Got problems with my new ATi Radeon 8500

[dathenv]

I recently purchased a Radeon8500 RETAIL from newegg.com. The card starts out just find, but in the past few days, I found three problems. First, the screen starts to have lines of flickers when the machine is running heavy graphics, i.e. Counter-Strike and 3dmark2001 (ok, maybe not heavy, but it's more work then just plain web-surfing and wordprocessing). Second, I get these periodic crashes when I play CS, all of a sudden the computer just freezes and doesn't not work. Third, also when I play CS, sometimes I see these black polygons. I can't seem to find a good ways to describe the situation, but I see black polygons and also, the letters (words) become all weird.

Has anybody encountered this problem? If so, please tell me how to solve it.

Just a note, I originally had a Geforce 2 MX400 and I did not format the computer after I acquired the new card. I did uninstall the geforce driver, but the problem still seem to exist.

Thanks in advance, for your help.

[Clean Richards]

Don't know if this will help but ATI released new drivers today. Get them here: http://www.ati.com/

[dathenv]

black
Would somebody please help?
Clean Richards's suggestions didn't seem to provide any improvement on the situation.

[lasa168]

I had an ATI 8500 that worked just fine, but when I played games it would act up, Freeze, weird thinks happening on the screen. It was a retail, so I RMA'ed it and the new one works perfect. After I got the new card. 2 weeks later my power supply went out. I bought a cheap new power supply and the video card would freeze when I played games. I got an Enermax and no problems now.

[dathenv]

yeah, that's my plan right now, to RMA it back to newegg.

LOL, I think my video card has tempers. Sometimes it works just fine, sometimes it cracks up two seconds I run 3dmark.

[Clean Richards]

Just out of curiousity, what OS are you running dathenv?

[dathenv]

I dual boot w/ windows XP Professional and windows98.
I've tried with both OS, and failed in both ocassions.
I've tried different drivers, three in total (1 from the box, 1 downloaded off ATi a week ago, 1 that just came out). All have failled.
Therefore, I'd have to say it's the video card that's bad.

[BobyJo]

The things to remember about any hi-perf vid card are:

1: Temp, the card will get extremely hot, not the gpu but the memory chips. You need great air flow across the vid card to aid in keeping the temps down.

2: the temp of the cpu, if your cpu is getting into the 50c area, you will do well to install a 120mm fan in the side panel, blowing outside air directly onto the cpu and vid card.

After I installed this fan, the cpu temp dropped 10c. The vid card at least that much.
I have no thermister on the vid card so I don't know exactly how much difference.
I do know that the benchmarks went from 8400 to 9065 by installing this fan and the new 6058 drivers.
Using the 6043 drivers the score was about 50pts lower.

[Lycia]

I would suggest as some one did above, check your powersupply...most of the time, the ps that come with cases are inadequte..these are used becuase they keep the cost of the case down....350w should be minimum and I use the Enermax 350w...

[dathenv]

I got a 300W

As referring to BobyJo, I actually opened my case up and tried to blow a fan into the case from an angle. Yes, the temperature did drop by quite a bunch, but the card would still give me the crashes and irregularities that I used to get.

[BobyJo]

What is the combines power rating of your power supply??
This is the last thing to check as far as I can see.

[dathenv]

Sorry BobyJo, I dunno wut ur talking about, but my power supply is an AOpen FSP300-60BT(12V)
Here's a link to that power supply:
http://www.aopen.com/products/power/fsp300-60bt(12V).htm

See, I alread have the RMA approved by newegg, and if the problems lie in the video card, then I'm gonna send it for exchange tomorrow.

Also, here's my system spec, if that matters:
Athlon XP 1600+
ASUS A7M266 mobo
2* 256MB PC2100 RAM
16X DVD ROM drive
16X10X40 CDRW
floppy
netgear lan card (10/100)
and ATi RADEON 8500 RETAIL, of course. (had a geforce 2 mx 400 64 MB before, and had absolutely no problem with it.)

BTW, thanks for all your help and support, I really appreciate it.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Could be the Video card's ram. Sure sounds like it. Stable 2d flakey 3d. Funny pixel effects and torn pixels(weird words on screen)In 3d the mem chip temp increases alot! Glitches are more apparent at this higher temp than at a idle! Of course though a small PSU would act the same.

