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Defective Video Card? Please help!!!

T

tjb117

n00b
Joined
Nov 13, 2007
Messages
17
I was hoping you guys could please help me out...

I recently built a new system and everything has been running great until recently and I'm at wits end trying to pinpoint the problem. Anyways, here goes...

The computer boots up into Windows fine, and everything seems normal, then all of a sudden, the screen will freeze. It just turns all kinds of different colors, like the image was smeared across the screen (if that description makes any sense). I can power it off and start it back up, and it will work fine. It may go 2 or 3 power cycles before it happens again. It's very intermittent, and there is no pattern as to what causes it to appear. The last time, I was just browsing the internet and it froze up. Another time it just happened without doing anything. I've noticed a few times where I've been away from the computer for a while and when I come back my monitor won't respond after it's turned itself off after inactivity (ie. the computer froze, but I can't see anything on screen)

I switched out my power supply (with a known good one), and still froze up on me in the same way.

So, I'm leaning towards it being my Video Card that's causing the problems. I've tried to replicate it by looping 3dmark and other graphic intensive apps to see if it was a heat issue. No luck though. Heat stayed reasonable (according to catalyst control center, in low to mid 50's C or under load) I might try to reseat the stock cooling tonight and apply some AS5 to see if that helps. I don't have another card to try, but I might buy a cheapy pci card just to try too.

I guess potentially it could be my motherboard, but unfortunately I don't have another to try.

Here's my system specs:

Intel C2Q 6600 G0
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P rev2.1
2x2GB Corsair XMS2
Seagate 250GB SATA
Visiontek ATI Radeon HD3850 512MB
Samsung DVD-RW SATA
Corsair 520HX PSU
Vista Business SP1

Anyone have any ideas or run into anything like this before? I've done about all I can think of at this point...

Thanks for your help and input.
 
wonder if your power supply is beefy enough for everything you have in it? Does it have the what 25 30 amps needed on the 12volt line?
 
LordVampyre said:
wonder if your power supply is beefy enough for everything you have in it? Does it have the what 25 30 amps needed on the 12volt line?
Click to expand...

I'm not real sure how to tell. The original one my case came with (and that I swapped back in there last night to test psu's) is an:

Antec Earthwatts 500w
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007

The other one I bought and had in there is a Cosair HX520

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139001

I'm hoping those are enough...
 
tjb117 said:
I'm not real sure how to tell. The original one my case came with (and that I swapped back in there last night to test psu's) is an:

Antec Earthwatts 500w
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007

The other one I bought and had in there is a Cosair HX520

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139001

I'm hoping those are enough...
Click to expand...

The Corsair has two 12v rails with 18amps each. On the PCI-e connecter I do believe (correct if wrong) they are combined of which to where it would equal out to 36amps total.

If I'm correct, the Corsair shouldn't have a problem.
 
tjb117, how many fans, everything you have hooked in.. and how old is the powersupply or is it new? there are calculators to see how much draw everything puts on the PS (sorry dont have an addy for you) .

When I got my card I contacted Hiper and they told me my 580watt wasnt enough to run my system. Well, I asked here and was assured by several folks it was. I havent had any issues with my 1950pro card or this one.

wonder if using 8.2 drivers would be better? might not hurt trying them?
 
tjb117 said:
I'm using the latest 8.3
Click to expand...

can you take a pic and show us what it looks like? mine does something similar and i haven't been able to track down the source of the problem yet. i'm betting its the catalyst driver though. i'll snag a pic when it happens again.
 
LordVampyre said:
tjb117, how many fans, everything you have hooked in.. and how old is the powersupply or is it new? there are calculators to see how much draw everything puts on the PS (sorry dont have an addy for you) .

When I got my card I contacted Hiper and they told me my 580watt wasnt enough to run my system. Well, I asked here and was assured by several folks it was. I havent had any issues with my 1950pro card or this one.

wonder if using 8.2 drivers would be better? might not hurt trying them?
Click to expand...

Both PSU's I listed are new, so I've all but ruled them out as the problem. I wanted a modular one, that's why I grabbed the corsair. I guess technically it could still be, but the possibilities of 2 new, different brand PSU's being bad is pretty slim IMO.

From what I've read and been told as well, either of these should be powerful enough for my system. I've looked at the online wattage calculators, and all the ones I've tried have been well below what mine are rated at.

I might give the 8.2's a try and see. It's just the weirdest thing. Really wish I had some spare parts lying around, this is driving me nuts. Figures, I just gave my old computer to my parents as an "upgrade" to their old one (which was mine a long time ago too). Wish I would have had issues while I still had that backup, could have used a few parts to try things out. Oh well..

