Radeon 9800 pro problem

[medved]

Had some strange problem with my radeon 9800pro gcard. Whenever I'm playing games the picture gets distorted and the games are unplayable. Im trying to upload some screenshots to best describe this problem but can't.

Can someone please explain how to do this so I can continue this post?

Thanks.

[listy]

dont think you can till you have some posts under your belt

but by sounds of it overheating

[BEANFro Elite]

Its either overheating or most likely given the age of the 9800pro; knackered RAM modules...

[Magnets]

Check to see if the fan is spinning.

[roorooroo]

Yep, either fan, some other component overheating or ram. Had a similar problem with mine a couple of years back. Good luck.

[medved]

Thanks for the advice, checked all the above suggestions but to no avail. Trying to describe it without the screenshots is tricky, however, if you can imagine large triangles appearing in the game and gradually growing in numbers and in size then thats close to what I have. This only affects 3D performance though, 2D is still fine.

The problem started when I moved house and shipped the pc by courier, not sure if it could have been damaged at this point. At the same time I bought a new monitor (don't have the old one to test this theory). Its default resolution is 1680*1050. But even running the game at 800*600 gives the same problem.

I've tried different drivers too, but still doesn't help.

Don't suppose a mod could allow me to upload a screenshot?

Reluctant to buy a new gcard at this point because ideally I am waiting to get new mobo, processor at the same time. Running Athlon xp 2500 at present.

Thanks for the advice anyway.

[roorooroo]

I'm afraid to say the card does seem broken....hope you miraculously manage to fix it somehow though. (mine was the same).

[XA04]

Your not allowed to upload anyway.. just upload a screenshot to www.imageshack.us

You probs won't be able to post the link though.. but just miss out the HTTP and WWW bit.

[awm]

If they are tirangles that means the problem is in the GPU not memory. I have the same card and the fan is too small to be effective. I find opening the side of the case and pointing a desk fan into it helps. One test of overheating is to touch the heatsink (be careful of the fan and touch the chassis first to ground) and see if it burns you. Be careful. If you get close and you can feel the heat don't touch it, instead an aftermarket heatsink/fan might be in order.

[wombat]

My unlocked 9800SE AIW has just developed the exact same symptoms too. Fan on it has been a bit iffy on it for a while now. At the moment I have the side panel off and an 80mm fan pointing at it and it is working fine.

Will eventually stick an arctic silencer on it or something similar, but will have to wait till it gets moved into the spare machine (no spare slot next to it at the moment) and a suitable (and quiet!)replacement is found.

Karl

[Magnets]

Originally Posted by wombat

My unlocked 9800SE AIW has just developed the exact same symptoms too. Fan on it has been a bit iffy on it for a while now. At the moment I have the side panel off and an 80mm fan pointing at it and it is working fine.

Will eventually stick an arctic silencer on it or something similar, but will have to wait till it gets moved into the spare machine (no spare slot next to it at the moment) and a suitable (and quiet!)replacement is found.

Karl

The fan on my 9800 pro stopped working one day (used to get GPU recovery when playing games for 1hr+ sometimes), then i noticed it had stopped spinning!.

It may be worth oiling the fan bearing, i did this to mine and it fixed it.
here's my post
at sapphire forums.