*see picture* Why is this happening to my screen?

[NorthShoreRob]

Click here to see whats happening
Let me tell you what I am running first:

ATI Radeon 9700(non pro) 8xAGP 128MB
Gigabyte GASINXP-1394 Motherboard
1GB Kingston DDR RAM
for more specs look at my rig in my signature below...

I am getting these wierd fuzzy pixels when I am playing 3D games (Unreal Tournament 2K3/Battfield 1942) and even when I tried running a benchmark utility and it happens all the time...after I close out of the game/utility it still resides on my desktop and everything else I do until I reboot. Anyone know what this it?

I RMA'd the card (GoogleGear) and they sent it back saying theres nothing wrong...I called manufacturer (manufacturer) and the tech support said "this is one of our best selling cards, we never heard of any problem like this yet". They also said make sure I installed all the drivers and even the MB drivers or updated the Bios or something like that. Can anyone tell me whats going on and how I can fix it? or do I really have a bad card? I've asked around and i've heard that it could be the following:

• 
  Video Card
  Conflict between the motherboard & video card
  RAM

Anyone?

Thanks in advance,
Rob

 

[Reliant]

Are you overclocking that card?
That looks like corruption that goes with an OC.

 

[KillaBong]

Looks like atrifacts from overclocking, but I doubt thats it. Try the card in another computer and see, or else send it back and yell this time!

 

[Viper96720]

Looks like what happens when you overclock too much? Download rage3dtweak or similar and find out what the clockspeeds are. Should be 275 core 270 memory. It's not a powercolor card is it?
Can you try running the agp at 4X instead of 8x.

 

[NorthShoreRob]

Thanks for the response guys!

Yes, it is a powercolor card and I am not sure if it is overclocked. Can it come overclocked from Powercolor? I will try the tweak program and post back after I do it and I will also try to set it to 4X AGP. Thanks for the reply guys...much appreciated.

~Rob

 

[Jeff7]

Check that the card is pushed in all the way. One time, I got weird distortions because the card wasn't in all the way on one end.

 

[KH85]

it happened to me...

i overclocked my 9700 non pro and i ran 3DMark then i qiut 3D Mark due to artifacts and my screen looked like that so i had to restart

 

[Trevelyan]

My friend had that problem with his Radeon DDR... it was due to bad ram sticks on the card itself. ATI replaced it.

 

[Peter]

Looks like a RAM problem on the card itself. Check the power - is your PSU up to the job of feeding the beast?

 

[zsouthboy]

Originally posted by: Peter
Looks like a RAM problem on the card itself. Check the power - is your PSU up to the job of feeding the beast?

He hit the nail on the head.

I had an old Matrox G400 that did the EXACT same thing.

RMA that POS, tell googlegear to ACTUALLY RUN A GAME with it and then quit, if you just use the windows desktop, there's no problems, duh!

 

[NorthShoreRob]

Okay I did what Viper96720 said to do and I downloaded the Rage3DTweak and brought the settings down a bit just to see if it would work. I dont seem to have the problem anymore after changing the settings of the clock/memory.

The default values were set as follows:
CORE: 324
MEMORY: 297.0


In Rage3DTweak I changed the values to:
CORE: 297
MEMORY: 279

I dont know if this is a good fix..someone on another thread told me to flash bios to stock settings and overclocking it with a tweak tool is a better approach that what I have done above. Only problem is I dont know how to flash the bios...how safe is it? I dont want to screw it up...can someone help me on this? I have an ATI 9700 non-pro and running a Gigabyte GA-SINXP1394 motherboard if it helps to know.

Thank you all for helping out! much appreciated.

~Rob

 

[kylebisme]

don't void the warranty by trying to fix it yourself, at least not like that. first off you should really test it in another setup of you can, as there is a very small possibility that it is your motherboard that you need to rma. however, once you do that and if you still have to underclock it to get it to work then obviously it is the cards fault. at that point point google gear will have been seriously wasting your time and should make an extra effort to make it up to you. i would say call the better business bueruo to get some information on the legal grounds and use that as leverage to press for googlegear to replace the card with a 9800 for your troubles.

 

[Viper96720]

No wonder those clock speeds are way high. Should be 275/270 for a non pro card. The pro versions clocks are 325/310.
www.3dchipset.com has bioses for ati 9700's and the flash utility.

 

[NorthShoreRob]

Viper96720 - Good Idea! I will do that. Btw, is the 96720 an area code? hawaii? just curious...

Thanks!

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: Viper96720
Should be 275/270 for a non pro card.

there is no should be for a non-pro, it depends on the card and obviously Rob's was interned to do 324/297; but i suppose flashing the bios to a slower one will make it work if there is no concern for keeping the warranty.

 

[Viper96720]

Yep Hawaii
Isn't powercolor the only company that came out with an overclocked 9700? That must be what you got since they came out at 325/300. If you can I would return it since it won't run at the speeds they set in bios. Otherwise just clock it down to
the same speed as ati's 9700 or until it works fine. Do you know what the speed rating of the memory on the card is?

 

[Tab]

Have you tried running with a different video card or uses your radeon 9700 on a different computer?

 

[NorthShoreRob]

If I do decide to flash the bios, how would I go about doing this? anyone?

Tabb, no I havent ran it on another computer nor have I ran another VC in this one that I am having trouble with but i'll try it on my P3 800 tonight. Thanks!

Viper, I see what your sayin and it makes sense. I'm gonna have to wait till the beginning of the week to call google gear though. Question though, I sent my VC in right before my 30 day warranty period with Google Gear and they returned it saying it was okay. You think if I return it and tell them to "RUN A 3D GAME" like what someone said above that they may still take it? or you think I will now have to deal with Powercolor?

Thanks for the advice yall!

 

[Viper96720]

I would send it back to power color if googlegear won't take it back. Don't flash the bios or do anything if your returning it. They may think it was your fault the cards faulty.
http://www.power-color.com/html/service.html

 

[NorthShoreRob]

yeah im not gonna touch it....but i'd like to know how flashing the bios is done. Can you tell me whats invovled in doing that viper?

 

[Viper96720]

You'll need the bios file, flash utility, and a dos boot disk. Right click on the floppy drive and select format. Should be an option to make a boot disk. The flash utility has a read me that tells what to do. Put the ati flash files and bios files on a bootable floppy.
When you restart the computer go into the bios and make sure the floppy is the first boot device. You would put in atiflash -f -p -0 biosname.bin (biosname is the name of the file your flashing).