Display corruption problem - please help!!!

[alteredNate]

First some brief history...

I built a computer a few months ago with these specs:

A64 Newcastle 3400+ (754)
XP-120 + panaflo L1A
DFI Lanparty UT 250GB
Powercolor X800Pro VIVO
Samsung value 512MB PC3200
Seagate 160GB SATA
Lian-Li V1000
Antec Neopower
Samsung 243T

Everything was fine and dandy, no problems, crashes, or any weirdness at all. I was in fact surprised to have it run so well from the first power-up. The first thing I did of course was mod the bios of the vid card to a X800XT-PE and slap on a ATI Silencer. It runs just fine, and I only managed to crash the computer while gaming with that thing overclocked a little too far. But I found the sweet spot and no more problems.

Well, in January I bought a Seagate 200GB SATA and 2GB of OCZ PC3200. After installing them, things were still great... memtest had no problems and the drive seemed fine. I transfered a bunch of data to the drive, and that's when things started going downhill. The computer started locking up when I would access the data, and after running tests on the drive, I found more than 1000 bad sectors (I've already RMA'd it and the replacement should be here next week). I have dealt with bad sectors before but never on a brand new drive.

However, after a few seriously weird lock-ups, where I had to force hardware shutdown, my display started corrupting itself sometimes. (XP also set the drive modes to PIO because of "multiple critical errors accessing the drive.") Have a look at these pictures I took of the screen:

rather light corruption : Photo 1
much worse corruption : Photo 2

Sometimes it's worse than that too...

Well, I'm sure that this error only ever orrured AFTER the weird lock-ups. I have tried 4 different ATI drivers, always performing a full driver clean between each one. The corruption happens pretty randomly, and usually from power-on until I reboot (warm-boot nearly always fixes the problem). However I found sometimes when windows would boot normally that starting ATI Tool 0.0.22 would cause it to happen immediately (not the newer 0.0.23 however...) Now, I would assume that the corruption could be with windows XP itself... but...

:|:|:|:|:|

This has happened to the power-on bios screen more than once, and on cold and warm boots! And when it corrupts itself, I can go into bios and it's still corrupted! This scares the CRAP out of me, because that would lead me to believe that it's an ingrained hardware problem, outside of any OS-related problem.

The strange thing is when the screen is corrupted, the computer behaves completely normally, as if it's not aware that there is a problem. I can access everything, even run tests (if I can read well enough to access them...), and even start games (however the 3D is so corrupted it's like I took some bad psychedelics...)

If anyone has any experience with this sort of thing and could shed some light on it, or knows of some better diagnostic tests than memtest and superpi and prime95, I'd be VERY grateful. I'm waiting for the replacement hard drive to do a clean install (once I verify that it's OK this time of course...!)

Thanks!

 

[alteredNate]

I just had a sinking feeling that maybe it's one of the 4 pipes that are unlocked on the card that aren't supposed to be... and it's just a coincidence that it started to act up now?

Please help me!

 

[alteredNate]

*ahem* buler?

 

[alteredNate]

Please help? Someone?

 

[HeaterCore]

I had the exact same corruption problems on my old Ti4600. Tried a little of this, tried a little of that, and after the damn thing started smoking I popped off the HSF to find it was clogged with dryer lint and had been for months. Killed itself with the heat.

Your card is new, and if you attached the Silencer correctly heat shouldn't be a problem. I'm guessing it's the unlocked pipes giving you the same problem.

-HC-

 

[Patrick Wolf]

When I "tried" to overclock my X800XT PE, I had this problem, with ATI Tool and Powerstrip, so I said f*ck it, and got rid of them both.

 

[bob4432]

"The first thing I did of course was mod the bios of the vid card to a X800XT-PE..."

that is the problem

 

[Bozo Galora]

lets eee-
you flashed to a modded bios
you overclocked it
you put on an aftermarket passive heatsink

 

[HeaterCore]

The ATi Silencer isn't passive, and -- again, if attached correctly -- provides much better cooling than the stock solution.

-HC-

 

[alteredNate]

Hmm. Well thanks for the input. I just find it strange that this started happening immediately after the hard drive problem... and the fact that I had no problems with the card before (and I haven't touched the clock speeds or bios since). Plus, with the number of people I've talked to that have successfully done this mod with no problems...

And how would changing the heatsink / fan hurt it? I have idle temps of 30 deg C, and it's a whole HELL of alot quieter.

