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Update: The saga continues... (my Sapphire 9800)

R

Robor

Elite Member
EDIT: I've got an RMA number but I still haven't sent my Radeon back yet and unless NewEgg works with me I'll have to RMA my card only to get another of the same card. The site says, "**This item is NOT REFUNDABLE, exchange for same exact item only!!**". So now I've got 3 choices. Keep the card and continue troubleshooting - RMA the card and try another one - RMA the card and sell the replacement here or somewhere else (starts with an E and ends in bay).

When it's not locking up the card looks beautiful and I really want to get this thing working but I'm at a loss... I find it hard to belive the card is bad but I'm running a popular motherboard (Asus P4PE) at 100% default speeds under a fresh/patched install of WinXP Pro with updated drivers on everything. Plus this same hardware was stable even at overclocked speeds with my GF4-4200. The only difference is the 4200 is out and the Radeon is in. Several people have suspected voltage/power causing the problem and I'm considering moving my RAID array (it's storage only) to my 2nd system. The problem is the array will not fit in my secondary case so that would require me to totally swap every single part between my primary and secondary cases - a lot of work and not a sure fix.

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If you'd like to see a history... Previous thread

Came home from work tonight and (sigh) another frozen system. This is way beyond getting old. I'm going to RMA this card and see if I can either get my money back and wait or go to a FX5900 now. I know this Radeon might be a bad card and maybe another 9800 would work fine but I don't have the time or patience to risk going through this again. None of the troubleshooting has worked and the simple fact is my GF4-4200 worked perfectly in this system. This is my 2nd very bad experience with ATI (previous was Radeon64) and since my last 2 Nvidia cards have worked flawless from the start I'm going back to them. Calling NewEgg on Monday...

Thanks very much to everyone for all the suggestions and help. 🙂
 
Sorry to hear it. Hope the FX works out for you (a $250 5900 is a decent deal, but pity about the unimproved AA).
 
Robor,Sorry to hear about your problem still not being solved,anyway I understand why you want to go back to Nvidia,you just want a card that`ll work period,at least you tried ATi.

In the end we really only have ATi or Nvidia to choose from and if one doesn`t work you can at least try or go back to the other.
For your information my first ATi card( Sapphire 9700NP )is still working great in my Epox 8KHA+(VIA KT266A) no crashes,freezes or BSOD(without even a reformat).I know that not all users will have excellent stability like I`ve had.

Good luck on your next card.
 
Ouch, that sucks. I was lucky enough to not have any problems with my new ATI hotness...Not a single problem yet 🙂...Kinda odd.
 
Originally posted by: Pete
Sorry to hear it. Hope the FX works out for you (a $250 5900 is a decent deal, but pity about the unimproved AA).
Click to expand...

It's good enough..
 
I'm not too up on P4 mobos, is that one of the new Intel chipsets on that one you have?

The reason I ask is that yesterday I was browing through Rage3D and came across a thread discussing a Infinite Loop problem between ATI vidcards and the latest Intel chipsets. Could(if you are using WinXP and latest Intel chipset) be your problem. I didn't see any solution to it, but a problem like this would be fixed either by ATI, Intel, or a BIOS update if you could wait.
 
I have a 9700 pro that has given me problems from day 1. Now its 6 monthes later and i try thyere online tech support and they send me back a link to web site, like i dont allready know it and checked it. So i sent a few more saying specificaly DO NOT SEND ME A DAMN LINK. they did. So i actually call and have to wait on hold for 30 min before i hung up (PAYING THERE 1.25 A MIN). Never again will i ever consider ATI, allow a friend to consider, or not smash and bash everytime i get a chance. Not only that but there drivers are horrible, there hardware is well known for going bad and there tech support is nonexistent. I hope nvidia drives them into the ground and pisses on there grave.
 
Originally posted by: Talon37
I have a 9700 pro that has given me problems from day 1. Now its 6 monthes later and i try thyere online tech support and they send me back a link to web site, like i dont allready know it and checked it. So i sent a few more saying specificaly DO NOT SEND ME A DAMN LINK. they did. So i actually call and have to wait on hold for 30 min before i hung up (PAYING THERE 1.25 A MIN). Never again will i ever consider ATI, allow a friend to consider, or not smash and bash everytime i get a chance. Not only that but there drivers are horrible, there hardware is well known for going bad and there tech support is nonexistent. I hope nvidia drives them into the ground and pisses on there grave.
Click to expand...

Yeah, calm down Beavis...
 
That sucks Rob... I was a die hard NVidia freak until I had my 8500, then my 9700 Pro

both of which work flawless and are faster than my previous 4200 (even the 8500 seems faster than the 4200 while the 9700 Pro obviously is)
 
Sorry to hear that none of our tips helped fix your system problems. I just bought a Radeon 9600 Pro on Friday and I can't use it or test it out even. My mobo died on me and I am waiting on repair parts now. Hopefully I will continue to have success with ATI cards, specifically with THIS card, your experience has caused me to think about my purchase over the past few days. 🙁
 
Robor, RMA the ATI and get a 5900 (or ultra if you got the jimmy). Nvidia still has the upper hand on driver support. I have yet to read a review where the Nvidia failed to work the first time.
 
I read your thread after I ordered the same card(had me a little worried), to replace my 4200, but I had zero problems and am happy with card.
 
Caanon - Can you give me some info on your system? What motherboard are you using and what power supply do you have? Did you use the Catalyst 3.6 drivers from ATI's site or the ones off the Sapphire CDROM? Did you do anything special (BIOS changes or tweaks to ATI's control panel)?

Thanks! and glad to hear yours is working 🙂
 
Originally posted by: sandorski
I'm not too up on P4 mobos, is that one of the new Intel chipsets on that one you have?

The reason I ask is that yesterday I was browing through Rage3D and came across a thread discussing a Infinite Loop problem between ATI vidcards and the latest Intel chipsets. Could(if you are using WinXP and latest Intel chipset) be your problem. I didn't see any solution to it, but a problem like this would be fixed either by ATI, Intel, or a BIOS update if you could wait.
Click to expand...
My motherboard is an Asus P4PE so it's an Intel 845PE chipset. I am using WinXP Pro but this problem was happening before my reload under Win2000 Pro also.

 
Did you try underclocking the video card? I have seen systems freeze when the core clock was set too high. Good luck with the new card. Peace.
 
I switched from a GF3 Ti200(using 44.03 dets), to a Sapphire Radeon 9800.
Went fine, just uninstalled the nVidia drivers, installed the Catalysts, and I was fine.

I like this card, but I do have to agree with the people who say nVidia still has the upper hand in drivers, ATi's work good enough, ut the ride isn't quite a smooth as nVidias.
Just small things though, so I can live with it 🙂

Sorry to hear about your bad luck.
 
Originally posted by: Robor
Caanon - Can you give me some info on your system? What motherboard are you using and what power supply do you have? Did you use the Catalyst 3.6 drivers from ATI's site or the ones off the Sapphire CDROM? Did you do anything special (BIOS changes or tweaks to ATI's control panel)?

Thanks! and glad to hear yours is working 🙂
Click to expand...

Sorry....just now checked in on this thread again.
System: Xp pro sp1
Sapphire 9800 from newegg/ 3.6 catalyst off ati. O/Ced to 405/340
P4 2.53@2.66
Asus P4B533-E
Antec case, with Antec 430watt power supply
512mb Corsair XMS pc3200 cas 2
Creative audigy(1) gamer.
2x80gb WD in raid0 I think it was...the perf one.
120gb WD HD
DVD+CDrw

I saw info here about turning fast writes off...but it seems to work fine, so they are left on. Going to check bios settings now..but I haven't changed anything there in months.

Edit: nothing unusual in the bios. How I installed:
Unistalled Nividia drivers. (I may have removed from device manager too, or that was automatic, dont remember)
rebooted.
cancelled windows trying to installed nvidia drivers.
Ran driver cleaner....using nvidia from drop down menu or whatever.
shut down.
Put in 9800
Started up, installed 9800 drivers, rebooted
Installed control panel, rebooted.
later: Downloaded "reforce" or whatever program to fix refresh rate XP issue like I had to for 4200 (took me a few days to figure out I needed to do this again)
Issue being: Xp making games run at 60hz refresh.

Benchmarked to check....then turned AA upto 4, and AF upto 16 and started playing games =)
 
later: Downloaded "reforce" or whatever program to fix refresh rate XP issue like I had to for 4200 (took me a few days to figure out I needed to do this again)
Issue being: Xp making games run at 60hz refresh.
Click to expand...



Caanon,you do know you can set the refresh rate for gaming (both OpenGL and D3D) in ATi Control panel,so no 3rd party software is needed.
 
Caanon: Thanks for the info. Your process sounds similar to mine except it didn't work for me and I did a fresh reload this last time.

Mem: I looked around in the ATI control panel and couldn't find the refresh rate settings for games. Can you point me in the right direction?
 
Robor,in displays tab,click on your monitor icon in there and you can set a figure or use setting like "set same as desktop".
 
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