Radeon 9800 Pro, Recently lots of artifacts in games...

Hey guys,

I really need to address this issue. There aren't that many games that I play, however games that previously gave me no problems before have been giving me tons of problems lately. It also never mattered whether I was using either the ATI drivers, older and newer, or the Omega drivers like I'm using now.

I presently have an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card. I'm also running with an AMD Athlon XP 2000+, 768MB of Memory. As per my temperatures, HWMonitor is not reporting my video card temperature, and I really can't say what my actual processor temperature is. I just got done playing a round of Firefighter Command; Raging Inferno, which was artifacting from time to time... and the highest temperature that HWMonitor is reporting is 51c (122f). I know that's very high.

One of the things that I can think of is that I had recently changed my processor from using the inredibly loud, Thermaltake Volcano HSF (primarily the fan), and upgraded the fan from the 80mm super loud edition to a 80mm to 120mm fan shroud plus an Aerocool 120mm turbine fan... basically was trying to move more air away from my processor at slower speeds for lower sound.

I'm not sure if that's 100% what's causing it. My ambient room temperature right now is like 70f so I know that's not causing it. Will a hot CPU cause artifacts? I primarily play GTA: Vice City, World of Warcraft, and now this Firefighter Command game... and every single one of them will give me some kind of artifacts or glitches while I'm playing. The game is playable, however annoying.

Can someone help me troubleshoot this issue so that I may get a bit more life out of my computer? I've been real ambitious on getting a new computer, however unfortunately I've been hit by one financial blow after another.

Given the age of your system...it could be many things.


My first question is... do you or have you ever overclocked your 9800 Pro?

Have you removed the card and used compressed air to blow the dust off?

As a test for heat building up in the case, remove the side cover and use a desktop fan to blow at a angle into the case.
If that cures it, you need to look at mounting a case fan towards the front of the case to blow intake air towards the CPU/heatsink to aid exhausting that heated air.

Kowan said:

Have you removed the card and used compressed air to blow the dust off?

As a test for heat building up in the case, remove the side cover and use a desktop fan to blow at a angle into the case.
If that cures it, you need to look at mounting a case fan towards the front of the case to blow intake air towards the CPU/heatsink to aid exhausting that heated air.

Click to expand...

Yeah that could be it, too. Sounds like GPU overclocking IMO, though.

Im thinking its either a heat issue or the card is not properly seated all the way.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Firstly, I have two front fans acting as intakes, and two rear case fans acting as exhausts. I've made sure that the airflow was sufficient in my case. The only thing that's recently changed was converting my CPU HSF from a 80mm high-speed fan to a larger, slower 120mm quieter fan... That's the only thing that I can really see that changed was that.

As per the overclocking, I'm going to be honest I think I tried to OC it at one point, and then I think as I was getting ill-effects from it I decided not to... I'm going to go through whatever settings I can find for the overclocking. I believe I do also have additional cooling in lieu of ram-sinks on the card.

I haven't removed the card and blown it out recently, no. I can give that a shot, but I will look into the overclocking first. Question: Can you overclock your video card in the BIOS? I don't remember making any changes from there, but as you said given the age of my system (I've had it for at least 5 years) I could have changed it a long time back.

Here are some screen shots of my settings:











Note: On the SMARTGART screen, the screen shot was initially taken and Fast Write was off. After taking the screen shot, I hit retest all, and it re-enabled itself. As you can see this option is greyed out, so I don't know how it got changed before and now changed back. I also don't know what Fast Write does. Any ideas?

Any other screenies, or settings you guys want me to look at? Should I try changing out the fan to the old one so I can get my better CPU temperatures, will that make a difference?

Ogilvy asked if you're overclocking now or prior to the problem, because set too high can cause what you're seeing. He wasn't suggesting overclocking to cure it.

I'd try putting the old fan on your CPU just to see if the new slower rpm one is the cause.
Your screen shots look like typical stock settings.

Well you omitted the most imp. screenshot ..the one of the GPU clocks with whichever software you used to overclock.

Anyway, alls not lost. Download ATITool here


As you can see in the screen shot your CORE/MEMORY clocks can be adjusted here, and your aim is to set default clocks on your card.

Adjust them to
380 Mhz for the CORE
and
340 for the MEMORY

Also, check the cooler on your GPU, check if the fan is working and also if the cooler itself is making proper contact.

try to underclock it until artifacts go away.

Before underclocking and everything else I would definitely open up the case and just have a look at the card. It is very likely that either the fan has died/been impaired, or there is significant dust buildup preventing sufficient airflow through the fins of the heatsink. Check to see if the fan is spinning, and then power off, blow some air through the fins, try again.

If the heatsink/fan on the GPU is working correctly there should be no need to underclock the card. A card should always be able to run at it's stock speeds.

i have 3 radeon 9800's (one is an AIW, which has never been overclocked), and unfortunately every single one of these cards has exhibited this problem. they all perform fine in 2D, but gaming brings out artifacts, making them unusable in that regard.

my guess is that, over the years there's a breakdown in the internal circuits, and these cards just wear out.

on one hand, that's disappointing, but on the other hand, you can easily replace these cards with better performing cards for not very much money, tho being agp you might have to scour some FS/FT forums in order to do so.

