My trip through hell with ATI

[chazzheatherly]

OK - I find a 9500 pro at CompUSA for $105 - returned once, and discounted again because it's discontinued.
Well, I've bought returned stuff before and it ran flawlessly, so I buy it.
Well, about 5 minutes into every Pc game, it hangs - I mean, the whole PC hangs, and I have to power off/on again.
I'm thinking cooling prob. Add case fan on bottom - have an Antec server tower - new fan blows right at card - card still hangs.
Add second, larger fan right on top of Heatsink. Hangs.
Try Catalyst 3.7 drivers. Hangs. Older drivers on CD-rom that came with card. Hangs. New, 3.8 drivers. Hangs.
Well, I noticed on the "fixed in this" notes on the ATI drivers - those things have issues with everything
from UT2K3 to Tiger Woods Golf to Counter Strike. Blank screens, frozen PC's, you name it, you'll find it in their
"support" database, which is not very supportive, it just tells you to download the latest driver and tell them
if you have a problem.
My GF4Ti4200 is back in the case, and working flawlessly.
I have never had a compatability issue with an Nvidia product. My original GeForce died after 1 year, but I substituted my "before that" Nvidia card and it ran fine until I upgraded the dead GeForce.
I'm sticking with Nvidia. My next upgrade will be whatever the hot 256mb version of Nvidia's mid level card is.
Don't consider ATI until you visit that support website and read the problems for yourself. My ATI is going back to the store, and I'm buying whatever Nvidia is selling!
Cheers! Chazz

 

[Corporate Thug]

1. i assume by mid range you mean 5600? if so, 256 is absolutely useless
2. sorry to hear the troubles, is there a possibility that the hardware is bad rather than software?

 

[chazzheatherly]

Quite possible - but shouldn't they have some quality control to catch these probs? This thing made into the
retail channel and into a CompUSA!
Glad your 9800 is good for you.
Cheers, Chazz

 

[BudAshes]

You bought a returned card, the thing is probably busted.

 

[nRollo]

It's probably the card, the guy who originally bought it is probably a "honest" overclocker who damaged it and returned it. You should be happy he used his manufacturers warranty and enabled you to get the card for a good price.

 

[sep]

Sorry to hear your having problems. I'm glad to hear you didn't sell you ti4200 like I did. I had problems getting my card running, 9800 Pro, but after time I got it going. Mine were driver issues. It doesn't sound like this is your problem. However to test, install another instance of XP on your machine with a game that always crashes. Try running this game. If it works then it's driver/os related, if not simply RMA it. The 9500 Pro is a great card and if you get it to work hold on to it.

As for Nvidia and your ti4200, I agree. I never had a problem with mine. No matter what I got messed up it still was ready to rock.

Again, I hope you get this working.
-JC

 

[Schadenfroh]

so the voice was satan

 

[Skibbi]

sounds like a bad card

 

[Tab]

Wait, this is ATi's fault? Okay....

 

[VIAN]

Did you try the 9600 pro?

 

[Pete]

That is an incredible price for a card that's faster than a $150 9600 Pro, so let's figure out how to make it work.

1. What is your power supply rated for? Read both the rated spec and how much combined output (over all three rails) it can offer. All this should be on the sticker affixed to the unit. You may have to crack open your case for this.

2. How did you uninstall your previous card?

3. What does the SmartGART tab in Display Settings tell you? You should aim for AGP 2x or 4x with FastWrites off. Make sure you disable FW in your motherboard's BIOS, too.

4. Do you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard installed? Is Windows fully updated?

5. Why not RMA the card with ATi?

This doesn't sound like ATi's fault at all, though. You bought a used card knowing that it probably wouldn't work. There's a reason it was so cheap, and it isn't because CUSA wants to friends with you.

Where do you live, BTW? I'd love to pick up that 9500P myself if you don't want to give it another try. And I don't recommend paying extra for 256MB for a mid-range card. Only cards $250 and up are fast enough to make use of the extra RAM, IMO. At the midrange pricepoint, look for speed over extra memory (though 128MB should be a minimum).

