Is my graphics card toast?

[AJLintern]

Was playing Far Cry and the graphics suddenly went corrupted. Exited to desktop which would usually cure it, but still weird. Have restarted the pc a few times having left it for 10mins or so but its still not right
This is what it looks like...



Card is an ATi 9800 Pro 128MB - if it doesn't cure itself, what do you think I should replace it with?

[docevi1]

have you tried the obvious in drivers? what about the temperature of the GPU h/s fan? Is it overclocked?

[AJLintern]

No it's not overclocked and the driver was fine before. Just suddenly went corrupt in Far Cry this evening - probably overheated, it's done that before, but always cleared with a reboot. Now it seems like something's fried permanently

[docevi1]

what about if you take the card out and give the cooler a clean? I know my old cooler on my GF4Ti4400 used be a swine for getting clogged up and overheating

[AJLintern]

Well I'll try it tomorrow so it's fully cooled off, but I'm not optimistic...

[ErnestM]

You should have taken the blue pill...


ErnestM

[arcturus]

Last time I saw those symptoms it was the motherboard, not the graphics card. The display would corrupt just like yours as soon as the ATi drivers loaded, which led me to belive it was a card/driver issue at first, but it wasn't. It was the mobo.

[AJLintern]

ErnestM said:

You should have taken the blue pill... ErnestM

Wouldn't have minded if Trinity had appeared though!

arcturus said:

Last time I saw those symptoms it was the motherboard, not the graphics card. The display would corrupt just like yours as soon as the ATi drivers loaded, which led me to belive it was a card/driver issue at first, but it wasn't. It was the mobo.

Oh wonderful!

[neil_cardiff]

I had this exact problem with a Radeon 9700, except with blue lines - no amount of pissing about fixed it (i.e. drivers etc) and I eventually put it down to the fact I wan't giving it enough juice, I only had a 300W PSU, and was hanging every man and his dog off the thing - 2 x writers, 3 x hard drives etc...

You may have a buggered one there - mines sat being a funky looking paperweight at the moment...went back to my old trusty GeForce Ti500

[malman]

Do you get any corruption while at the biso screen during POST? Looks like the GFX card memory is dead but could just be overheating if you don't get it during POST

[AJLintern]

Well it seems ok now - it was a bit weird when I first switched it on, but as soon as XP loaded it was fine... looks like there may be an intermitent fault - I think I'll move the sound card to a different slot as it's right next the the graphics card, probably adding a bit of heat

[ultimasimon]

Looks like bios corruption.

Try going to the makers website and downloading a new bios for the card. Do be careful and follow the instructions.

[scared but happy]

I reconise this its a graphics card DAC or memory fault. unless you are dab hand with SMD and a soldering iron Chuck it. Sorry.

[AJLintern]

Well it's completely stopped outputing anything to the monitor now Was going to try my old Ati Rage Pro, but it's the old format AGP with the slot at the other end I think there was a bug in the later drivers which caused overheating of certain cards - had that a few times before finding an older driver that worked. Maybe the damage was caused then...? Should get Ati to send me a free replacement!

[AJLintern]

Tried my old Geforce2 and that works fine... So which graphics card do you think I should get? Could just get another 9800Pro or is it worth getting an X800?

[AJLintern]

Hmmm, tempting... Connect3D X800 XL - £211

[chris watton]

Its nothing to do with drivers, its the memory thats faulty, this is from the horses mouth

[Rob P]

Quick question, can you get software that tells you the temps of the graphics card etc inside your PC?

[john_p]

Rob P said:

Quick question, can you get software that tells you the temps of the graphics card etc inside your PC?

If ATi then ATitool will do it

[Rob P]

john_p said:

Rob P said: Quick question, can you get software that tells you the temps of the graphics card etc inside your PC? If ATi then ATitool will do it

Thanks