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I've tried almost everything...

whattaguy

Senior member
I got a refurbished Sapphire 9800pro Ultimate last Monday, and haven't got it to run properly yet. After all your suggestions of uninstalling drivers, reinstalling drivers, running driver cleaner, updating bios, etc, I am still not able to get this card to run smoothly. It's still choppy in games...even counterstrike. I have no qualms about returning it, but I want to make sure it's the card and not me.

P4T533-c mobo
P4 2.4b @ 2.66
1 gig rdram pc800
bios revision 1010

ugh, i want this to be over!
 
is the power cable on the card pluged into the power supply? I believe the radeon 9800 has its own cord. Also , check to make sure all the ram is good, and card is getting decent cooling. I'm pretty sure the card downclocks itself when the temperature sensor on the breadboard detects a certain threshold.
 
Originally posted by: whattaguy1
I got a refurbished Sapphire 9800pro Ultimate last Monday, and haven't got it to run properly yet. After all your suggestions of uninstalling drivers, reinstalling drivers, running driver cleaner, updating bios, etc, I am still not able to get this card to run smoothly. It's still choppy in games...even counterstrike. I have no qualms about returning it, but I want to make sure it's the card and not me.

P4T533-c mobo
P4 2.4b @ 2.66
1 gig rdram pc800
bios revision 1010

ugh, i want this to be over!

I should probably give the other specs

2 160gig 8mb HDDs
1 40gig 2mb HDD
1 60gig 2mb HDD
IDE controller card
3 sound cards
1 DVD rom
1 CDRW
1 floppy
1 Thermaltake Purepower 480W

Does that make any difference?
 
Originally posted by: ed21x
is the power cable on the card pluged into the power supply? I believe the radeon 9800 has its own cord. Also , check to make sure all the ram is good, and card is getting decent cooling. I'm pretty sure the card downclocks itself when the temperature sensor on the breadboard detects a certain threshold.

Everything was fine with my GeForce3 Ti200. Other than the 9800pro, my system's stable.
 
RMA it....that's the problem with refurbs I believe...it was sent back due to a reason...try downloading 3dMark and when you get the next one test it with that and see if the 3d works well...good luck
 
3 sound cards??? Why? ... anyhoo, 480 watts should be enough power. But try disconnecting some stuff just to test it out. Is it getting enough air flow? I mean with all those pci full you want the one by it empty for air flow. So its just choppy in playing games? Maybe that slow pc800 ram? but i dunno. Never tried a r9800p in anything without ddr pc3200 or greater.

Just some ideas that come to mind, but im no expert.
 
well, 3dmark03 it ran "fine" yesterday (~5200). But today, after all the driver cleaner stuff, it doesn't work anymore. I think I will rma it. Thanks.
 
Originally posted by: blazerazor
3 sound cards??? Why? ... anyhoo, 480 watts should be enough power. But try disconnecting some stuff just to test it out. Is it getting enough air flow? I mean with all those pci full you want the one by it empty for air flow. So its just choppy in playing games? Maybe that slow pc800 ram? but i dunno. Never tried a r9800p in anything without ddr pc3200 or greater.

Just some ideas that come to mind, but im no expert.

My computer's also a home studio. I have 1 sound blaster to run games and everyday listening, and my other 2 cards are Aardvark Direct Pro 2496's pro recording cards giving me 4 ins/4 outs on each. I have 8 total inputs with pre-amps and phantom pwer to record a band or whatnot. The sound quality is excellent on those cards.
 
Looks like it's the card...if you boot into windows and do normal windows task it's running ok right? But when playing games that's when you get the glitches and artifacts? That would probably be the card having hardware problems. RMA it and good luck....if you don't get a good card on the 2nd or 3rd RMA then maybe a refund would be good and buy a new card instead.
 
Originally posted by: 3LEMENT0
Looks like it's the card...if you boot into windows and do normal windows task it's running ok right? But when playing games that's when you get the glitches and artifacts? That would probably be the card having hardware problems. RMA it and good luck....if you don't get a good card on the 2nd or 3rd RMA then maybe a refund would be good and buy a new card instead.

