ATI Radeon X1800 Problems

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Powerman2442

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Hello everyone, this is my first post on this forum. I hope the community is friendly.

I am currently borrowing my friend's old PC, and debating on buying it from him. There is only one thing keeping me from buying it. Windows Vista 64-bit is installed and the ATI Radeon X1800 driver (most up to date driver available) keeps having errors. Resulting in glitchy graphics and automatic system reboots and system hangs. From time to time it does recover from the error and I can continue what I was doing until it decides to glitch out a couple minutes later. He said it has always done it and he reboots it and just ignores it.

From what I have found on Google it seems to be a common problem with Vista and my particular graphics card. I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem and found a fix for it, or if I should just get a new graphics card.

The motherboard is an ASUS A8N-Sli SE. The chipset fan that is notorious for failing has failed on it. I removed the fan and fixed it. I am currently waiting for some thermal paste to arrive in the mail. Could this be a problem with an overheating chipset? It only glitches out when I am playing a game like World of Warcraft. In my opinion I was just going to buy two identical NVIDIA graphics card to run in Sli. Since this is an Sli motherboard (not sure why he bought a Sli motherboard and a ATI graphics card).

Which brings me to my next question. If I do decide to buy a new graphics card(s) should I invest it two NVIDIAs or one ATI? Also, what NIVIDIA graphics card would compare (in performance) to my MSI ATI Radeon X1800XT 512 MB?

If anyone has any personal opinions on what I should do… shoot.

Thanks
 
Has your friend overclocked this GPU at all?

If there's a common driver problem with this specific driver for that card, try the unofficial Omega Drivers for the x1800 and see if the problem persists.
 
Has your friend overclocked this GPU at all?

If there's a common driver problem with this specific driver for that card, try the unofficial Omega Drivers for the x1800 and see if the problem persists.

To my knowledge he hasn't been overclocked, but I will ask him and see what he says. It's not so much a common problem with my driver version as I have found people complaining of similar problems with all different driver versions (while using this card with Vista). One post I found on a site said they switched back to Windows XP 64-bit and it works fine. Not sure if that is directly because of a driver problem between Vista and the X1800. I used Windows Update to update the driver for it. Then, reinstalled it after downloading it from the AMD/ATI website. Neither method worked. It doesn't seem to glitch out when just browsing the web, checking e-mail, watching YouTube videos, etc.

Add: Googleing it now, but where do I find these Omege Drivers? Thanks.

Add: Checking out the OmegaDrivers.net (is this correct?) and they have no ATI divers for Windows Vista 32-bit or 64-bit. From what I can see this guy hasen't added new drivers since 2007.
 
Yep, since AMD dropped releasing drivers for the card after 2007, so did the person who made Omega.
 
Yep, since AMD dropped releasing drivers for the card after 2007, so did the person who made Omega.

He has NO ATI Drivers for Vista, period, and a select few NVIDIA for Vista (mostly outdated). Hasn't been updating the site because of medical problems with his wife (according to his most recent post on his site). Any ideas?
 
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