X1900XTX corrupt polygons

Kalessin · 12 Sep 2006 at 20:48

Hi

I ordered components from ocuk to build a new computer several months ago, other than a bad hard drive it has all been great up to now.

The problem I am having is that my Asus x1900xtx is corrupting polygons in several 3d games including FEAR combat, Quake4 and the Dark Messiah demo. I think it is corrupt polygons because as I wander around in any of these games, certain parts of the map will have these horribly stretched and untextured polygons floating around and making a mess of things. Sometimes the polygons are static, other times they are attached to the centre of my screen and follow the view around and occasionally they are attached to items or players in a map.

I have taken several screenshots of what I am talking about to try and give you a better idea of what I mean. In the second Quake4 screenshot the polygons are attached to the rotating doubler powerup and are rotating around the screen following the animation of the powerup. In the Dark Messiah screenshot one of the polygons is attached to the crosshair and is following the view around.

Pics:

Quake4

Quake4

Dark Messiah Demo

FEAR Combat

My PC is well cooled so I do not think this is overheating, the problem occurs within seconds of starting a game which also suggests it isnt overheating. I'm not overclocking the card in any way other than CCC using its automatic 3D clock settings. I'm using up to date drivers for all of my hardware.

My hardware:

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music
FSP Sparkle FX700-GLN Epsilon 700W ATX2.0 PSU
Asus ATI Radeon EAX-X1900 XT-X 512MB
Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB)

Here are a couple more threads I found of the problem, but I would like to see what you people have to say.

Techspot thread
Motherboardpoint thread

So, does anyone have any idea what this is? The other threads suggest the memory is bad on the card, but I want to be sure before I RMA it

Mortster · 12 Sep 2006 at 21:00

A few of us on here are having similar problems with the X1900 series, but you are the first one to report problems in anything other than 3dmark06.

Have you got the very latest bios installed for your motherboard?
Have you tried disabling PEG link (or turned it to slow) in the BIOS?

Try changing your PCI-E frequency in BIOS.
Try 105, test, 110 test, 115 test, 120 test. but dont go above 120.

Logsi · 12 Sep 2006 at 21:01

Looks either a driver problem or how everyone likes to call it on here "the mem or core is borked!"

Whats the temps like?

EDIT : Was this on a fresh install?

Kalessin · 12 Sep 2006 at 21:22

Thanks for the replies.

I'm using the BIOS version previous to the current one available, I dont think it is the BIOS because this problem only started very recently and I've been playing quake for months without any issue. I'll download the latest version anyway and see if it helps.

I'm not sure what the PEG link is, but I'll have a look for it, I'll try changing the PCI-E frequency too if I manage to find it in the BIOS.

My card is currently idling at 57c and it peaks at around 70c when playing games. Im using a Thermaltake Armor case so it should be getting good ventiliation, I guess it doesn't help that my room is kind of warm but these cards are designed to operate at these temperatures without problems.

I'll try playing around and post the results here later.

edit: What do you mean by fresh install 5bjoshua :confused:

I have uninstalled previous versions of catalyst drivers if that is what you mean, my XP install is about a month old.

stormy · 12 Sep 2006 at 21:24

Mort, the messiah one looks a bit like my corruption, but not the same really. So not sure thats the same issue as we are having.

Kalessin, out of interest can you try the 3DMark06 Deep Freeze test in a loop and see how you go on?

But as suggested you could do to uninstall the Cats, and then use Driver Cleaner Pro. Then re-install you Cats when you reboot.

Cheers,

Mike

Logsi · 12 Sep 2006 at 21:26

Was this on a fresh install? if not Did you use drivercleaner pro to get rid of old drivers i.e nvidia ones?

Kalessin · 12 Sep 2006 at 22:01

I haven't been using Drivercleaner, but I have only had one previous version of the catalyst drivers installed on this Xp install. Its another thing to try though!

stormy, I downloaded 3dmark 06 and ran a full test. I didnt see any artifacts or weird polygons in any of the demos, Deep Freeze ran at an average of 26.477 FPS. I couldn't put it on loop because apparently I need to register the advanced version to be able to configure individual tests like that...

Kalessin · 12 Sep 2006 at 22:36

Right, I uninstalled the 6.8 cats, ran driver cleaner and then re-installed the 6.8's. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have done much good, check out this beautiful picture of FEAR:

That glorious mess you see there happened within a minute of joining the server. I'll try the other suggestions now...

edit: PEG link was disabled, I enabled it and ran FEAR again. Same result.

