• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

X1900XT About To Say Goodnight?

Slogan

Slogan

Slogan

Soldato
Joined
27 Jun 2006
Posts
6,284
The most trouble I have got from the card is a scribbled screen for a few seconds on start up - before XP loads. But something happened today which made me question how long of a life this thing has left.

It's not even a month old yet - but I shut my computer down earlier and after a few hours I turned it back on. The monitor wasn't coming out of 'sleep' mode so I turned it on and off a few times and eventually it started to work - booted the system up and the screen was covered in random digits and colours - impossible to see the background, bar a few bits and pieces of text.

Re-started again, same thing. Changed the lead at the back and Re-started once again and I got the same thing, actually got to the XP screen and everything was fine.

Logged in and chose to "restart" once again just to see had things cured themselves. Same coloured nonsense again and XP screen didn't load without a load of colours/lines.

De-slotted the card and put it back in. Booted up and everything has been fine since.

The card had been fine prior to my first shut down - was playing SWAT4 and having no problems at all.

I wish I could include some pictures but I can't.

Does it sound like I'm in for a fun time?
 
Hmmm! Could have just been a dodgy connection.

Numbers/letters you say? Hmm.. The pixels etc are memory related but letters :S

If it does it again, check temps, reseat it. Then if its still there RMA it.
 
Concorde Rules said:
Numbers/letters you say? Hmm.. The pixels etc are memory related but letters :S
Click to expand...

It did it once again. It only took one re-start to get it back to normal but again it has happened after the monitor has been left on in the 'sleep mode'.

I wasn't totally convinced about letters when you asked, I thought it could have been information in the background coming through in bits and bobs, but there were definitely foreign keys there this time.

Upside down question marks, the symbol for Japanese Yen and even "Scandanavian A's", with the two dots at the top.
 
Just to add to this (as opposed to making a new thread) -

Sometimes when I boot up from cold, I get these tiny lines across the screen. They are only little thin horizontal lines but they can be in groups of 3 or 4 in a certain part of the screen.

You can see the behind background, but they are white/grey and they usually flicker off/on depending on the page content - then go away completely after about 5 minutes or so.

I tried to take a picture of them, but no such luck.

Does that sound graphics related or still memory?
 
ACESHIGH said:
Can you swap out the ram or graphics card & see if problems continue?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I can't - although that would have been a good suggestion.

I had this before and I opened the thing up - reseated the graphics card and it went as it should for a while.

I might have a toy with the RAM, move it, use only 1 stick - see if that cures anything.
 
It could be a driver problem. Have you tried updating?

It may even be your monitor. If the corruptions don't come through on a screenshot then the error is occurring somewhere further down the line past the rendering phase.
 
I've got the latest drivers for the gfx card - so I should be alright there.

I will see if it printscreens - although I was so convinced it was a hardware issue that I didn't even bother print screening when it was there.
 
Slogan said:
The monitor wasn't coming out of 'sleep' mode so I turned it on and off a few times and eventually it started to work - booted the system up and the screen was covered in random digits and colours - impossible to see the background, bar a few bits and pieces of text.
Click to expand...

Tbh im not sure what your problem is, but the above may allude to a fault other than the graphics card. As stated above it may be monitor - how old is it, can you try another monitor?

Im not confident it is driver related due to problems before XP loads, but you may want to try cat 6.8 after thorough clean with driver cleaner, just to be sure.
 
ACESHIGH said:
Tbh im not sure what your problem is, but the above may allude to a fault other than the graphics card. As stated above it may be monitor - how old is it, can you try another monitor?

Im not confident it is driver related due to problems before XP loads, but you may want to try cat 6.8 after thorough clean with driver cleaner, just to be sure.
Click to expand...

It's a Relisys 19" monitor (CRT) - it's about a year or two old from new.

I'm after a new lcd monitor - but that won't come for a while yet. Any other monitor I have lying about is ancient.

