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Dead graphics card?

ljt99

ljt99

ljt99

Associate
Joined
1 Sep 2007
Posts
8
Hi guys,

My current pc is on its last legs and I'm trying to keep it going just long enough to last me to a new system at christmas. One thing not helping is my ancient ATI 800xl is acting very strange. I tried to play the latest HL2 episode and it crashed to desktop as soon as anything 3d tried to happen. I checked DXdiag and did the direct 3d test and again anything 3d wasnt working. Checking in device manager and for some reason it had 2 intances of my graphics card listed (and said both were fine).
I uninstalled all ATI drivers and did a reinstall, and for some reason the computer would now only boot into safemode. I uninstalled again and on the latest reboot its now listing 8(!!) unknown hardware VGA compatible video controllers. I tried the omega drivers and end up with 8 instances running, still no 3d :(

It seems to me like the graphics card has given up the ghost. Has anyone else had this problem, or know of a fix?

Thanks for any help

L
 
Just a thought but when you reinstalled did you install VGA drivers before the c.7.xx.As ATI have always been that way you get a lot of odd things happening if you just install the catalyst driver without a vga 1st.As for the crashing when it started i could not say.
 
Hi Skunsta,

I did a complete uninstall (deleted all old drivers and a quick registry cleanout),and downloaded/installed the latest complete driver (control center, driver etc) from the ATI/amd website. Sorry I'm not sure of the version number.
A bit more info. I've delved into the case, which is dedusted regularly and touched the graphics card. It was very hot. I checked the fan and it was working ok. Pulled the card and everything looked ok. Blasted the heatsink with some compressed air and nothing. Dug into the heatsink with a screw driver and managed to dig out two large clumps of dust which must have really been affecting the airflow:(
I've dumped it back in and reinstalled the drivers. No more crashing on boot, but still no 3d. I get a 'test failed step 8 (create 3d device)' when testing in Dxdiag. Im still getting an 'X800xl -secondary' in device manager.
I suspect the heat may have damaged the card. Luckily 2d seems to be working ok.
Unless anyone has any other ideas, I'll have to wait till christmas to play episode 2:/
 
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