Logsi · 12 Sep 2006 at 22:47

Did you boot in safe mode when you uninstalled CCC? Try a Omega Drivers maybe, these are 6.7 and have been optimized www.omegadrivers.net have you done a fresh install? (of windows)

Kalessin · 12 Sep 2006 at 22:54

5bjoshua said:
Did you boot in safe mode when you uninstalled CCC? Try a Omega Drivers maybe, these are 6.7 and have been optimized www.omegadrivers.net have you done a fresh install? (of windows)

I couldn't enter safe mode unfortunately, some genius at ASUS thought it would be a good idea to have F8 open the boot disk menu selection screen and no amount of F8 mashing will bring up the boot menu when this screen has been closed.

I haven't reinstalled windows (yet), that is far more hassle than I would like for now

I'm downloading the omegas and will give them a shot.

LoadsaMoney · 12 Sep 2006 at 22:56

Same happens on my Anus board, but when i keep bashing F8 the safe mode selection screen appears.

Logsi · 12 Sep 2006 at 22:57

You can get into safe mode by a run command.

Enter msconfig into the run command box.

Then go to the BOOT.INI tab, click the safeboot option then press ok and restart. Once you have reatrted go back to msconfig and turn safeboot off when you restart again as you'll go back into safeboot otherwise.

EDIT : If you didnt want to have the hassle of sending it back i would definately try a windows reinstall, it didnt do this with my X1900XT-X when i bought it though. I would send it back if this these steps dont work. Also is there anything that may be conflicting with the catalyst control center?

LoadsaMoney · 12 Sep 2006 at 22:58

Was gona edit that spelling mistake i done above there, but what the hell.

Logsi · 12 Sep 2006 at 22:59

LoadsaMoney said:
Was gona edit that spelling mistake i done above there, but what the hell.

EDIT -Just to make sure your doing it right, the way i uninstall it is, go to add and remove programs and uninstall CCC from there first, once thats done restart and then reboot again in safe mode, use driver cleaner and uninstall all the things which say ATI by them. Restart into normal mode. Install catalyst again.

^EDIT

Kalessin · 12 Sep 2006 at 23:01

Thanks for the msconfig tip, I'm glad I'm not the only one who cant operate these ASUS boards

Edit: Ok, I followed your instructions and installed the new Omega drivers. Same result again I'm afraid.

Sir Random · 13 Sep 2006 at 00:55

It's really strange that you don't see any corruption in 3DMk06. Those of us with 3DMk06 problems were under the impression that 'Canyon' and 'Deep Freeze' stressed these cards more than games. We can play FEAR, Oblivion, Q4, etc without problem, but those 2 3DMk tests cause identical glitches in all our cards.

bliss · 13 Sep 2006 at 01:58

Kalessin said:
Thanks for the msconfig tip, I'm glad I'm not the only one who cant operate these ASUS boards

Edit: Ok, I followed your instructions and installed the new Omega drivers. Same result again I'm afraid.

I had that same problem once until i found out that if you hit F8 again after selecting from the boot menu you get the safe mode options. F8, enter, F8

Logsi · 13 Sep 2006 at 02:10

Kalessin said:
Thanks for the msconfig tip, I'm glad I'm not the only one who cant operate these ASUS boards

Edit: Ok, I followed your instructions and installed the new Omega drivers. Same result again I'm afraid.

Send it back! Thats the best thing to do im afraid! And say you did all this!

Logsi · 13 Sep 2006 at 02:12

Did you try a diferent set of drivers?

Try the 6.7's or the 6.6's or the ones with the card.

Kalessin · 13 Sep 2006 at 09:01

Sir Random said:
It's really strange that you don't see any corruption in 3DMk06. Those of us with 3DMk06 problems were under the impression that 'Canyon' and 'Deep Freeze' stressed these cards more than games. We can play FEAR, Oblivion, Q4, etc without problem, but those 2 3DMk tests cause identical glitches in all our cards.

I'm not sure about this, but perhaps this is because the 3Dmk tests dont tax the card memory quite as much as some of these games I am playing. If it is bad card memory, like I suspect, then this would make sense right?

Canyon and Deep Freeze ran great, didn't see a single artifact.

5bjoshua said:
Did you try a diferent set of drivers?

Try the 6.7's or the 6.6's or the ones with the card.

When I first encountered the problem in FEAR I had the 6.7 or 6.6's installed, I dont remember which. After I saw the problem I uninstalled them and went to the 6.8's.

I'm at work right now, but when I get back I'll try an old version of the drivers and see if there's any difference, I'm doubtful though.

Its looking likely that I am going to have to RMA the card