Thanks for the reply guys. I wasnt suggesting OC'ing to fix the problem. I remember toying with the settings in the past but honestly dont remember what program i used so i dont know how to see or change them. That program, will it list my current settings too?

It is very disconserting to hear that your cards died over time. Unfortunately money is very hard for me to have extra of, and I dont want to waste more money keeping this computer alive.

I will check the card and the fan. If I still see no improvement, I will replace the old HSF on the CPU. Question: Does my card have a thermal sensor to detect temps, and how do I view those temps?

Unfortunately this application does not show what my temperatures is, so I guess this card does not have a sensor. Also, to note, the default on this is:

CORE: 378
MEMORY: 337.5

So per your specifications, that's underclocked... could underclocking cause artifacts?

I think I may have found the issue.

I was running the ATI tools for about 20 minutes or so, and I noted that about every 2-4 minutes, it would beep when it found an artifact, and reset the timer. This is with the stock voltages previously mentioned. My processor while running ATI Tool (I guess it works as a good stress tester if you're monitoring temperature) was at 100% so the heat was rising. I got it as high as like 126f (53c).

I decided I was going to change around back to my old Thermaltake Volcano 9 HSF. When I made the change, my temperatures dropped by about 10 degrees. Mind you, this is after confirming the video card HSF works and cleaning it out also. Initially the first time I ran ATITools after this change, the timer was counting up like normal as if there were no errors, however there were a lot of some kind of DELTA error messages in the application. I opened the case back up, and moved wires away from my video card so nothing should be changing.

Could've been wires, or could've been the restart, but after testing for artifacts with the program for 15 minutes and finding none, it was game time. I played my firefighter game, which granted doesn't show the artifacts anywhere near as much as WoW, I tried that, and have absolutely none. My processor also gets to about 119F under load... a 7 degree difference.

I don't know if 126F is the magic number... maybe that wasn't affecting it at all. Maybe it was how the 120mm-80mm shroud and the 120mm fan and how it handled the air that was causing a problem, maybe somehow it was blowing the heated air from the processor towards the video card...

Either way I'm willing to sacrifice my ears (Volcano is a really loud fan at 5300RPM) for better performance.

Of course... now that I have an overclocking program, I'm willing to try that? The ATI Tools has a neat little feature that will automatically try to overclock the GPU, and then it will back off when it starts having errors... couldn't hurt?

The stock cooling on the 9800Pro's seem to fail after a while. Mine died after 3yrs and I had to replace it with an Arctic Cooling VGA silencer. Before you OC your card, I'd suggest upgrading the cooler for about $10 or less.

I have a TR SI-97A for sale if you'd like to try a better heatsink for your CPU.

Is it worth it to upgrade the HSF for my CPU now? I know I can't really beef that much more performance out of it as it is... I wouldn't mind something that's quieter and more efficient, however I feel that it may be a lost cause to try and pump more money into something that I should be saving money for to replace...

What do you think? Let me look at your HSF.

Punkrulz said:

Is it worth it to upgrade the HSF for my CPU now? I know I can't really beef that much more performance out of it as it is... I wouldn't mind something that's quieter and more efficient, however I feel that it may be a lost cause to try and pump more money into something that I should be saving money for to replace...

What do you think? Let me look at your HSF.

Click to expand...

No, its not worth it for you unless you've got $10 + shipping layin around.

Unfortunately I don't have $10 lying around for the moment, and that's excluding shipping and handling. But seriously though, should I update the HSF to my CPU since it'll be awhile until I get another computer? Should I then update my video card HSF? if I update the HSF to the CPU, do you think I can bump some more MHz out of it?

With that HSF that you have, will I have to remove the motherboard from the case for installation?

It'll be easier if you do remove the mobo, but no, you don't have to, depending on your case. I don't think it'll allow you to squeeze much more Mhz out of that chip... well, not enough to make a difference, anyhow. Just save your money for the new build. If you can find a better GPU cooler for $10, go for it. Otherwise, again, save your money -- and put up with the lack of performance.

Any video coolers that are cheap that you recommend I get for my card to get a bit more life out of it? Are they simple to install?

They're somewhat simple, but I can't find any in-stock anywhere anymore, sorry. Try the FS/T forum.

Do you mean in stock that would apply to my 9800 pro? I was looking on Newegg, and unfortunately I can't sort by cards that they can be used on... didn't note any for my particular card though.

Yah, I don't see any in-stock for a 9800 series card -- just waterblocks, lol.

Here's a question though:

ATITools goes ahead and keeps modifying the video card memory / clock speed based on the amount of artifacts, which will be based on the temperature. Is it worth it to run both the find max clock / memory options in ATITools, and let it find the max that it can handle at my existing card temp? Worst case scenario I get a few extra MHz which may make a slight difference for me...

Just want some input on that!