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Chiaotzu · 07-20-2007, 11:03 AM

Hi, there is a thread with a problem similar to mine at the following link, but it seems to have died. Screen is going crazy

My computer specs are:

Intel P4 3.0ghz
1024MB Kingston RAM
Radeon 9800 PRO 256MB video card
400watt PSU (can't think of the brand off hand)
Windows XP Home service pack 2 (with all updates)

I've been using the card for well over a year now with no real issues, but recently it's been *I believe* overheating and/or freezing. In some games I would get a message that says that the VPU had to be recovered from a serious error, though everything worked fine after the message. Other times I would come back to my computer and it'd be locked up and in need of a hard reset. Then, when I turned on my computer after one of these lockups, the screen looks like it did in the other thread I linked. Basically, a garbled mess of colors.

The card is still outputting, I know because I can see the blinking cursor through the mess of colors and it'll eventually get to the Windows log-on screen, though the mouse is simply a little block of garbled colors inside the big mess on the screen.

I made sure that the power connection was in securely and directly from the PSU with no other components on the line. I checked that the card's fan was still working, and it was, though a bit nosier than usual, like it was hitting something, but it wasn't.

I swapped out the card with an old NVIDIA TNT2 I had lying around, and that works perfectly. When Windows starts I get an error message saying something along the lines of ATI drivers being unable to initialize or unable to be found. I can get the exact message if needed, I'm using a different computer at the moment.

After working up the courage, I took off the Radeon's fan and heatsink and reapplied thermal grease to it. I think I did fairly well, I've done the same thing to my processor and it's working correctly. Sadly, this didn't do anything and it still displays the same garbled mess.

After all of this explanation, my real question is: is my card fried, or is there a way to fix this?

07-20-2007, 11:03 AM	#1 (permalink)
Chiaotzu Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 7 OS: WinXP	Radeon 9800 PRO display problems Hi, there is a thread with a problem similar to mine at the following link, but it seems to have died. Screen is going crazy My computer specs are: Intel P4 3.0ghz 1024MB Kingston RAM Radeon 9800 PRO 256MB video card 400watt PSU (can't think of the brand off hand) Windows XP Home service pack 2 (with all updates) I've been using the card for well over a year now with no real issues, but recently it's been I believe overheating and/or freezing. In some games I would get a message that says that the VPU had to be recovered from a serious error, though everything worked fine after the message. Other times I would come back to my computer and it'd be locked up and in need of a hard reset. Then, when I turned on my computer after one of these lockups, the screen looks like it did in the other thread I linked. Basically, a garbled mess of colors. The card is still outputting, I know because I can see the blinking cursor through the mess of colors and it'll eventually get to the Windows log-on screen, though the mouse is simply a little block of garbled colors inside the big mess on the screen. I made sure that the power connection was in securely and directly from the PSU with no other components on the line. I checked that the card's fan was still working, and it was, though a bit nosier than usual, like it was hitting something, but it wasn't. I swapped out the card with an old NVIDIA TNT2 I had lying around, and that works perfectly. When Windows starts I get an error message saying something along the lines of ATI drivers being unable to initialize or unable to be found. I can get the exact message if needed, I'm using a different computer at the moment. After working up the courage, I took off the Radeon's fan and heatsink and reapplied thermal grease to it. I think I did fairly well, I've done the same thing to my processor and it's working correctly. Sadly, this didn't do anything and it still displays the same garbled mess. After all of this explanation, my real question is: is my card fried, or is there a way to fix this?