Thanks. I think I'll do that...since newegg only has 14 days on refurbs.
 
Originally posted by: whattaguy1
well, 3dmark03 it ran "fine" yesterday (~5200). But today, after all the driver cleaner stuff, it doesn't work anymore. I think I will rma it. Thanks.

Makes it sound like software to me. Chipset drivers? DX9b installed properly? OS service packs up to date? Crash to desktop, or choppy in games? OpenGL and DX games?
 
Originally posted by: rbV5
Originally posted by: whattaguy1
well, 3dmark03 it ran "fine" yesterday (~5200). But today, after all the driver cleaner stuff, it doesn't work anymore. I think I will rma it. Thanks.

Makes it sound like software to me. Chipset drivers? DX9b installed properly? OS service packs up to date? Crash to desktop, or choppy in games? OpenGL and DX games?

Well, I just flashed my bios, and all my service packs have been up to date.DX9 was installed as I updated from my most recent reformat (about a month ago). Once in a while, the wndows desktop gets squiggly, but the flaws are seen mostly in games. I just ran 3dmark2001 and got 10848 which I don't believe is too impressive.

I guess I'll try a reformat this weekend.

Thanks.
 
Originally posted by: whattaguy1
Originally posted by: rbV5
Originally posted by: whattaguy1
well, 3dmark03 it ran "fine" yesterday (~5200). But today, after all the driver cleaner stuff, it doesn't work anymore. I think I will rma it. Thanks.

Makes it sound like software to me. Chipset drivers? DX9b installed properly? OS service packs up to date? Crash to desktop, or choppy in games? OpenGL and DX games?

Well, I just flashed my bios, and all my service packs have been up to date.DX9 was installed as I updated from my most recent reformat (about a month ago). Once in a while, the wndows desktop gets squiggly, but the flaws are seen mostly in games. I just ran 3dmark2001 and got 10848 which I don't believe is too impressive.

I guess I'll try a reformat this weekend.

Thanks.
Try a "mini-reformat".

i do to test HW. Set up a new PARTITION and install only the OS, chipset drivers. and VGA related drivers and software. If your card is still bad, then rma it 😉

Let us know the results . . . 11k is way low for a 3dMark01. g'luck
 
Thanks. I originally didn't want to reformat to save time. Yeah right! I guess that would be the quickest way to find out now. I'll do a reformat this weekend and rma it Monday if need be.

Anyone know how newegg handles exchanges for refurbs? Can I just say to them, "Can I just exchange this defective card for a new one without the 15% restocking fee?" Of course I'll pay the price difference. I don't want to go through this again if the card's bad.

Thanks again.
 
I still haven;t seen where you checked the chipset drivers to update them to the latest. The EXACT same thing happened to me. My 9800 Ultimate was getting about 5200. I checked the gart setting, and NO AGP was working. I updated the chipset drivers, and on re-boot, it automatically fixed the AGP problem, and BAM, 5950 !
 
Originally posted by: Markfw900
I still haven;t seen where you checked the chipset drivers to update them to the latest. The EXACT same thing happened to me. My 9800 Ultimate was getting about 5200. I checked the gart setting, and NO AGP was working. I updated the chipset drivers, and on re-boot, it automatically fixed the AGP problem, and BAM, 5950 !

Sorry to ask another noob question...I downloaded the latest chipset drivers, but there is no readme file for instructions on how to update the chipset. Anyone care to help me out? Thanks.
 
I haven't done an Intel setup for years, so I can't tell you, but for nvidia and VIA, you download the file, and run the exe. It installs itself. Maybe the Intel is the same way ?
 
Originally posted by: Markfw900
I haven't done an Intel setup for years, so I can't tell you, but for nvidia and VIA, you download the file, and run the exe. It installs itself. Maybe the Intel is the same way ?

Well, it was as obvious as night and day. On Asus' wesite, they also have an installation utility for the newest chipset. I'll try it when I get home.
 
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