9700 pro woes

[spittledip]

Hi,
'
I got a used 9700 pro a couple of weeks ago. It ran ok at first, but after a week, the monitor would shut off. I assumed it was due to my psu, so I got a new one and it worked ok again.

Last night, after reading something about improving system performance, I disabled write combining. I began playing call of duty to test for improved performance. I noticed little bits of red in a symmetrical pattern - only about 4 little bits. Also, at the same time, I noticed that the color green was getting purplish. I figured it was a heat issue (the card runs extremely hot to the touch), so I stuck another fan in there to blow off some of the heat. I turned the computer back on, everything seemed fine. I loaded up COD and I went into multiplayer, got onto a server, the map loaded, I got past the selection screen, then it froze. Then the screen went black. I restarted, windows was fine, I tried COD again, this time I could not get past the server selection screen.

I looked into bios settings, checked other settings. I uninstalled the dirvers with driver cleaner pro (both ati and nvidia), installed some older drivers, no luck. I found, during this time, that AGP was off under the Smartgart settings. I tried to put AGP back to 4x and even 2x, but every time it rebooted and re-tested, they were still off. Apparently Smartgart decided that the system cannot run use AGP anymore, although the card is still working for 2d apps. I ahven't tried any 2d games, but I guess I could shortly. I forgot to mention that I also tried to play NOLF- that didn't work either.

I don't have another machine with AGP, so I have no way to test the card to make sure the card is at fault.. I do ahve another AGP card, so I will check with that, although it is like some old rage pro or something.

thanks for any help in advance!

edit: forgot to mention that while playing cod i was also seeing blackish lines flash on the screen- they were almost outlines of the scenery and objects in game

 

[spittledip]

ok, I tested another card (that crappy rage pro) and it worked with NOLF, so i am assuming the problem is the 9700 pro and not the actual AGP bus or anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Killrose]

Try reinstalling the motherboard AGP gart chipset drivers. Sometimes you will be offered a choice as to which chipset drivers to install/update, just reinstall the gart driver only if given an option.

Also, the artifacts you are seeing do not sound good. Your 9700 might be on the way out.

 

[spittledip]

I reinstalled chipset drivers but no luck. am in the process of attempting to disable smartgart

 

[spittledip]

Disabling smartgart didn't work.. in dxdiag it tells me that agp textures acceleration is not available. odd.. any more help?

 

[Killrose]

Smartgart has a re-test feature I beleive, give that a try.

 

[spittledip]

I have previously tried the re-test feature to no avail

 

[Killrose]

Obviously you need to try it in another machine before you throw it out. I suppose if you have'nt tried a fresh install of the drivers and CC panel after you had installed the chipset driver, you could try that again. I would get into safe mode and see if there are multiple display devices listed in device manager.
Good luck

 

[BFG10K]

Try setting your system to AGP x2 in the BIOS rather than through SmartGART.

 

[spittledip]

All things tried. No luck. Thanks for suggestions. i am going to putin another hard drive that has xp on it and see how that works

 

[spittledip]

Well, that didn't work. Sandra reports that the AGP bus is not being used or the card is not fully AGP compatible. I am fresh out of ideas. The card works great in 2d, and passes all the direct x tests, and is even able to process some light 3d testing apps. Any ideas? If it was a physical hardware problem, would it be more with somethign other than the actual gpu, or does this sound like a gpu problem?

I appreciate the suggestions so far. I would appreciate continued support.

thanks

 

[Killrose]

I guess you proved the AGP bus/slot to be functional by installing your other card, so it does not look good for the 9700. It just seems to odd that the problem occured with a bios setting change. How many devices show up in device manager while in safe mode?
Should be a 9700 and a 9700 secondary only.

DX test=d3d and COD is a OpenGL app. Will it run 3Dmark2001 or other d3d only apps?

 

[spittledip]

Yes, only primary and secondary appear in safemode. I wonder if the card was just burning out anyway and it just happened coincidentally as the same time that I disabled write combine. Catalyst is showing AGP as off. How is it that 2d works so well and some 3d works well? Is the card using the pci bus instead of the AGP bus due to some hardware failure?

 

[spittledip]

I just tested with 3dmark 2001, and it was unable to do the test at all. It only got to the loading screen after the test configuration screen. GPU recover reported that the card was not responding to commands.

 

[Killrose]

I've had the exact problem you are having before with a 9700 and upgrading/re-installing the chipset drivers followed by installing the Ati driver set always took care of it. I have seen cases of 2d fine/3d screwed up too. If it was a windows 98 machine I would say it was an IRQ problem/hardware conflict. At this point i'd say you have done everything but try the card in another motherboard.

These cards are in the $30-$40 range now used, pay the freight to me and back to you ($10) and i will check it in one of my work comps with a 9700 in it for nothing.

 

[spittledip]

Thanks, but I think it wouldn't make sense to throw away any more money on this card. I might try to find someone here with an AGP mobo that I can test it on. Again, I wonder if it is a problem with the gpu or some other component on the card...

 

[Fricardo]

You said that the card felt very hot to the touch. I'm wondering if the artifacts/crashes that you're seeing are the result of overheating. Try using a program to underclock it (Powerstrip works for this and is free to try). Just don't change the gpu core clock in large increments at a time. That can freeze your system sometimes.

Sorry about the problems. Good luck and let me know how it works out.

 

[spittledip]

I underclocked it and it wokred better, but then it froze again... I got it down to 300 gpu and 290 mem. BTW, the part that is really hot is the metal panel on the back of the card- under where the large capacitors are.

 

[spittledip]

Underclocked it some more and it worked even better, lasting a good ten minutes before freezing up. I am gonna put on a different hsf to see how that improves things

 

[Killrose]

There are a lot of people selling 9700 non-pro cards as pro's which have been bios flashed with pro bios files. Does the card say 9700 or 9700pro on the white sticker that has serial number/part number info on it?

Though even if it was bios flashed, it should still be recognised by Ati Smartgart as an AGP8x card. But that would explain the lock-ups and artifacts. 9700 non-pro is clocked 275/270

 

[spittledip]

It says 9700 pro on the sticker. I tried to flash the bios last night to see if that would help.. it actually didn't work this morning so I flashed it back lol. I clokced it down as far as it could go but it is still freezes.

 

[spittledip]

Hm.. I think I found the problem. I was comparing the core to pictures on the net, and mine seems to be missing an SMT capacitor or resistor (not sure which. I am hoping I can get a junk r300 so I can maybe fix it..