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: chazzheatherly
Quite possible - but shouldn't they have some quality control to catch these probs? This thing made into the
retail channel and into a CompUSA!
Glad your 9800 is good for you.
Cheers, Chazz

Um, you bought a returned card... it was probably returned for a reason. In a perfect world, we would never have problems with retail items... but this isn't a perfect world, and sometimes, things happen. In your case, you bought a returned item, which should have been a redflag.

 

[chsh1ca]

So lemme get this straight:
1) You buy a returned card that is probably easily $60 cheaper than a new version of the card would be anyway.
2) You play around with it, find out it's unstable.
3) This is somehow ATI's fault, and your 'ordeal' is traumatic enough for you to liken it to a 'trip through hell'?

Please, don't mind my roaring laughter.

 

[tech]

My theory is that the Nvidia drivers are causing the problems with the ATI card. When I upgraded my GF3 to a 9800 I would get all sort of weirdness until I just reformated and installed with just the ATI card. Everything worked fine since then. You should also consider using a driver cleaner to get rid of the nvidia stuff before you install the ATI stuff.

 

[Johnbear007]

Originally posted by: chazzheatherly
OK - I find a 9500 pro at CompUSA for $105 - returned once, and discounted again because it's discontinued.
Well, I've bought returned stuff before and it ran flawlessly, so I buy it.
Well, about 5 minutes into every Pc game, it hangs - I mean, the whole PC hangs, and I have to power off/on again.
I'm thinking cooling prob. Add case fan on bottom - have an Antec server tower - new fan blows right at card - card still hangs.
Add second, larger fan right on top of Heatsink. Hangs.
Try Catalyst 3.7 drivers. Hangs. Older drivers on CD-rom that came with card. Hangs. New, 3.8 drivers. Hangs.
Well, I noticed on the "fixed in this" notes on the ATI drivers - those things have issues with everything
from UT2K3 to Tiger Woods Golf to Counter Strike. Blank screens, frozen PC's, you name it, you'll find it in their
"support" database, which is not very supportive, it just tells you to download the latest driver and tell them
if you have a problem.
My GF4Ti4200 is back in the case, and working flawlessly.
I have never had a compatability issue with an Nvidia product. My original GeForce died after 1 year, but I substituted my "before that" Nvidia card and it ran fine until I upgraded the dead GeForce.
I'm sticking with Nvidia. My next upgrade will be whatever the hot 256mb version of Nvidia's mid level card is.
Don't consider ATI until you visit that support website and read the problems for yourself. My ATI is going back to the store, and I'm buying whatever Nvidia is selling!
Cheers! Chazz

It's kind of stupid to judge the quality of a companies products based on RETURNED merchandise. Obviously you got a defective card, that isn't ATI's fault, its the fualt of whoever broke it an returned it.

 

[Johnbear007]

Originally posted by: tech
My theory is that the Nvidia drivers are causing the problems with the ATI card. When I upgraded my GF3 to a 9800 I would get all sort of weirdness until I just reformated and installed with just the ATI card. Everything worked fine since then. You should also consider using a driver cleaner to get rid of the nvidia stuff before you install the ATI stuff.

Indeed

you should always use driver cleaner first whenever changing cards.

If you dont know what driver cleaner is. Figure it out.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Only nine posts and you've already earned the "Clueless Newbie" stamp. That's some sort of record.

Firstly, you bought a returned card. Would you expect a used, repeatedly discounted car to be perfect?

Secondly, your previous "Voice" thread is totally inconsistent. Runs perfectly with Unreal 2, does it? I thought it crashed 5 minutes into every game.

And thirdly, your machine probably has enough excess and redundant drivers on it to choke a horse. Install ATI on top of older ATI on top of retail ATI driver on top of god knows how many levels of nVidia.

And you wonder why you've got issues.

- M4H

 

[nick1985]

have fun buying a wasteful 256 card

 

[Killrose]

So you buy a "Returned/bargin bin" peice of hardware and then because it does'nt work right complain about the manufacturer?

Sorry, but that is just plain stupid.