Thankfully all the things that may not be working (ram, graphics card etc) are of a new build (not even a month old yet) - so I won't have any problems exchanging them should that need to be done.
 
Last edited:
Right, it doesn't appear on a print screen.

I'll spend later today re-seating the graphics card and changing the RAM to see if that cures anything - although I would have thought something like this (Graphics / Memory Related) would have been like this from the off, this is only a recent thing it has decided to do.
 
Download & run memtest on each stick of ram you have (individually) & if you get no errors at all i would be happy the ram is not the problem.
 
ACESHIGH said:
Download & run memtest on each stick of ram you have (individually) & if you get no errors at all i would be happy the ram is not the problem.
Click to expand...

I agree with the above poster do this overnight. If this shows up with no problems I reckon there must be a fault with the memory on the graphics card. Is the card/system overclocked at all? If so id put it back to stock to establish if this is the problem. If you have an old PCI-E or even a PCI card.. give that a try to isolate the problem to your gfx card.

Personally i think its the gfx cards memory at fault...

:)
 
ati tool will tell you if there is anything wrong with the gpu.

also run 3dm06 deep freeze, if it really is your gfx card thats nackered then it will easily kick up a fuss when any 3d app is used and pressure is put on the card.
 
I haven't followed any of the good advice as of yet - as I haven't had the time. However, I thought I would take a (poor) picture of what it is - just to cancel out my gibberish about what is wrong.

Or if it's even diagnoseable from that.

Will try the above advice (memtest, 3dmark, re-seating etc) when I can.

picture9if5.jpg
 
Last edited:
Right, well I run 3DMark06 (finally got round to it) and I think it's safe to say that I didn't do too great. I don't know the numbers element of these tests but the graphics were hardly outstanding (blurry objects far away, like the air-balloon) and I was only averaging 30fps. (unless that's a set refresh rate?)

In the CPU tests - I literally sat on 0 or 1 fps for the entirety...but I've no idea what this test is meant to tell me anyway. Because I'm an idiot.

I'm the results

I'm running MemTest at the moment (I'm on a different comp now) but I can only run 1 MemTest at a time (1024mb) - so....I don't see how I'm going to test both sticks.

I took the whole thing out today and re-seated everything (well...RAM and Graphics card) that I thought needed it - booted up and all went well (no tearing like above). Installed something, re-started and when I opened up messenger (after logging in of course, the tearing suddenly popped out of nowhere).

I'm pretty sure it's not software related, but even so the computer is completely virus and spyware free.

Any advice? :(
 
Last edited:
Im not sure on your exact spec but nearly 6000 points on an XT isnt too bad - and cpu score is always zero (even my c2d @3GHz rarely goes above 1fps) therefore the gpu core isnt at fault - but as stated above very possibly the ram is on the card isnt correct

memtest you have to test each ram stick when they are individually installed on the pc - slow process but the only way you can be sure.
 
Cheers.

Thing is, in games I play (COD2, COD, F.E.A.R, SWAT4) etc there's never a problem (touch wood) - but then this tearing then comes out of nowhere and usually disappears within five minutes or so.

Bit of a puzzler.
 
Slogan said:
Cheers.

Thing is, in games I play (COD2, COD, F.E.A.R, SWAT4) etc there's never a problem (touch wood)

Bit of a puzzler.
Click to expand...

Cursed Myself :D

Don't know what I'm laughing about. Although that is a new type and it does show up on print screen.

In regards to the Memtest - how long is best to keep it running? I got up to 600% checked and then stopped it - but what is the 'ideal test'?
 
Slogan said:
Cursed Myself :D

Don't know what I'm laughing about. Although that is a new type and it does show up on print screen.

In regards to the Memtest - how long is best to keep it running? I got up to 600% checked and then stopped it - but what is the 'ideal test'?
Click to expand...


I left my Mem tests on overnight, testing a stick each night, but tbh looking at that i'd say your gfx card was duff.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom