ATI x700 vpu fail, black screen, over seperate games, and drivers. help!!?

R

RuyZ

n00b
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
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Hey, so here it goes. i just went out and bought a new computer about 20 days ago,

- Gigabyte k8nf-9
- 1GB pc3200 DDR400
- Ati x700pro 256 pci-e
- Seagate 200GB
- Athlon64 3200+

and it works, well near perfect for about 20 days, im running cat 5.8's. i didnt change any settings, install anything new, and i start getting problems like this.

open a game (bf2 / sc4 / san andreas), and it runs great, 7~ mins into the game, i get a black screen, and ati VPU recover comes up, great, i hit ok and it goes away, the games still running, and it works almost normally for another 5 mins or so (bf2 is missing the hud aferwards, sc4 is a little glitchy) and suddenly the game locks up, seriously glitches out, horribly distorted and squed screen. and the the monitor will go into standby, as if ive left it in windows for like 20 mins, power light flashing on the monitor and all.

nothing i do will get it out of that unless i restart the computer.

attempting a bunch of differnt drivers, cat 5.6-5.8 and omegas, and its the exact same thing with each differnt driver. occasionally i will see a BSOD but its there for like 1 second and the computer restarts. this is usually fixed by reinstalling the drivers, again.

so heres a breakdown of it all again.

-this is all the same for cat 5.6 - 5.8 and omega drivers.
-open a game, play for about 7 mins and get a black screen and ati vpu recover comes up.
-hit ok, game will run for another 5-10 mins or so, 60+fps, no artifacts.
-game freezes, graphics horribly distort andmonitor goes into standby and computer is non responsive.
-this is over 3 seperate games, with several differnt drivers.

i havent attempted a format yet, i think thats the next thing im doing.


and a last question, lets say its something messed with the card, there was a sticker that came with the card, i CANNOT find it anywhere, and i dont have the box for the card anymore, but aparently i have my product number from the ati book, and the s/n on the sticker on the card. do i NEED the orignal packaging? :confused:
 
Find out what your temperatures are when all this happens.

This feels like a heat problem to me. The fact that it gets worse with time and its game-aspecific tells me its something physical with the hardware as opposed to software-based.

I'm not too familiar with the vpu recovery tool, so I'm not sure what would trigger that to pop up.
 
how could i check my vid card temps? the display doesnt artifact whatsoever before the crash, it runs 60+ fps steady and bam, nothing. then 60fps again when it comes back up. then the display just goes into standby as if the vid card isnt putting any signal out to the monitor.
 
In all honesty, I think it's a bunk card, heat wouldn't be doing that, though a bunk card would.

Definitely seek RMA.
 
as i was saying, im missing that godamn sticker that said dont lose me. am i screwed without this?
 
Have you tried disabling VPU recover? Plenty of people have issues with that causing problems in games.

Also, we haven't heard about what temperatures you're running at. If the problem occurs after several minutes of gaming, it could be related to the card overheating. Is the fan spinning on the card? It's not uncommon for a fan to go out.

RuyZ said:
i have my product number from the ati book, and the s/n on the sticker on the card. do i NEED the orignal packaging? :confused:
Click to expand...
I don't think you should have a problem RMAing the card *if necessary* -- I have heard good stories about ATI's RMA, and having a S/N is always good :) But try disabling VPU recover and checking the fan first.

Good luck and let us know what you find out!
 
hey all, so i went ahead and dissabled the vpu recover, and it looked like i was in the clear for a while, the game doesnt glitch out whatsoever, but guess what, about about 10 mins playing, it just puts the monitor into sleep mode, only to be awoken by a rebooot...

another thing is i have NO ideas how to check my vid card temps, but i accually opened my case and confirmed that when it dies, the fan is still running, and the heatsink is cool to the touch.

im just about to format, *prays* :(
 
RuyZ said:
hey all, so i went ahead and dissabled the vpu recover, and it looked like i was in the clear for a while, the game doesnt glitch out whatsoever, but guess what, about about 10 mins playing, it just puts the monitor into sleep mode, only to be awoken by a rebooot...

another thing is i have NO ideas how to check my vid card temps, but i accually opened my case and confirmed that when it dies, the fan is still running, and the heatsink is cool to the touch.

im just about to format, *prays* :(
Click to expand...

First of all, formatting will do you no good.

When the computer dies, does it reboot on its own, or do you do it manually?

ATI Control Center will give you the temp on your card. Its probably not bundled with the drivers, so you may have to download it.

When a card causes a reboot, its generally a sign that the card is no good and there's nothing you can do. Its usually that the ram on the card is bad. However, just to make sure its not your sysram, run Memtest and see if you have any bad sections of your ram.

Something to remember about touching heatsinks to see if your chip/ram is hot: a heatsink is SUPPOSED to be hot. That means its working! A heatsink's purpose is to absorb heat off of the chip and dissipate it. Should it be scalding hot? No, but don't be dismayed if its fairly warm. The more reliable way to check for heat problems is to touch the back of the card corresponding to where there chip and ram modules are (discharge static first, of course).
 
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