ATI 3870 works when drivers are uninstalled !

[odeon2000]

I would think, like most of you, I have built many computers and I have been reading threads for many years and have fixed many problems from several friends and family. I never thought I would post a problem myself but here I am.

I came home one day to find artifacts on one system. I cant put a casual relationship to why this just happened (I didn't do anything abnormal). I like stable systems, so I don't update drivers unless I need to, etc. The artifacts are little 4 pixels squares. The squares move around when I go between windows but there are so many that I can not work effectively.

I uninstalled the drivers and then installed the original driver, to no avail.

So I did I uninstalled the drivers then installed the latest Drivers and then the hotfix, all to no avail.

Then with Version 8.10, 9.9 and 10.4, I uninstalled the drivers and then installed the each of these drivers. Each time the artifacts go away only when I don't have an ATI driver installed. So now I did the deep dive and edited the registry and removed all instances of "ATI" , I have unstalled all ATI programs and used Norton disk wipe to wipe all instances of "ATI".

My system is stable but I don't really use the graphics card.

Of course, I have contacted ATI/AMD a while ago with no response. Pretty sad.

My next move is to install the card in another system I have.

Has anyone experienced this? Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Intel Core2 Duo E8400 3GZ
4 Gb Ram
Vista Ultimate 32bit
Foxconn Digitalife x38
ATI 3780 512Mb

"Victory has many fathers, while defeat is an orphan."
Winston Churchill

 

[Zstream]

It's over heating or PSU problem, turn the fan on high or clean out your case.

 

[NoQuarter]

I would think, like most of you, I have built many computers and I have been reading threads for many years and have fixed many problems from several friends and family. I never thought I would post a problem myself but here I am.

I came home one day to find artifacts on one system. I cant put a casual relationship to why this just happened (I didn't do anything abnormal). I like stable systems, so I don't update drivers unless I need to, etc. The artifacts are little 4 pixels squares. The squares move around when I go between windows but there are so many that I can not work effectively.

I uninstalled the drivers and then installed the original driver, to no avail.

So I did I uninstalled the drivers then installed the latest Drivers and then the hotfix, all to no avail.

Then with Version 8.10, 9.9 and 10.4, I uninstalled the drivers and then installed the each of these drivers. Each time the artifacts go away only when I don't have an ATI driver installed. So now I did the deep dive and edited the registry and removed all instances of "ATI" , I have unstalled all ATI programs and used Norton disk wipe to wipe all instances of "ATI".

My system is stable but I don't really use the graphics card.

Of course, I have contacted ATI/AMD a while ago with no response. Pretty sad.

My next move is to install the card in another system I have.

Has anyone experienced this? Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Intel Core2 Duo E8400 3GZ
4 Gb Ram
Vista Ultimate 32bit
Foxconn Digitalife x38
ATI 3780 512Mb

"Victory has many fathers, while defeat is an orphan."
Winston Churchill

It's a dying GPU. When you install the drivers it's using GPU acceleration that it doesn't when the drivers aren't installed. It may just be overheating, maybe need the heatsink cleaned or thermal paste reapplied, but likely there's not much you can do.

If you aren't using it for gaming you could try installing the drivers, then using RivaTuner or Radeon Pro to force the clocks down to the lowest it will go and see if that helps. I do that anyway for my parent's PC to save power since I threw a 3850 in theirs for HDMI output but they have no need for the 3D.

Also if you are looking for customer support, you need to contact the manufacturer (Sapphire, Asus, MSI, whoever) rather than ATI/AMD. If you're still under warranty you can get a replacement but given the 3870's age and the fact that XFX is the only vendor that carries a lifetime warranty and they only started with the 5xxx series you're probably out of luck.

 

[odeon2000]

First off, thanks for any help. Perhaps I should have said that I have a Thermatake Toughpower 700W PSU. My systems are always clean. I have an Antec case with an easy to remove side door makes blowing it out easy. I did check the video card and it is clean too.

Hmmm never had a video card go bad. I would like to know if you have seen this behaviour before ? I have never seen this and I have been building and coding since the Apple II .

Thanks again.

 

[Zstream]

First off, thanks for any help. Perhaps I should have said that I have a Thermatake Toughpower 700W PSU. My systems are always clean. I have an Antec case with an easy to remove side door makes blowing it out easy. I did check the video card and it is clean too.

Hmmm never had a video card go bad. I would like to know if you have seen this behaviour before ? I have never seen this and I have been building and coding since the Apple II .

Thanks again.

Can you turn the fan profile on high and see if it still artifacts?

 

[shangshang]

Like NoQuater said, it's a dying GPU.

And yes, I've seen this before, a few times actually. I've seen it happened on the 3870 and before that on the 9700 Pro. My guess is that capacitors on the board are dying.

 

[tedrodai]

I've also seen similar artifacts before, and it was a hardware problem with the graphics card (a 7800GT in my case). The card either overheated which messed up something on the board, or it died for some other reason. It's the only card out of about 6-7 that has gone bad on me over the past 10 years, but it happens sometimes. I RMA'ed with the manufacturer (XFX), because it was under warranty, and they replaced the card for me.

Contact the manufacturer like NoQuarter suggested, but if it is out of warranty, you'll likely end up having to buy a new graphics card for that machine. That is unless by chance the lower-the-clock-settings attempt works and allows you do continue using the machine in the manner you require.