Buyer having issues with ATI X800XL

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burningrave101

[H]F Junkie
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Sep 9, 2003
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I just sold an ATI X800XL with a new Arctic Silencer 5 rev2 on it a few days ago to a guy on Anandtech forums and he seems to be having trouble with it. I've already told him my opinion as to what to check and what the problem likely is but i thought i'd make a post and let you guys give your opinions as well.

This is what he had to say about it after getting the card and testing it out.

got the card today in the mail. i put the card in the rig and fired her up. but after playing battlefield 2 for about 30 minutes i got a blue screen and everything frooze up. it wasn't the regular blue screen of death. this one was just blue...no writing no nothing. restarted and tried again....same thing...but this time it just frooze w/ no blue screen. it seems it keeps on happening over and over. so i wanted to ask you, did you overclock this? i wanted to check to see if the heatsink was installed right but i didn't wanna mess with that just yet so ive left everything as is. oh and the other thing i noticed, but am not sure if that is the cause, is that when i opened the package, the card had somewhat slipped out of the big bubble wrap thing...but i think if something happened to it during the transit, it probably wouldn't work at all. but this thing works and then stops....then works....then stops.

im not completely sure if its the card or not so i will try and use a different power supply tomorrow and also a different video card. if the results are the same then we've got the try and work this out somehow(im really hoping the problem goes away when i swap the PS though). in any case, while i try and figure this out, let me know if you want me to write your heat. i will write a positive heat for now and just hope for the best(that the problem isn't with the card). even if its with the card, and if we get this worked out then i will just leave the heat as is. you dont seem like the guy who's out to screw people over. so let me know if you want me to go ahead and fill out a heat eval or wait until this gets worked out.

again, i really hope for my sake and yours...well mostly my sake, cuz without it i cant play BF2 , that its not the card thats messed up. please let me know what you think.
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I hear ya man. I'm not trying to come off as a jerk or anything by saying what I said before. Just a little worried on my end. I have a 350 watt generic PS. I didn't have a video card before this. I was using the built in ATI x300 based graphic solution thats on the mobo. I did uninstall the drivers for it and then installed the new drivers from the CD. I also tried FarCry and got the same results. I will try doom 3 and CSS if/when I can find the CD. Also, in the mean time, I will try and get my hands on a second PS and hook that up to see if that helps or not. And I hope you didn't take whatever I said the wrong way. Im not trying to come off like a jerk or anything.

For the sake of trying, I am going to uninstall everything including drivers and games and even do a clean install of XP(i just did a clean install a week ago so i dont have much to lose) and then start over from scratch like that. If you want I'll kee you updated on everything tomorrow.

And about the heat, what would you like me to do? Wait until this gets resolved or fill out an eval anyways for the time being?
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These are his system specs:

System
A64 3700+ San Diego
2x512 PC3200 OCZ Performance Series @ 2-3-3-6 1T
36GB Raptor
Lite-On DVDRW
Jetway ATI Xpress 200 Mobo w/ IGP (x300 based)

The BIOS has been updated when I first got the compy setup about a week ago. The IGP was disbabled and I made sure of that in the BIOS after this happened the first time. I've patched BF2 to the latest version from EA's website. ATI tool says the card is at 398.25 core and 492.75 memory.
I used the drivers from the CD so I when I do the clean XP install, I will use drivers from the web(the latest ones).
And you're right about BF2 its a very buggy game even on my old rig. So I will try other games after I do a clean install.
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To me it most likely seems like its his cheap PSU or it could be a driver conflict. The video card was working fine when i took it out of my machine but the only game i play is Morrowind so i didn't really put the screws to it that much. What do you guys think?
 
Well it could be a driver conflict as he probably did not use Driver Cleaner when he went from the ATI X300 to the X800XL.

The simplist issue to address after the clean install of XP would be to obtain a quality PS and connect the card to an unused power cable (nothing else connected to the cable assembly). Those generics typically only provide two or three molex strings and he may have the card comnnected to a HD or optical. It is always a crap shoot when selling a power hungry device as most people over look the importance of a quality, high capacity PS (>400w.).

You should also address the cooling layout he has. If he is using a generic PS and would think that an X800XL would run on it, he may only have one 80mm case fan combined with poor cable layout and not consider the addittional heat.

Good luck
 
I had a similar problem with my 800xl, but in my case I would play battlefield 2 for about 30 minutes and my PC would simply turn off without any blue screen. I changed from a 300 watts (not generic) to a 450 watts (generic) and everything seems to be wroking well since.
 
setscrew said:
Well it could be a driver conflict as he probably did not use Driver Cleaner when he went from the ATI X300 to the X800XL.
Good luck
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Shouldn't need to driver cleaner that since it is the same driver pack. I went from a X800XL to a 9600 vanilla (don't ask), and it worked with no issue with the same drivers.

PSU is probably to blame. That's an awful lot for a cheap, generic PSU to handle.
 
i have the same problems as well
with my x800xl from bestbuy.
the card wouldnt overclock for shit, it would get a blue screen and just reboot after a little bit of gaming.
turns out mine was defnifetly a psu issue, tell him to check his psu and i bet its overloaded on the 12V
prolly 12.4 or something, like mine was.
i solved it by buying a new psu.
 
Yea i would bet about anything that its the PSU. The 3700+ SD and X800XL are going to suck a fair amount of wattage off the +12V rail and likely his generic 350w PSU isn't up to the task.
 
PSU.

No bout a doubt it.

