my 9800xt busted??

[FoxyLoxy]

ok I swear from the time i got it to now this thing has never worked very well, I get VPU recover and restarts quite often. Its happening right now while my comp is just sittin here it freezes and restarts- this was the last error I got and am now wondering is it just my graphics card thats bad or something? I try to play HL2 and it quits on me, I barely play games anymore, probably every third time i start it it makes wierd lines and i have to turn the monitor on and off, when i started it today-(similar to other occasions) I had to turn off the monitor and back on because it wasnt recieving any signal or something. Driver issues? (tried many, now have cat 4.12), heat issues only? graphics card itself?

this is the most recent error i got today if its any clue- .... for some reason the image isnt posting right I'll fix it later.

 

[beedubaya]

Before I would blame your card, I might check out the PSU. It could be that your card is getting bad or not enough juice. If its not that, then you might indeed have a faulty card. Although i was having this problem and I thought it was my card. So i took my card out to look at it and when I reseated it everything was working fine again.

 

[FoxyLoxy]

I just bought a brand new PSU- an Antec 430W Truepower. I think I've reseated it since I installed it but I'll try that again.

 

[FoxyLoxy]

Ok I know this is a realllly old thread, but I recently started playing HL2 again and it still happens. As I said I have a new Antec supply and I know thats not it, While I dont get the same instability errors as before, the thing runs fine while just sitting there but when I play games like UT2K4 it just freckin craps out on me and VPU recover comes up sometimes but recently its just been restarting or freezing and nothing else. Its totally pissin me off, I bought this damn card for 400$ just so I could play HL2 and It wont freckin do it! Anything Anybody? Or do I indeed have a bad card, (I bought it brand new). Damn I'm pissed, I probly restarted like 10 times today in only like 2 hrs of gameplay. For some reason I cant believe its a bad card, It sure seems like it but I paid a lot so I figured it wouldnt be that.. Anyway.

I'm even playing in a paltry 1024 x 768 For gods sake!

 

[Dark_Sniper*]

Well BF2 is very needy from the vga card and ram so it maybe your ram i think everyone is saying that 2Gb will do the best with it. 1Gb will lag and your vga card mit be a little underpower for BF2.

 

[gaara]

Download and run memtest for a couple of hours. Source engine is very CPU dependent and will be accessing your RAM often

It may also be chipset drivers or a bios configuration fault, make sure your AGP aperture is set properly as well

 

[Shumway]

It may also be chipset drivers.

Driver's was the first thing i was going to say,I was running into the same with the VPU Recovery crap and couldn't figure it out at first,I had to try just about every diver known to man before i got a good one that worked

 

[FoxyLoxy]

Ok, I dont know if BF2 is Battelfield 2 or what you are talkin about but I mostly just play Half Life 2. Anyway, I have tried every Catalyst driver that came out since I got it, and Have always had problems, I am going to try Omega drivers now. I do only have 512mb of pc3200 Corsair VS ram so is that potentially the problem?

As far as chipset drivers do you mean I should flash my bios for upgrading or what am i doing there? And I dont know what agp aperture is. THanks for the help sp far!

 

[hu_xu]

Weird lines? Is it artifacting? If so maybe the GPU's memory is bad. In that case, RMA it if you're still under warranty.

Did you also make sure that it wasn't a heating issue. Overheating will cause random freezes and restarts. The 9800XT is an ultimate power hog and heat producer. A X800XT uses less power than a 9800XT and all that power = heat.

Worst is (I don't know about 9800XT but I have a AIW 9800 Pro), ATI didn't include a thermal sensor on that GPU. Am I right? So you can't tell if the GPU is overheating or not.

If you have exhausted all your options or am just exhausted from frustration RMA the card. Maybe it was a bad card from the start. Just because you paid a lot for it doesn't mean it's not broken.

Also, I doubt it's your RAM although running memtest is a good suggestion. Although Source is very CPU and RAM dependent you mentioned that your GPU craps out on other games too. It could be a driver conflict (did you uninstall and reinstall properly?) but I have never seen a driver cause conflicts in every game I play.

 

[FoxyLoxy]

Well it hasnt done the wierd line thing in awhile, so I dont know where that leads my thinking. It is a power hog and very hot, it has the temp in the overdrive feature in catalyst, but It says around 72c most the time, which is pretty hot I think but thats what it always is. I hooked up this venting fan thing i bought from Home Depot and stuck it in the window piping in Minnesota winter air and my temps dropped like a rock but I dont remember If I really played any games at that time. Yea, Just tryin to figure out everything before I send it in, and then they say its fine.. or I have to wait forever for nothin. Never RMA's anything before so. THanks for the help!