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Radeon 9800pro Artifacting

F

FusionistAS-200

n00b
Joined
Jun 23, 2005
Messages
6
Hi everyone. Ever since I bought my video card over a year ago it has given me artifacts at random times (eg. artifacts for 2 weeks then all of a sudden gone). This is what the problem looks like:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/FusionistAS-200/Brothersinarms.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/FusionistAS-200/WindowsCorrupt.jpg
Here is everything i can think of that ive tried to fix it:
  • Bought new psu
  • Turned to 4x agp
  • Turn Troubleshooting bar to 4th out of 6 (cursor accelerations disabled) and artifacts go away in windows icons but cant play games
  • Artifacts decrease when turn down gpu from 380 to 240
  • Back of gpu is too hot to touch (behind of card in red square)
  • Memory stays cool
  • Have Iceberq4 cooler
  • New drivers, reload winxp, everything, format etc. etc.
  • Tried plugged pc in at friends house (no result)

I think it may be heat after all but it happens so randomly, eg i loaded up a fifa demo the other day after weeks of artifactless bf2 and woke up the next day and there were artifacts everywhere, my cards not screwed, because its still happy to play w/o any artifacts sometimes. I'm totally confused, anyone know what i could try? BTW those artifacts in the BIA screenie flicker and appear on the textures depending on the angle you view them at, and what is in the squares is the texture behind thetexture in the foreground (eg. you can see the outline of a person through a wall through the squares, hope you can understand that)
 
Looks like your card just kicked the bucket.

Looks like your gpu did one of the following..
a) took a hard shock (happens durring thunderstorms or powersurges).
b) overheated and damaged itself.

Time to get a new card.
 
I had a 9800 Pro that did the same thing except it would only happen when playing games , I ended up getting a replacement (RMA) , The new one worked fine for over a year before upgrading to a 6800 GT.
 
FusionistAS-200 said:
...
[*]Back of gpu is too hot to touch (behind of card in red square)
[*]Have Iceberq4 cooler
Click to expand...

This makes me thing that your cooler isn't installed properly. Did you install it yourself? Do you still have the original cooler that you can put back on there.

I had an aftermarket cooler (I forget the name of it) supposedly for a 9800, but it didn't actually contact the core. The core sets recessed behind a shim type of thing and if the cooler doesn't have reliefs around a central contact area, it will never touch the core and thus it will not cool the GPU very efficiently. I had to file the edges down a little so that the core would contact the heatsink.

However, from running it like this so much, you may have permanently borked the GPU.
 
hmmm.. still doesnt explain why last month it was working no problems, and now its got artifacts everywhere, then next month or whenever it will probably be working fine..
 
Mine looked like that for a few weeks till it died.. The 9800 series seem to run really hot.. If it is still under warranty send it back..
 
Hmmmm. I replaced the iceberq with the original cooler and its improved, but its still kind of there.. Any suggestions for improved cooling???
 
FusionistAS-200 said:
Hmmmm. I replaced the iceberq with the original cooler and its improved, but its still kind of there.. Any suggestions for improved cooling???
Click to expand...

I'm telling you that your gpu is toast..
Sticking a different cooler on it is like replacing the radiator on a seazed engine..

You dont get that kind of artifacting with the card on idle.. Hell, I could rip the cooler off of my card and it would do ok on idle and wouldnt artifact like your windows screenshots.
 
I have the same problem with my ATI9800 card and I using the Arctic cooler and found that the memory chips not the GPU is over heating since the Arctic coolor blocks air fow. If I had to do this over I would use the Zalman VGA coller since having good air flow over the entire card is important.
 
I had the same problem with mine a few months back. It'd be working fine somedays and not others. I put it down to changing temperatures in the room my pc is in and a heatsink that needed reseating. I was right. Turned out that the thermal compound on the heatsink has gone brittle (litteraly. it was flaking off). So i just cleaned it up and put some new stuff on. Hasnt given me a problem since. Runs perfectly
 
Ok i replaced the Vantec Iceberq4 cooler with the original cooler, and since have noticed that if i put my finger on the fan to stop it spinning the artifacts become really bad, like all over the screen non stop. When I take my finger off and the fan spins again... not quite as bad. I think I'll take the card out again, clean all the thermal paste off it and start again..
 
lloose said:
I'm telling you that your gpu is toast..
Sticking a different cooler on it is like replacing the radiator on a seazed engine..

You dont get that kind of artifacting with the card on idle.. Hell, I could rip the cooler off of my card and it would do ok on idle and wouldnt artifact like your windows screenshots.
Click to expand...

Im quoting myself because after you do that and get the same effects, I want you to expect a "told you so".
 
lloose said:
Im quoting myself because after you do that and get the same effects, I want you to expect a "told you so".
Click to expand...

How do you know? Are you an expert on these things? If you are I'm happy for you to prove me wrong. Could you then explain why some days are fine, other days are not?
 
Megadeth_Guy01 said:
Wow, you could seriously take the heatsink off your X850Pro at idle and it wouldnt fry eh?
Click to expand...

Well, I take that back.
BUT still, there is no reason (other than no heating solution at all) that your computer would artifact in windows unless the gpu was damaged. With a basic heatsync (no fan), I doubt that the gpu would ever get above 90c. I will see if I can find a 9800 sitting around and test it..

ADDED = BOLD TEXT
 
dont thow out that card just yet!!! i was having the same problem as you are with my 9800pro. after playing around with a lot of different ways to fix the issue, i finally found the problem. it seems that the termal comound dries up after a while and dosnt do a good job at conducting heat like it should. i took off my heatsink and fan, cleaned off all the old compund i could, and applied a fresh coating. installed the card back in and never had artifacts again ! give that a try and let me know how it works for you.
 
I took the gpu off, cleaned it up, and applied new stuff with no result. Looks like I'll have to start looking for a new card :( . Lloose, now that I know you know what you're talking about, it probably is damaged after all.
 
personally i think the iceberq 4 is junk. i had an arctic vga cooler on my aiw 9800pro before, when i had a big desktop and it cooled it just fine. then i bought a shuttle case and needed a smaller fan to fit, so i bought the iceberq 4. two weeks later, i started getting artifacts and overheating on games like CS SOURCE. so i went back to ati stock fan. now it works ok. so i think it was the iceberq 4 that screwed up your car
 
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