Upgrade i bought has problems: help?

Jonny[uk] · 3 Jul 2006 at 20:16

I just purchased an AMD Athlon 64 3500, ASUS A8V-E SE Motherboard and a Radeon x1800 xt 256mb Graphics card. Everything works great, except the GPU. When i install drivers and reboot, i get graphics errors, in which the screen turns into a checkerboard mess of colour, followed, sometimes, by the message 'Graphics card has stopped responding' or somesuch. The only way my PC stays stable is to remove all the graphics drivers.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this? If not i'll have to deem it faulty and return it to OC.

Dureth · 3 Jul 2006 at 20:17

Have you tried downloading the latest up-to-date drivers and trying those? It sounds like a software problem rather than a hardware one as it only happens after the drivers are isntalled.

Jonny[uk] · 3 Jul 2006 at 20:21

I have tried every single set of graphics drivers available. Even different locations of the same drivers (The thread on this forum somewhere, ATI's website, Connect3D's website), and the only set that remains stable is 5.5. However, when i install these, DirectX9 doesn't work.

Edit: bit of extra info:

Graphic error appears randomly, however, during 2d/film playback, error appears within 2 minutes. During 3d rendering, error is immediate.

Stelly · 3 Jul 2006 at 20:23

Hey there...

Have you tried just getting the drivers from the actual board maker and not the chip maker of your CPU??

Stelly

Jonny[uk] · 3 Jul 2006 at 20:26

I don't understand why drivers to my board or my CPU would have any impact on my graphics card...

Stelly · 3 Jul 2006 at 20:28

Doesnt matter I have read your post more... have you tried reseating the card making sure its in the slot ok? Also you might wanna try a different card just incase its the actual motherboard

Stelly

Jonny[uk] · 3 Jul 2006 at 20:31

The card is seated in the slot fine. I can't try another card, as before this upgrade i was on AGP, and this board and card are PCI-E.

Edit: What are the chances of a BIOS related problem? I don't think i fully updated my BIOS on this new motherboard (The manual annoyed me) but i still don't see how that would relate to the drivers.

tyranus · 3 Jul 2006 at 21:22

wouldn't be surprised if it was the mobo mate, i went pci-e on a socket 754 mobo, an asus k8n4-e deluxe, and was having a ton of freezing problems.

in the end i found out that that board has issues with my grphx card (an x1800xt 512). Once i swapped to an msi 939 mobo everything is rock solid, so if i where you i'd google for issues between that board and the x1000 series.

Jonny[uk] · 3 Jul 2006 at 21:39

Not found anything so far. Might try and update the board's BIOS, i'm just a little aprehensive of going through the 'install drivers, reboot, crash, safe mode, uninstall, reboot, normal mode, unistall CCC, reboot, repeat' procedure.

w3bbo · 3 Jul 2006 at 21:58

I had exactly the same thing with an x800pro, worked ok without drivers...drivers installed = fubar.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad new but (in my case anyway) it was the GPU core that was cream crackered.

RMA

Jonny[uk] · 3 Jul 2006 at 22:00

By that you mean it's faulty? If so that's fine, i can ship it back to OC and get it replaced.

Trigger · 3 Jul 2006 at 22:07

You could leave the machine on in BIOS to see whether the picture goes funny there. Sounds faulty to me though

Jonny[uk] · 3 Jul 2006 at 22:42

I updated my BIOS, and now latest drivers appear stable as long as they do not render 3d. I booted CoD2, had a graphic error, then played for about 30 seconds before it errored again.

Edit: Is it possible for a GPU to be faulty in only one area? (IE: 3d rendering) If so, i'm seriously concidering shipping it back soon.

Dureth · 3 Jul 2006 at 22:52

I'd say you've done your best to rectify the problem, ask for a replacement as that one is faulty.

Jonny[uk] · 3 Jul 2006 at 22:56

Ok, thanks for your help guys. Quicker than ATI and Connect3D anyway. I'm hoping replacing the card should be easy as i've never had any problems with OC stuff before.