I tried re-seating the HSF on the video card, and cleaned of the GPU and HSF real good with some Isopropyl alcohol and applied some AS5. But that didn't seem to work, as I ran into that "freeze" shortly there after.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a chance to pick up an el-cheapo video card to try out. This should help me be able to determine if it's the video card or not. Really hope it's not the motherboard, I finally got the cables and everything the way I wanted.
 
I uninstalled 8.3, cleaned out the registry to get rid of any possible traces, and installed 8.2. I'll see if that makes any difference.

I've got my camera out now and ready for it to happen so I can grab a pic. Of course, now that I want it to happen, so I can show you, it won't. But I guess that won't be the worst thing in the world.

Maybe it is these drivers, although I've had them shortly after they were released, and haven't had problems until recently. I guess I have been thinking hardware issue since I've not gotten any BSOD's or other error messages, just freezes. Plus it's so random, it's next to impossible to replicate. Who knows, but worth a shot at this point...

Thanks for everyone's help and input so far!
 
mine finally did it again tonight. here's a pic of the screen (taken with my cellphone, so not high quality).

fubar.jpg
 
What erros are logged in the ACEevent log?.....Make shure you remove Catylyst driver in SAFEMODE or it will not properly UNINSTALL....


Id say its the 8.3driver.....Download the Hotfix 8.3 driver and install it just as you would the regular 8.3 ands then see what happens...


The way the screen is looks like the ATI2dvag or ATI2mtag error which is very common with 8.3 driver....

Worst case Download the (FULLPACKAGE 8.1 Cat driver ) NOT 8.2 because its just as bad as 8.3 .....

Those cards can also run on almost any 350wattPSU with 18+Amp using the 6pin...Yours is more than enuff....

Ive seen people remove drivers 4times untill they actually installed correct,,Thank ATI for that one....I do @@$%$everyday and hope they get things better with 8.4

Also how stable is your Ram and CPU ovrclock...This can cause any 8.1/8.2/8.3 instability...Just Google 8.2 8.3 ATI2dvag or 8.2 8.3 ATI2mtag Error Vista Reboot or freeze....Youll soon see hundreds of post on it....


Big Note:
Also have you tried Rivatuner to see what your temps are? If its crashing and temps are no where near 60/70c suspect the drivers or maybe a faulty card at worst...Id suspect driver after i returned THREE different 3870x2's for the same issue with Vista and XP using 8.2 and 8.3 driver...I tried three different manufactures and it turned out to be all ATI driver related ..

Read numerous post where Unstable OC/CPU or Ram being unstable causes this mainly beside the drivers being crappy from the start..
 
!gOtVolTage! - thanks for the input.

no errors in eventlog.
8.3 hotfix was already installed.
i'm running two 3870x2 cards, so i need to stick with 8.3.
using a Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W psu.
ram and cpu overclock are fine, and it happens with stock settings and underclocking too.
using rivatuner 2.08, and temps are fine.

hopefully 8.4 will fix it.
 
jkw - that is the exact same thing I was seeing on my screen that I described in the original post.

I'm really starting to think it's the 8.3 driver at fault. I've gone 2 days now without this happening, since I totally removed the 8.3 driver and cleaned the registry, and then reinstalled the 8.2's. Not sure if that is coincidence or not, but so far that is working. Of course as soon as I say this, it'll freeze tonight.

I've kept an eye on all my temps and everything has been very good, so now I'm heavily leaning towards this being a driver issue, or at least something conflicting with this driver (ie. windows update or something like that)

With your cards I guess you need 8.3, so maybe in the meantime until the 8.4's are out (hopefully soon), uninstall the 8.3s, clean out registry, and then reinstall? Kind of a pain, but maybe worth a shot. Are you using the drivers from the ATI site?
 
tjb117 - thanks for the confirmation. yes, i do need 8.2 for the crossfirex. this was a fresh vista build so no other drivers were ever installed on the system. i was indeed using drivers from ATI site.
 
I'm gonna keep an eye on mine, as I'm hoping it was simply a driver issue.

Since you've got Vista too, I'm starting to think our problems are related. Especially since right now, everything I'm running is stock, so nothing is overclocked and all the voltages are standard, and everthing heat/power wise is stable.
 
i just installed the new cat 8.4 so we'll see how that goes. so far so good.
 
I had a similar problem with a client just a week ago, and I always contact my clients after 3 days and he said it has never happened again. It looked exactly like that... it was nothing but just replacing the VGA cable though. That might help you... hopefully.
 
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