This is why I never sell anything except on ebay with no warranty as is where is. You just cant anticipate all the quirks and weirdness in somebodys elses system. It can work great for you and be shit for someone else, thru no fault of your own.
 
...but after playing battlefield 2 for about 30 minutes i got a blue screen and everything frooze up. it wasn't the regular blue screen of death. this one was just blue...no writing no nothing. restarted and tried again....same thing...but this time it just frooze w/ no blue screen. it seems it keeps on happening over and over...
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I had the SAME exact problem. It turned out to be my audio drivers, Realtek built-in audio chipset. I found out the chipset model by consulting my motherboard specs, then downloaded the newest. Uninstalled the old, restarted, installed the new, PROBLEM SOLVED!

Hope this helps!
 
I vote power supply/hardware issue as well... as evidenced by the fact that it brings down his entire system, and always after a certain amount of time under load.
 
Sounds like a driver problem to me, had this happen in another rig while playing WoW for more then 5 minutes, a complete reinstall of chipset, video card, audio drivers did it. Second guess would be the PSU, he should buy a decent one anyways.
 
The buyers issue seemed to be addressed after he installed the new Antec 400w PSU but now later today i got a PM from him again saying that now he's getting artifacts after gaming for an hour or so. Is it still the PSU or are his drivers borked or what? I replied back and told him to make sure he did a complete re-install with the latest Catalyst drivers and update his audio drivers as well.

hey,
i feel like ive spoke too soon about the video card. i am getting a lot of artifacts when playing any game for more than an hour or so. im running on a antec 400w power supply which is more than sufficient for my setup. even with just the bare essentials plugged in and powered up, i seem to be getting artifacts.
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could be a heat issue if hes getting artifacts without an OC, he should make sure theres enough airflow through the case, and if not, the 10 dollar solution would be go to CVS buy a 10 inch fan, open the case and stick it right there.
 
Artifacts after an hour I would say a heat issue. The GPU is getting too hot. How many fans does he have.
 
Lestang said:
Artifacts after an hour I would say a heat issue. The GPU is getting too hot. How many fans does he have.
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I dont know but like i said, i installed an ATI Arctic Silencer 5 rev2 on it like two weeks before i sold it to him so the GPU should have good cooling unless somehow i didn't get it installed on there good enough. I pus AS5 on the GPU core instead of the included compound.
 
burningrave101 said:
I dont know but like i said, i installed an ATI Arctic Silencer 5 rev2 on it like two weeks before i sold it to him so the GPU should have good cooling unless the inside of his case is just all cluttered up and really hot.
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thats what i said, im sure your already on the ball on this topic, and im sure he doesnt want to spend more money so once again 10$ solution above!
 
tell him to game with side cover off his case ..and to make sure the fan is spinning on that silencer ..maybe he didnt plug it in ?

If fan is going ..after gaming awhile , tell him to hold his hand where the air is exhausted out back from the silencer ...if the air burns the flesh off his hand .....then there is something wrong there . :p

...and on a side note , I have had problems with Antec PSU's and ATi cards on couple different mobos ..(different mobos, psu's and ati cards) ..but those just wouldnt boot and they were older setups (9500pro Asus A7V8X era) ..so prolly have no bearing on this particular issue at all and I just wasted 12 seconds of your life whilst you read this little side note thingy ... :(
 
Is there any possibility that his issue is still the cause of the PSU? Could the PSU cause artifacts from a lack of power? It seems more likely to be a heat issue though.
 
I think you should just file a damaged in transit claim with the shipping company (assuming you had the foresight to insure it) and then tell him to ship back the card and you will refund him once you get it settled w/the shipping company. You never know what kind of person you're dealing with so it could be a guy that knows what he's doing or a total moron that screwed it up after receiving it. That's one thing I hate about selling on forums vs. ebay because people view an as-is policy as suspicious. Fortunately everyone I've sold to has never had a problem so I haven't run into any dumb asses yet.
 
you mentioned that he said the card came out of its bubble wrap ...maybe it got jossled enough that he just needs to reseat the cooler on the gpu ..

..and yes , his current probs sound definately like a heat issue , was just throwing out my experiences I have had with Antec and ATi together is all .
 
That board has a 20pin ATX connector. Why has nobody else noticed this?

The X800XL doesn't have its own PCIe power connector does it?
 
Why bother upgrading from a 350W to a 400W PSU?

That's not an upgrade. That's replacing one underpowered PSU with another underpowered PSU. Tell him to get a decent 500W PSU like the Fortron AX-500, or one of the OCZ Powerstreams (or whatever), but quit expecting to run top end gear with a $40 350W-400W PSU.

He wasn't getting artifacts before right?
Changes the PSU and then gets artifacts.....

And do ask him about the heat issue as well.
 
robberbaron said:
That board has a 20pin ATX connector. Why has nobody else noticed this?

The X800XL doesn't have its own PCIe power connector does it?
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No the PCI-e X800XL's dont have an external molex connector. Could the PCI-e card be lacking power because of him not having a 24-pin mobo and PSU?
 
burningrave101 said:
No the PCI-e X800XL's dont have an external molex connector. Could the PCI-e card be lacking power because of him not having a 24-pin mobo and PSU?
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Yes. The 4 added pins are for the PCIe slots, so the card is majorly underpowered.

I think Powercolor and maybe one or two other brands have PCIe X800XL's with the 6 pin pcie connector.
 
To bad it's not a more common board. An XL uses every drop of power available to it over that slot when peaking. It's been a question mark in a few reviews, the idea of it, not that they had a problem.

Sorry that I don't have time to read more of the thread, but he should try and disable that IGP.
 
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