 

[Regs]

Im here if you need a hug after that chew out :/

 

[sep]

Originally posted by: Johnbear007

Originally posted by: tech
My theory is that the Nvidia drivers are causing the problems with the ATI card. When I upgraded my GF3 to a 9800 I would get all sort of weirdness until I just reformated and installed with just the ATI card. Everything worked fine since then. You should also consider using a driver cleaner to get rid of the nvidia stuff before you install the ATI stuff.

Indeed

you should always use driver cleaner first whenever changing cards.

If you dont know what driver cleaner is. Figure it out.

NEGATIVE! Ati informed that the driver cleaner is what caused my problems. It removes the DM Category Display Adapter so your new drivers sit in the UKNOWN category.

I disagree. This isn't directed at you, I do think he's got something going on here, but giving someone the only option is to format your PC is not helping. You don't take your car in for service and the tech says "We're going to have to rebuild your engine, because we don't have a clue what the problem is". Now with that said, I don't know what his problem is. I would have to say we gave him enough to try. Get back with us once you've gotten some more answers.

We all were newbies at on time.
-JC

 

[sodcha0s]

Rollo,

Are you capable of ever giving any kind of positive, helpful, and non-sarcastic input? Please try, you are getting very boring.

 

[mikeford]

Change the power cord and format your hard drive and reinstall following all directions.


WAit, wait, I like the HP version even better, return your PC to original factory hardware configuration, then format and reinstall.

 

[chazzheatherly]

OK, here is what I did =
Got Elite Force 2 running fine on the ATI card. But the Borg attacked Enterprise! They had a strange insignia on the side of their cubes. It read:
"Nvidia - the Way It's Meant To Be Played".
I ordered warp drive, but the card stuttered! They were gaining! We installed new drivers for the warp core and defragmented the diliithium matrix. Engage warp!
The warp drive hung!
Acting fast, we re-formatted the ships mainframe and rebooted. On bootup, it said:
Packard Bell 486, 12820K memory good.
We were all assimilated.
Yes, I learned my lesson about shopping out of the bargain bin. And, the ATI probuct did have
superior image quality to my GF4.
But the Nvidia product works. The ATI product did not. Maybe it was fried by the previous owner?
Am not trying to slam ATI, simply saying that I never had a compatibility prob w/ an Nvidea product.
And 7 of 9 is nowhere to be found. I hear she is teaching school? That sucks.
Love to you all, Chazz

 

[Mem]

But the Nvidia product works. The ATI product did not. Maybe it was fried by the previous owner?
Am not trying to slam ATI, simply saying that I never had a compatibility prob w/ an Nvidea product.
And 7 of 9 is nowhere to be found. I hear she is teaching school? That sucks.
Love to you all, Chazz

My trip through heaven with ATi,as a 5 year old Nvidia user I decided to go with the Sapphire 9700NP retail card(being the FX models were very poor price /performance compared to ATi products),I used Driver Cleaner program in safe mode ,first thing was driver cab cleaner(in tools menu of Driver Cleaner) then I use SP1 Cleaner(for XP SP pack1) and last driver cleaner itself to remove any left over Nvidia drivers.

Next stage was shut PC down replace my GF2 Ti with the 9700 and boot her up,XP detected new hardware I hit cancel(twice it came up) then I installed latest ATi drivers at desktop that I already had downloaded and ready for my new card(the single complete download driver package makes it easy).

After reboot all was fine so I adjusted the AA/AF settings ,then the next stage is to test games so I played Q3,UT,Gothic,TFC,CS,DoD,Colin Mcrae Rally 2,Undying,Dungeon Seige,Alpha Centauri 2,Morrowind and few others ,they all passed with flying colours,it`s now about 4 months since I had my 9700NP and have never had any driver/game problems with the card & I`m a happy new ATi owner(FYI I still have the old GF2 Ti in my backup PC).

It`s very easy to blame ATi, I even did that when one of my ram sticks went faulty(very bad timing) sametime as I upgraded to the 3.7 drivers and I thought it was the 3.7s but no it was one of my Crucial ram sticks.