Radeon X800 XT Issues....

[The_Rogue_Ninja]

I have an ATI Radeon X800 XT graphics card that ran beautifully when I first installed it, but now I am having problems.

I must sheepishly admit that when I first received the card in the mail, I over enthusiastically ripped out my old ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (without uninstalling the driver), replaced it with the X800 XT, and powered my PC back on. Needless to say, I encountered video errors. So after much research, and some self-served dope slaps, I just reformatted and reinstalled Windows XP.

My main problem occurred while installing the graphics display driver. As I inserted the software disk that came with my card, a Windows warning popped up on my screen telling me that the software I was about to install was not "Windows XP Logo Certified" and that I should contact my hardware manufacturer about obtaining different software. The warning went on to state that continuing with the installation might cause my system to become unstable.

Well, to make a long story short, I went on with the install and soon noticed a bunch of weird, flashing pixels on certain parts of the screen. During gameplay, the pixels encompass the entire display. Also, the graphics card is not running well, and my computer has become somewhat unstable. I decided to uninstall the display driver and the flashing pixels went away. My system is still unstable (it will not boot up on many occasions, as if the BIOS is not working properly, and I have to power it off and on multiple times to get it running).

I am at my wit's end with this, and have tried many things to remedy my PC, but nothing seems to work. I'm worried that my graphics card may be faulty. I did purchase it off of Ebay (it was from a good seller; new card), and the software disk that came with the hardware unprofessionally appears to have been put on a CD-R.

Any help offered will be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

The_Rogue_Ninja

 

[MindoverMaster]

Get the latest drivers from ATI. Use driver sweeper to get rid of the old drivers

 

[The_Rogue_Ninja]

Thanks, MindoverMaster. I'll get driver sweeper to get rid of the drivers I have now.

The thing that I don't understand is: Everytime I install the ATI drivers, I keep getting that windows warning "not Windows Logo tested" then the pixel artifacts appear on-screen. It frustrates me to no end, and I want to know what is causing it. I don't care if my card is damaged, I just want to know! I have been struggling with this problem for a long time and I'm beginning to think that it will never be resolved.

Thanks again for your help, MindoverMaster. If you have any other ideas to share, please feel free to express them. They will be greatly appreciated.

The_Rogue_Ninja

 

[MindoverMaster]

That probably means it wasn't verified by Microsoft. I just ignore that as long as it works.

Thanks for the gratitude. Call me MoM, it's shorter

 

[The_Rogue_Ninja]

I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. I will try running a Sandra benchmark test on my system to see which things are lacking.

Do you think that will help an any way, MoM?

 

[The_Rogue_Ninja]

I just ran an Analysis & Advice Test on my system, and a few interesting things popped up. It told me that my "video BIOS is too old" and to check for an update. I also received multiple tips regarding my non-windows certified video drivers. I'm looking in to these, and many other system optimization tips that I was given.

This is really interesting. When I ran a general scan on my system performance, the video and graphics rendering sections failed in the test. It said that the video drivers may be outdated, but I just uninstalled and reinstalled (using the latest software from ATI's website) all of my video drivers this afternoon.

There is something very wrong with my system, and it's not something a simple reformat/reinstall of the OS will fix (because I've done it many times with this computer). I think this problem is definitely hardware related, but there are also some problems with my software.

Here are my system specs if this will help in identifying solutions:

Dell Dimension 8300
OS: windows XP Pro 64-bit
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.00GHz
HDD: Maxtor 6Y120M0 120GB
Memory: 2.50 GB DDR SDRAM 400 MHz
Graphics card: ATI Radeon X800 XT 256MB GDDR3 RAM
PSU: 305W

 

[MindoverMaster]

It may be that ATI does not have a dedicated 64-bit driver for that card.

I would look into getting a new graphics card...

 

[The_Rogue_Ninja]

Do you have any recommendations on a good, relatively inexpensive ($100-200) card. I've been researching the ATI HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 by Sapphire, and it looks pretty good at only $170. What's your take on that card for that price? Or is there a better deal?

 

[MindoverMaster]

I'm not well versed in the ATI side, but that does look fine to me.

 

[philbar71]

Do you have any recommendations on a good, relatively inexpensive ($100-200) card. I've been researching the ATI HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 by Sapphire, and it looks pretty good at only $170. What's your take on that card for that price? Or is there a better deal?

HD 5770. Or if you want to wait a bit longer for the HD 5830 to come out, it should be in your price range.

On the nvidia side, I recommend holding out till nvidia releases their DX 11 cards in about a week. IF you cant hold out then a GTX 260 core 216 would be a good choice and is very similar in performance to the HD 5770 and HD 4870, but they are a tad more expensive at the moment.