Anyway, for the moment it hasn't acted up in over a week. I may try putting back the bios to the original if it keeps acting up.

Or, maybe I'll just scrap this system and go for a nForce4, which is what I wanted originally, but couldn't wait...

Thanks again for the input.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: bob4432
"The first thing I did of course was mod the bios of the vid card to a X800XT-PE..."

that is the problem

yeah, clicked on the thread and I knew this was going to be part of the OP.

Can it be flashed back to work the way it was supposed to work? Otherwise you can just pretend your screen is filled with modern art I suppose.

 

[JPMNICK]

How close is this computer to your heat? Now that it is the winter, most people assume that they are OK cause it is cold outside. but if they case is next to baseboard heat, that may have been the problem.

 

[alteredNate]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: bob4432
"The first thing I did of course was mod the bios of the vid card to a X800XT-PE..."

that is the problem

yeah, clicked on the thread and I knew this was going to be part of the OP.

Can it be flashed back to work the way it was supposed to work? Otherwise you can just pretend your screen is filled with modern art I suppose.

Why did you "know" it was going to be in my original post? Is this the type of thing that only happens with modded cards? Or is there any possibility that it's because of something else?

And yes, it can be flashed back, I'm going to wait until I do a clean install after I recieve the new drive - if the problem happens after that then I'll flash it back. If it happens again, then I'll RMA the card (assuming they'll take it back...).

 

[alteredNate]

Originally posted by: JPMNICK
How close is this computer to your heat? Now that it is the winter, most people assume that they are OK cause it is cold outside. but if they case is next to baseboard heat, that may have been the problem.

It's far enough from the heat, however that's interesting you mention that. We keep a cool apartment in the winter, and also I monitor the heat quite often until I learn to trust that it's really not going to overheat on me (it's still "relatively" new to me).

I'm starting to have other sorts of weird problems now... corrupted files, random program errors that I have NEVER experienced before. It makes me a bit nervous because I'm really starting to think that the system took some kind of hardware damage when my drive siezed it up, and tracking that down could be a long and painful process.

 

[Googer]

I have seen this before your problem is the video card

The first thing I did of course was mod the bios of the vid card to a X800XT-PE

It is very obvious.

 

[mauiblue]

modding a video card=taking a chance and asking for trouble.

I flashed a video card once and it was fine - I was fortunate. Some though just aren't fortuanate and pay the price. Live and learn.

 

[alteredNate]

OK Well I guess I'm the idiot then.

 

[Bozo Galora]

at the very least shouldnt you be runing the seagate drive test utility??
the drivers for your card are on the hdd after all

and a memtest 86 run just for good measure - cant hurt

 

[dds14u]

Try clocking back to original?

 

[Nocturnal]

Vid card is dead.

 

[alteredNate]

Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
at the very least shouldnt you be runing the seagate drive test utility??
the drivers for your card are on the hdd after all

and a memtest 86 run just for good measure - cant hurt

I've run it several times. There are no errors on the original drive. But I'm sure there are some corrupt files.

 

[alteredNate]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
Vid card is dead.

Maybe. It's just strange that I can game for hours with no problems at all. I've got settings maxed out in doom 3 and NFSU2 and it runs like a champ.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: alteredNate
Why did you "know" it was going to be in my original post? Is this the type of thing that only happens with modded cards? Or is there any possibility that it's because of something else?

And yes, it can be flashed back, I'm going to wait until I do a clean install after I recieve the new drive - if the problem happens after that then I'll flash it back. If it happens again, then I'll RMA the card (assuming they'll take it back...).

Very occasionally you will see thiis sort of corruption on a card if there is something wrong with the cooling, or sometimes a driver issue. But most of the time, especially on here, it's someone who has been unlucky when they modded their card.

Given that you put on a better cooling system, that seems unlikely to be the culprit.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: alteredNate

Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
at the very least shouldnt you be runing the seagate drive test utility??
the drivers for your card are on the hdd after all

and a memtest 86 run just for good measure - cant hurt

I've run it several times. There are no errors on the original drive. But I'm sure there are some corrupt files.

I highly doubt it is the HDD, in my eyes that is shotty trouble shooting.

 

[Bozo Galora]

Its not up to you to rate whether advice given is "shotty troubleshooting" - thats up to poster.
If you just want to insult and have nothing to contribute, then why dont you just stifle your nasty self.
I've noticed you kinda being snotty to me and others.
I have also checked out some of your posts and they dont seem to be of world class help either.