Radeon 9800XT Breakdown

[Hudson]

2 days after i get my 9800XT it burns out. I turn on my comp tuesday morning, and when i come home from school 7 or so hours later, i have funny looking dots everywhere on my screen, in all games, and a few in windows and stuff like msn messenger. ive tried everything I can think of, so ive been asking around, and the message im getting is that one of the memory thingys probably blew. also the card was running extremley hot, i ran through 3Dmark03 with it (complete with beautiful green dots everywhere) and it was up at 70C (or so the ATI control panel tells me).
Im sending it back fairly soon, so I can get a new one, but before I do, i thought id get the opinion of my favorite community on the matter, attatched is a screen capture from Halo of the kind of dots I was getting.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

yikes, yeah something is definately wrong there.
however if you havent already I suggest you delve into the well of knowledge that is www.rage3d.com forums. ( http://www.rage3d.com/board/index.php )

 

[oD1Nz]

Did you have OverDrive enabled?

 

[Hudson]

Negative, factory clock speeds.

 

[RandomPING]

I had that happen after a few min of playing the half life 2 leak. Half the textures would get those little red dots after about 10 min. Though Deus Ex 2, which is just as much a load on the graphics card, never had that. The textures would "tear" a little after about an hour of play, but the game was also poorly made, so attributed it to that.

I have a 9800 Pro AIW. If you find your answer definately post it here, i'm currious what it is.

 

[Merc248]

What driver build do you have?

Supposedly the 3.8 Catalyst drivers gave a lot of people overheating problems (I'm guessing its because of the Overdrive feature).

 

[Hudson]

I was using cat 3.10 at the time the problem started, and once again, overdrive was not enabeled.

 

[Top Secret]

You mean 4.10 right?

And I'm 99.9999999999999999999999999% sure your computer is overheating. Get some more fans.

 

[Washuu]

once u get fans, if that doesnt work, nor underclocking... the card is damaged, then u can RMA!

 

[RABIES]

Don't waste your time with trying to get it working, get the fans and the new card at the same time, if anything try to extend the life of your card with a new video card brick cooler from like zalman or something.

I had this happen to me once, I think one of the solds had broken loose on a chip and it was giving me green bars and pink dots. I could move the card and the bars would change and rotate....I was like...woah....cool. RETURN! Weeeee....new card!

 

[RandomPING]

So how do you return the card if you bought it a few months ago? Do i call up ATI?

 

[Hudson]

You mean 4.10 right?

And I'm 99.9999999999999999999999999% sure your computer is overheating. Get some more fans.

Ill make sure to take advice from a person who cant even get his driver versions strait and supplys absolutley no explanation, but encourages me to spend cash!

Good game.


and yeah, to the people who arent idiots and tried to help me, thank you, im going to RMA asap

 

[Maxi]

So how do you return the card if you bought it a few months ago? Do i call up ATI?

Warranty from the shop he bought it from i guess?

 

[Jackal hit]

Ill make sure to take advice from a person who cant even get his driver versions strait and supplys absolutley no explanation, but encourages me to spend cash!

Good game.


and yeah, to the people who arent idiots and tried to help me, thank you, im going to RMA asap

wait wait wait.. you're either using catalyst 4.1 or 3.8 or 3.9 ... most DEFINITELY NOT 3.1...unless you for some reason decided "yeah i think catalyst 3.1 rules, it's old but i don't care." radeon xt ships with 3.8(at least the first batch of them had that). 3.9 was released ... a month ago? and 4.1 was a couple weeks.

 

[Hudson]

ATI CATALYST 3.10, 12/17/03

not 3.1, 3.10

 

[Bastion]

did you try and pull the card and reseat it yet man?

 

[Top Secret]

Ill make sure to take advice from a person who cant even get his driver versions strait and supplys absolutley no explanation, but encourages me to spend cash!

Ok, whatever jackass. My point remains. Your card is overheating.