is damaged? I'm sending the GFX card back as faulty tomorrow and hopefully should receive a replacement before the end of next week...

enginurd: Cpu is at stock

What card were you using before the x1950 pro, and did you have problems with it? Did you uninstall old drivers and use a driver cleaner? Corsair uses a fine OEM manufacturer in Seasonic, so it is not poor quality by any means. On the other hand, I've heard Sapphire as of late has been putting out poor quality graphics cards, just look at the newegg reviews, many poor... and those are the ones that actually made it past their editors!

Try using ATI Tray tools to up the fan speed, probably overheating.

Better yet, sell it before it croaks. The fan, loud as it is, is not good enough on 1900xts and XTXs. I did not use ATI tray tools to up fan speed for about 4 months cuz I didn't know how bad the heat was, and it apparently was enough to do damage. Now after a year my 1900xt is totally dying, I have flashing green pixels (looks like digital static, lol) on black blackgrounds, artifacts in games... Just after the warranty expired lol!

Maybe it's just Sapphire cards - mine is too - but I think most makers use the ATI reference cooling.

Most cards come with a 3yr warranty, at the least.

MrCore64 said:

I'd been posting on the Sapphire forum as well and found out that the Corsair HX series seems to like killing innocent GFX cards... I was recommended to change PSU and so I ordered a new one...

Click to expand...

I've never heard about Corsairs killing graphics cards, been reading over at those forums and some of them seem somewhat hostile against Corsair. I've have and have had both Corsair and Seasonics (the latter manufactures their PSUs as mentioned) and they never did anything to my hardware, nor have any people I know had their graphics card fried. In fact, those units have received nothing but the highest praise from both reviewers and users. I've had an X1950 Pro from Sapphire, and I had trouble with it tho. Artifacts in games and computer lockups. (and I wasn't running a Corsair/Seasonic PSU on that rig).

I think those guys sent you on a wild goose chase there. Heck, I'll just come out and say it. The guys over there haven't got a clue, and some of the moderators are downright rude, condesceding and throw tantrums if you disagree with them. They'll blame everything else in your rig for breaking the card, but never admit that maybe the card itself flipped over and died on its own. Which is logical, considering it's the Sapphire Support forums, it wouldn't make them look good if they criticized Sapphire products. Anyway, you want sound advice, don't go there.

i noticed you are using the ultimate edition.does it come with a factory overclock.they usually do not clock very well.shappire,from what i read in forums, appears not to be the best brand of card.of course there are rant and raves about all cards.

I believe this is a problem with the power supply, without actually being the power supply's fault. I had a X1950GT, and got really bad 2d artifacts when I put in my new PSU (Zalman HP600W). Then, I put in an 8800Ultra, and everything is fine. The power supply runs it fine, with no artifacts. It seems like there's a problem with the X1950Pro/GT a specific power supply, and if you don't give it to it, it'll go crazy on you!

MrCore64 said:

I'd been posting on the Sapphire forum as well and found out that the Corsair HX series seems to like killing innocent GFX cards... I was recommended to change PSU and so I ordered a new one...

Got the new Enermax Infiniti (650w) installed today, but much to my dismay got the same result - Does this mean that the VGA is damaged? I'm sending the GFX card back as faulty tomorrow and hopefully should receive a replacement before the end of next week...

enginurd: Cpu is at stock

Click to expand...

O wow, you fell for sapphire forums BS about how you need a balls to the walls psu with the x1950pro.

My first x1950pro would not run at stock mem speeds (580/1600 since i have the ultimate), I could only get it to run 580/1540, and the card would not overclock one inch.

I got the psu in my sig, it puts out 33 amps max combined, which is more than the 30 which sapphire says you need, but they kept bitching to me saying it still wasn't enough because my computer is overclocked and what not, and they claimed that antec makes shitty power supply's (which they don't).

So I said fuck it, just RMA'd my x1950pro to newegg (after it fried itself from a brown out / power outage), got a new one that can overclock a bit, and have had no problems since, sapphire forms were prob dead wrong when they said it was your power supply (power supples fail, but not because sapphire doesn't want to deal with customers)

Sapphire forum staff will do anything in there power to pawn off responsibility of a bad card to the power supply instead of it actually being a bad card.

I had all the problems you mentioned in your first post, up intill the video card got electrocuted, for no reason, anywhere between 5 mins and 5 hours, after prolonged periods of gaming my video card would artifact (temps were all normal), and I would need to restart for said artifacts to completely go away (artifacts would embed themselfs into the graphics output picture and stay there).

The psu was fine, the motherboard was fine, the video card was junk, so I got an rma and I was good to go.
That doesn't rule out the psu being the problem, but if the psu was really a problem you would have different problems.

PS, some of the early reversions of the x1950pro had problems with the VRMs overheating because there was no heatsink covering them, they fixed this at some point. But then they changed the design of the PCB on even newer versions and the problems have resurfaced.
Its complicated.

I feel like a Guppy chasin anythin that might look like a solution only to find out it's a nasty steel hook to more problems!

Off topic problem which I intend to fix by RMA'ing the lovely new Enermax PSU:
When I restart the fans keep spinning and the system lights stay on! AWESOME! (Banging head on desk)
I found out here --> http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/244172-12-compatibilty-deluxe-wifi-enermax-infinti
That Asus P5B deluxe has an issue with PSU's with Cool Guard... is this true? I'm startin to take everything I read with a jar of salt.

Back to the original cuhnt of a problem -
Thanks for your posts about Sapphire build quality, that puts my mind a little at ease... I'm thinking about goin for a 7950GX2... or somethin else, anything that works hopefully!

Decided on the HIS x1950 pro 512mb... Fingers crossed it'll work and there will be no more problems.

MrCore64 said:

Decided on the HIS x1950 pro 512mb... Fingers crossed it'll work and there will be no more problems.

Click to expand...

I have this exact card. Only issue is it doesn't work well with the Catalyst control panel, caused issues if you try to turn on overdrive. Also, doesn't work at all with ATITOOL. But the x1950PRO cards are not OC friendly. At least that is the general consensus and that is what I have found with mine.
So, I have the latest Catalyst driver install, nothing else. Has been flawless. No performance let downs yet.

It's the card, they are just built with piss poor quality. Never buying ATI again.

Yea, I have been put off by this escapade, but the only nvidia cards that perform better than ATI are the 8800's... Let's just hope they sort out the build quality issues.