display problem, help please?

[optinox]

Hey all,

My bro's pc was working great, today he bought madden nfl 2006 for his pc, anyways he has a "CONNECT3D Radeon X800 GTO 256MB" pci express vid card in his computer, we went into the ATI settings cranked everything on max settings so we could see how much improvement we could see with the graphics.

Anyways to make a long story short, things were all good...we played the game for about 10 min and all of a sudden he started getting wierd lines, choppy images on his monitor (it's an acer LCD monitor).

This not only affected the game but also everything else, like the browser, destop, ect...so we put all the ATI settings back to default, but the problem is still there, we did a system restory and the problem is still happening, we even uninstalled the ATI software and reinstalled it and the problem still persists.

On the POST screen nothing is wrong with the monitory, it's only when windows loads up, it affects the display, you can still use the computer and do stuff but this wierd lines, ect show up on the screen...at this point were not sure what to do to fix this problem, any idea's on what's causing this, he did get an error box that said something about the graphics card, I can't remember what it siad though, but some help, or advice would be appreciated, thank you.

[Martoch]

The reason your video looks fine during post is because your system uses the basic Windows VGA drivers until Windows loads.


Try removing the card via device manager in safe mode and running a driver cleaner...then reboot, let the card get detected again, and reinstall the latest drivers from ATI.

[PC TECH250]

Upon first installing an ATI Radeon 9550 256mb video card to replace an MSI Microstar 128
the first sight of lines going across the screen moving in a vertical direction was cause for a
serious concern after the first run of HALF LIFE 2. After adjusting and readjusting the refresh
rates a few times the mystery lines disappeared even when running a demanding program
like HL2 or video capturing/editing. The first thing is not to panic but lower the refresh rates.
If you were running at 75hz lower it to 70 or even down to 60hz to see if any improvement
is seen. If the card was recently installed this is one method before assuming damage was
done to the card itself. Lcds often run better with some cards at lower refresh rates. These
will be dependent on what the card supports. Lcds can often run as low as 45hz.

[Detritus]

I like Martoch's advice, but it would also help ppl here if you could tell us a few specs about your machine...

mainly what kind of power supply you have

It also sounds like you may have had a heat problem and could have damaged something.

p.s.

I can't understand what PCTECH is getting at with his post...

[Martoch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Detritus

I like Martoch's advice,


I can't understand what PCTECH is getting at with his post...

Thanks!


From what I gathered, he's suggesting a change in refresh rate.

optinox PMd me this 3 times.

Quote:

Originally Posted by optinox

Hi there,

Thanks for replying to my thread...the PC is maybe 2 months old, brand new parts, ect....the pc was working fine, wiht no problems at all with the display.

After we maxed the settings in the ATI Catalyst, we started to play madden 06, the game was running smoothly, after about 10 min of play that's when a few lines on the screen came on (horizontal lines).

I think it was caused from maxing the settings, we had everyting maxed except AF was 8x, AA was 4x, resolution was at 1152x864, so far we've done this....

1) system restore
2) removed the ati software and reinstalled it
3) took the video card out and put it back in
4) Put screen res back to what it was before (1024x768)
and after installed the ati software put the settings to
default.

And the problem is still there, so at this point were very frustrated and rather annoyed, I mean a brand new video card that's only 2 months old shouldn't be messing up like this, actually before we had tried trouble shooting the problem...we went into ati catalyst and when we were select default settings it would freeze up, we tried this a few times, and one time the pc just rebooted itself...every thing is back to default settings except the lines are still there.

What about doing a format would that fix the problem, and how do I go about finding out if it's the video card or like what you suggested maybe a driver issue, which seems odd considering before we adjusted anything in the ati catalyst the display was working fine?

[Martoch]

Another PM to me...

Quote:

Originally Posted by optinox

We did what you said, ran the pc in safe mode uninstalled the drivers, uninstalled the video card in device manager, rebooted and let win xp pro detect the hardware, then reinstalled the ati driver cd....and the same problem is there, it's like horizontal lines or dots, coloured one's like green or purple...I'm starting to think that the video card is messed up, which is dumb considering it's like 2 months old and was brand new and if changing the ati catalyst settings triggered what's happening with the display...I wouldn't think so considering that those are what the options are meant for, any other advice please get back to me, thanks.

Just post up your info here from now on.


Try adjusting the refresh rates as PC_TECH suggested.

