TheUnlimited

I just recently received a 9800 Pro, used but in prime condition, and free at that. I set it up with an AC VGA Silencer R.3, and spent most of the day lapping the contact surface (its normal surface is poorly milled). It went in quite nicely, which made me happy, since those AC R.3's can be rather cumbersome.

Sealed it up, hooked everything up, and turned it on.

And then artifacts. At the POST screen, at the devices loading screen, but none on the "Press F8 to load the boot menu..." screen. They return at the Windows XP Logo "loading" screen, and vanish during the "Welcome" screen. At the desktop, the wallpaper is fine and so is onscreen text, but any form of graphical icon is corrupt partly or beyond recognition. The bigger the icon, the more consuming the corruption.

So, my first thought was to remove the drivers. They were Omega's rehash of the Cat 6.5's. Went into Safe Mode to do that. Interesting to note, although all the pre-bootup sections keep their artifacts, Windows itself shows no artifacts/corruption while in Safe Mode.

Anyway, I ran the Omega's own uninstaller, and then ran DriverCleaner Pro just for safety. I'm now back in Normal Windows mode with the default Windows drivers. There's no corruption, although it's still there during the startup screens.

This is an image I took while the graphics were corrupt.

I took my usual prectionary measures of a static band and keeping anything conductive from touching the card or its parts while putting it in. This would be the first time I'd ever damaged a part while working, and I really hope that's not what I've gone and done.

This isn't my personal computer -- it's one I'm building for a friend. Here are the specs.

Motherboard – SOYO, K7VME, Socket A.
CPU – AMD, Sempron 2800+, Socket A, 2.0GHz.
RAM – ULTRA, DDR, PC3200, 768 MB (512+256).
Video Card(s) – ATI, Radeon 9800PRO, AGP (4x), 256MB.
Hard Drive(s) – WD, IDE, 120 GB (80+40).
Power Supply – Fortron, AX450-PN, 450W, +12V1@18A, +12V2@18A.
No Overclocking.

This same system has had a 9550 and 9600XT in it, and this wasn't a problem. The 9550 had occasional blackouts (the screen blacked out, but the rest of the computer kept going fine), and the 9600XT was in for a brief time, but exhibited no abnormalities.

ebackhus

I noticed corruptions on the buttons. Where else do they show up?

TheUnlimited

I can't really take screenshots of the earlier corruptions but they also take place in the following places:
POST screen (BIOS listing, RAM check, SOYO logo, etc)
Devices screen (display of all the hardware, IDEs, etc.)
Windows XP Loading Logo screen
Desktop Icons, System Tray Icons, Program Icons, Start Menu Icons
Mouse Cursor

On the first three, it appears as regular patterned blocks of solid color (or grayscale, for the POST/Devices) that have little variance in pattern between boots. I'm using this same monitor now on my own computer, and it's just dandy.

Text seems uncorrupt, as do things like wallpapers, system dialogue boxes, Min/Max/Close buttons.

I've never seen "selective" artifacts/corruption like that before. I may have to try the 9600XT in it again to double check that it's not another component, but last I booted it up with 9600XT, it was fine. My only apprehensions to changing parts around are that XP will likely balk at me again, and the ducting system I rigged up on the card is quite firmly secured in place...

UncleMacro

There's no drivers loaded during the POST screen so you know that kind of artifact has nothing to do with software problems. Did the card show artifacts before you installed the new heatsink? I've got an older arctic cooling silencer on my 9700 running with no problems but I know that plenty of people have damaged their cards while installing them. Some people over tighten the heatsink and bend the circuit board too much which can break solder joints. Other people use conductive/capactive heatsink grease like artic silver and get some on the pins of a chip. That stuff can cause problems with high-speed lines like the ones connected to the video RAM.

If part of your video RAM is damaged then only data stored in that part would show up corrupted. Certain kinds of resources (bitmaps, fonts, etc.) may be stored in different parts of video RAM. That could explain why only some stuff is damaged.

pintofhooky

Hi, is it possible that your card is overheating? I notice that you used an ac silencer 3, that one is only for the 9800xt's, the silencer 1 is for 9800 pro's and se's. I don't know if it matters without seeing the differences in heatsinks, but just a thought.

Pint

TheUnlimited

There were apparently no artifacts before I installed the card, but in my overzealous haste, I put the heatsink on prior to testing it myself (although I'm sure it was fine). I was careful, certainly, but I must have done something to botch it. This'll learn me to use AS5 on a chip with exposed parts. The clamp on the back of the device is (thankfully) made so that it's extremely hard to tighten it too much. You really have to try to overtighten it. I got it to snug, and left it there.

As for the RAM itself, I studied the traces in and around the chips carefully using a bulb's reflection. There was no apparent damage, but I did notice a little bubbly anomaly around a few traces of one chip -- I'll try and get some pictures if I can borrow a good digital camera.

Different parts of the RAM being utilized for different functions would certainly make sense as to why only some things are corrupt. I can imagine that without the Radeon drivers, it's not using the optimal memory allotment, so things don't get corrupt when only the Windows XP default drivers are loaded.



This is one of the much older Arctice Silencers, not one of the billion different new ones that are very model-specific. It's designed to fit almost everything between a 9500 and a 9800 Pro 256. Upon removing the R.3, the grease certainly made proper contact with the surface and didn't spill over onto the exposed parts. The original heatsink from the card is also entirely flat, so it must have made contact. I wish it were just an overheat...



Anywho, thanks guys. I'm afraid that I may have ruined this thing, which is a real shame. It was a freebie donation for my friend's comp, and quite a stellar one at that, and I've gone and mucked it up. I'm not sure what else I can do with it now.

My only remaining thought on it is that there's some thermal goo between the resistors around the GPU core that could be posing a problem. When the original cooler was taken off, there was an enormous amount of the paste all over the place, so I had to clean it up. It was inevitable that some got between the resistors, and much of it was already there. I attempted to gently remove it with a coffee filter (closest thing to a lint-free cloth I had) by twisting it up into a sharp cone.


Anyway, I'm out of ideas, it's late, and now I've made myself feel like a jerk. XD

Thanks all. ^_^