9800/9700/9500 series "Cold Boot" problem fixed.

[Killrose]

I fixed my cold boot problem. The regulating transistor marked "U91" on the PCB did not have solder on one leg. There are a total of four of these marked: U89, U90, U91 and U92 on the edge of the PCB on the side oposite the GPU and located along the outside edge of the PCB near their corrsponding MEM chip.


This fixed my "Cold boot corruption" problem with a 9500np "L" shapped 256bit MEM configuration. So it should work on other models with the same config/prob.

 

[apoppin]

is this a "known" problem?

what were the symptoms?

 

[Killrose]

Originally posted by: apoppin
is this a "known" problem?

what were the symptoms?

This issue has plagued lots of users. The symptoms were: Screen corruption on cold boot, and when the machine was restarted with a restart or reset, would be just fine. But once it was powered down, then started, even on a "warm" machine, the problem would manefest itself.

 

[apoppin]

Thanks . . . i was curious.

i had a radeon 8500 that seemed to be the problem - on a cold boot the computer would start up and then just die . . . a 2nd try would usually work . . . i thought it might have also been ps related.\

i just found the other thread . . . can be HW or soft- related.

 

[Killrose]

i'm sure there are a multiple of thing that could cause this problem. There was evidence of a solder repair on one other transister leg, so I think it was done durring QC/fault correction. They just did'nt get them all I guess.

 

[NicColt]

I had the same problem, but I took the card out blasted it with bottled air and it fixes it for about two months until the card gets dusty again. It seems (for me anyway) that as soon as micro dust goes on the circuits it causes the problem. I just repeated the procedure two weeks ago and everything's fine now.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Killrose

Originally posted by: apoppin
is this a "known" problem?

what were the symptoms?

This issue has plagued lots of users. The symptoms were: Screen corruption on cold boot, and when the machine was restarted with a restart or reset, would be just fine. But once it was powered down, then started, even on a "warm" machine, the problem would manefest itself.

Hmm. This is*very* interesting. I'll have to take a closer look at my card. I've also been having problems, with occasional cold-boot problems/corruption/hangs, with my newly-installed FIC Radeon 9200 (non-SE) 64MB AGP 8x card that I got a couple of months ago from a Hot Deals thread. I had been wondering if it had anything to do with the supposed issues with AGP 8x support on my KT400 chipset. (MSI KT4V-L mobo)

I don't really see how a poorly-soldered connection would cause that problem though.

When it happens on my machine, I have to hold down the power button to turn the machine off.