[PC TECH250]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Detritus

I like Martoch's advice, but it would also help ppl here if you could tell us a few specs about your machine...

mainly what kind of power supply you have

It also sounds like you may have had a heat problem and could have damaged something.

p.s.

I can't understand what PCTECH is getting at with his post...

Because the eventual problem discovered had nothing to do with the video card.
By maxing out the card it may have revealed another hardware related issue that
was not seen previously. Since ATI provides an effective software removal utility as well as having used the system restore feature drivers are far from likely cause.
At first it was Soldier of Fortune II constantly crashing with the later july release of
HL2 where a variety issues finally saw the third video card in several months used.
Upon the first run of HL2 the description of "weird lines" and other graphical issues
were seen even with the default desktop. The first assumption was the new card.
GUESS AGAIN. Memory whether video or system is suspect.

When memtest-86 V3.2 confirmed faults with the installed system memory clearly
the replacements have never seen the lines and distortions since. The error seen
at the beginning could also be helpful in determining the cause. If it is seen again
post it here. Hopefully it will turn out to be a minor configuration issue rather then
the need for hardware replacement. If you don't have a hardware monitor to look over cpu and system temps try pointing a fan at the case with a side panel off. The
confirmation or rule out of an common overheating issue would be seen then.

[elmers]

It's probably a memory problem, I'm guessing the maxed out settings overheated the card. Take the card and pop it into a friends system, see if the same thing happens. If its the card your friends system should have the same artifacts on his screen. If not its your pc memory. My bet is on the graphics card memory.

It could also be that you overclocked the card, either on purpose or by accident. You can use Ati Tool to underclock the GPU and graph memory clocks, but thats a tough road to travel.

Another thing to consider is the power supply not providing enugh power to your rig.

PCTECH you are right, but you sounding like a total bot throws people off.

In conclusion what ARE your system specs?

[optinox]

Hey all,

I don't think it's the PSU, the pc has been running great...it was after we cranked the ati catalyst setting to 'almost' maximum settings when this happened, we played madden 06 for like 10 min all was good, then the horizontal lines came on...there not really lines, but sort of, come on as lime green, sometiems purple, and white, a few lines on the display, not covered, I mean you can still use the pc and do stuff but you do notice it.

Every piece of hardware in that pc is brand new, if memory was causing this to happen it probably would have showed up earlier when we first got the pc.

How the heck could we have overclocked the card without actually overclocking it in the system Bios, plus ati catalyst for the card has no overclocking settings that would increase or indicate an increase in memory speeds and core speeds.

Could the card have gotten too hot, maybe and could have possibly caused the problem...the crappy thing is if this was the case then what's teh point of having the ability to turn the settings up that hight if it'll pooch the card, mind you the system was running cool but maybe the setting put too much stress on the card but that doesn't make sense simply because this card has 2 unlockable pipelines and is said to be good overclocking card, so I could see this happening if we overclocked the card in Bio's and then used ati catalyst on almost max settings but we didn't.

I guess the only way to find out is to put the card in another pc and see if I get the same results, I was wondering about another option though...what if I put in my Linux Knoppix CD, it works with leaving the CD in the drive, if I do that and get the same problems would that pretty much tell me the vid card is the culprit?

The system specs for this pc are,

CONNECT3D Radeon X800 GTO 256MB 256BIT GDDR3 PCI-E VGA DVI VIVO Video Card
Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 Motherboard ATX S939 NFORCE4
OCZ Premier PC3200 1GB 2X512MB DDR400 CL2.5 3-3-7 184PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit W/ Ramsink
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor S939 Venice 2.0GHZ 512K L2 Cache
450w PSU
win xp pro sp2

[PC TECH250]

The hardware looks good the way it is. Some good reports have been seen on the X800. A
450w psu is an adequate supply for the setup there depending on it's quality however. OCZ
is a top shelf line of memory. Plus a few friends are seeing excellent results with the 3200+.
S939 cpu. The Catalyst version could be a consideration however. The last Control Panel for
ATI cards is the 5.11 update that could be tried as a substitute for even the Catalyst 6.2 on
the ATI software/driver site at present.

ATI doesn't carry an overclock utility at their main support and download site. But there is a
tool for latency timings as well as others made for ATI cards. If Catalyst was a one and only
one item changed for the brief 10 minutes that wouldn't account for what you are seeing. It
is just too brief in most cases for a real "cookout" with the video card. This is why the word
about a possible revelation of a pre-existing weakness or fault comes to mind. Using a few different settings combinations may reveal the actual cause hardware or otherwise.