Im still amazed that no one asked what mobo/chipset! What is it? Is it Via or SIS. If it is Intel chipset then rule that prob out but if its of the other two check for updated mobo drivers alot of time this is the prob. If not I would suggest a reinstall of windows before RTM it. That way the new one wont act the same if it is sys problem. I know if you install a Nvidia card on a sys that had the 3dfx cards it will have to be formated or the drivers(hidden files) will cause all kinds of problems(happend to me on a V3 to G3 upgrade). Yes I uninstalled but there is stuff in the reg that was conviently hidden! Bummer! Anyhow this may be the case with Nvidia to ATI upgrades aswell. You have two OS's the best thing is to wipe one of them and try fresh. If it fails then I would send it back so fast that the manufac.'s(ATI) wouldnt even know it left the shelf. Heck newegg will probably just resell it anyhow "must have been his system" is what they will say and back on the rack it goes. Prob. what happened to you! Good luck!:)

[dathenv]

Heat is one of the first things that came to my mind. However, I tried opening up the case and blow a fan into it at an angle( to get a path of airflow). Yes, the temperature did come down, however I would still get the same problems.

Is it the power supply? I have a 300 W, as I said before.

A7M266 is an AMD chipset.

So, are you suggesting that I send it back? 'cuz based on what you said, it sure doesn't look like it's the driver's problems.

If I send it back to newegg, are they going to send the same one back to me? As long as I don't get the same one back, I'm fine ^^x.

[BobyJo]

If you return it stating it is locking up.
They will not send the same card back to you.
They will take a new one off the shelf and send it to you.

What is the combines power rating of your power supply?? If it under 200 it could cause problems. If you do not have any idea what the rating is look here:http:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_869_1039
^4038|1000_3,00.html

Look up your power supply, you will need the make & model # then look it up on this list::If you cannot find it on the list it is not AMD certified. You can look up some power supplies that do have the 200 combined power rating and write them down. This will give you a guide when shopping for a new one.

[Plaster]

Try going into the BIOS and disable "AGP Fast Writes" if it's enabled. You can get away with that option being on if the AGP 2X, but it can still cause lockups. Used in tandem with AGP4X and I get some extremely odd graphic errors, especially in 3dmark2001SE. I turned off Fast Writes and have had no errors even using AGP4X. Give it a shot, let us know if it fixes the issues.

[BobyJo]

Just as a reminder, when you install the Radeon drivers it automatically disables fast writes. Radeon cards will not work properly with fast writes enabled. So by default fast writes are disabled and cannot be enabled. Even if the screen says enabled, it is not enabled. just 2c worth.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Yes-:( to me it sounds like RTM time. If it still dont work after that then you know it is in your sys, but it sure seems like flakey vid mem. Blowing a fan on it will not help at all. The kinda heat I'm talking about isnt going away by adding a fan. What I'm saying is if anyone of the mem cells is defective it will become apperant when 3d gameing due to the extra stress on the Vid mem. This heat is down inside the chip, there is no stopping it. Normally the mem will handle this but probs. in manufac. can result in defective ram. Even a spec of dust when the ram was fab. could make it do this. Just seems to me like ram!:eek:

[Rugor]

Sounds like either Video RAM or a power supply issue. I don't think it's possible to stress enough the importance of a good quality AMD approved power supply on an Athlon XP system.

I am running an Athlon XP 1800+ on a Gigabyte GA-7DX (AMD761/Via686B chipset) and I have a 400W PSU.

[zergboy5]

Just figured I'd also ad this link for Beta drivers for the Radion 8500 card. http://www.rage3d.com/files/drivers/radeonbeta.shtml I have found the beta drives to be more stable and faster than the WHQL drivers. btw, don't use the 6015 level drives from ATI anything above those is much better. Hope you can get the card working.

[Plaster]

Originally posted by BobyJo
Just as a reminder, when you install the Radeon drivers it automatically disables fast writes. Radeon cards will not work properly with fast writes enabled. So by default fast writes are disabled and cannot be enabled. Even if the screen says enabled, it is not enabled. just 2c worth.

That sounds logical, but doesn't explain the problem I get if I turn on Fast Writes in the system BIOS. If it's disabled regardless of BIOS setting, it sure doesn't act like it's disabled. ;)