Dodgy ATI Card? (corrupted in dos)

[Bone Head]

Ive just been given a second hand Saphire ATI 9800 Pro 128mb, on a try before I buy basis.

Ive installed it on my DFI Lanparty NII rev b motherboard and when I boot the pc the very first screen is fine (has the lanparty post graphic) then when the next boot screen comes up the upper part of the screen has lots of characters that shouldnt be ther mainly coma's ,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,,,, like that.
If i go into the bios page that too has corrupted grahics showing, more random thatn the main dos screen.

it boots into windows and that is slightly corrupted too but the plain desktop has bands running down it maybe 2 inch wide and 2 inch appart.

The fact that it looks coblers in dos makes me think its pretty seriously borked. Is it worth trying to flash the bios on it, asuming I can read the bios instructions when I come to do it.

TIA

 

[semi-pro waster]

It sounds like a serious problem, I think it could be that the core is damaged from what you are describing. Did whoever had the card before overclock it and did they have the same problems? If so then you could try lowering the core back to original settings, other than that I'm not too sure what else you can do but I wouldn't suggest buying the card in that state.

 

[Bone Head]

Thanks for the reply, yes it has been oveclocked in the past but looking at it with radlink it has the stock setings, my mate who owned it before said it worked fine 3 weeks ago.

I have tried various settings in the bios including voltages and 4x AGP. Do you think flashing it might help things.

It is a wierd problem and something I havent seen before and I have been round pc'c for too long

Thanks
Bone

 

[Bookime Wood]

Corruption on boot up, like you are suggestiing sound almost like a borked card. Dont flash it, why would you want to flash it, has it already been flashed? Does it do this from a cold start, check the fan to see if it spins, sometimes the fans on the 9800 dont really get going until your into windows. The only way I would ever buy a used 9800 pro, is if I knew where it came from, man these cards were rallyed and raced, seen more of these cards wiped out with bad fitting of after market coolers, major oc and some dodgy batches of cards

 

[DaZzZa]

rule out software if its in dos.

most definitly knackard

same happend to my 9500 when i crushed the core a little, dont try anything otherwise your mate might think you broke it.

 

[Lord-Jaffa]

If its like that in dos then yet the gfx has had it.

 

[Bone Head]

That all confirms what I thought thanks guys.

Ill let him try reflashing it back to factory