Bennett

Hi, i recently had to upgrade my system after a core component died. the new specs im using (not the ones in my sig) are as follows;
intel Pentium core 2 duo E6600

• GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel
• Abit AW9D Intel 975X (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (using the soundcard that came with it)
• Asus ATI Radeon X1950 Pro HTDP 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
• Antec TruePower Trio 650W PSU
• Caviar SE 250GB S300 8mb
• standard MS keyboard & Mouse, Jeantec Case-with adequate cooling

i think thats all the important parts.
anyway in a recent post, i was having problems with a new PSU that i bought (and was then told that the power provided was not enough) so purchased the antec trio power, because i had used the system for about 3days before realising the seriousness of the problem i start to believe this may have caused permenant damage to the graphics card. upon reinstalling the most recent ATI drivers with the CCC, every time i start the pc up (in the morning, or after a long break) it seemed to ALWAYS restart as the catalyst control centre drivers were loading on windows. on restart windows would say that the video driver stopped responding, to counter this i installed the 7.5drivers alone, without the CCC though this was not the end of my problems.
the card seemed to be random at times, where it would load a game fine and run smoothly, but on other occasions the screen would go blank (sound would play on some occasions-NOT in standby mode) or the display would be garbled-not 3d image, but more like a garbled image on display. other times on starting a game, the pc would blank out into standby mode-display and eventually force restart.
at this point, whenver i start up rainbow six vegas, it would freeze on the menu screen, just as its loaded, it appears to happen with all games atm though im on the sytem at the moment and windows has loaded fine and there are no problems when not in a game. could this problem be software or hardware related (there are no post beeps on startup that indicates a problem atm (just normal post beep)- but post doesn use any extrenuous gfx processes so im not sure) however on one occasion after updating the bios and then attempting to run a game, the pc bugged out on me,restarted (again) and then i got a series of fast short burst beeps on the post, after resetting the bios, the problem went away but i cant help but think the gfx card is at fault, i cant work out if its a software or hardware problem, old drivers appeared to give the same problem but as the card is new anyway i was considering RMA'in it if it is at fault.
i hope you guys can help me

Houndog777

Hi,
This will help you determine if it's driver trouble.
Here is a link to download Driver Cleaner.....
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

Uninstall all your ati stuff from add/remove programs and uninstall the display adapter from device manager. Run the cleaner for ati drivers and reboot.
Now, reinstall your drivers.
Hope it helps.

Bennett

thanks for the reply, i did as was stated, ran the program and then reinstalled after a restart, Rainbow 6's title screen just produced black and white lines across the screen (but the audio was playing), oblivion crashed as before and caused the VPU to reset continuously:(, all direct X display tests ran fine, there were no problems in that area so im lead to believe that the card crashes mainly when under heavy load

Bennett

ok i tried using the card in a mates PC and it crashed on him also, so i sent it back via RMA, but apparerntly its being returned to me fault-free so cud any1 give me advice about what else cud be causing the problem if it could be anything esle..

1 g0t 0wn3d

Well that sounds like overheating is there any dust in the card?

Bennett

none what so ever, the card is prob 3weeks old at the latest, and before sending it off i thoroughly examined it and it looked fine

Houndog777

Hi,
I suspect the company you returned it to have just done a basic test, and not subjected it to a game as demanding as Rainbow-6.

Here is one solution that may help...
Quote: It seems that the drivers (and I tried a LOT of them) didn't adjust the fan speed. So my crashes were 100% from overheating because it looks like the GPU fan never went above 20% !!!
So with ATI Tray Tools I only adjusted the fan speed in Overclocking Settings and set it to 100% and that works very well, instead of 80+ degrees C and crashing I max out at around 65 C. - no crashing.
I am using the DNA 5.0.7.1 drivers (from guru3d) which came with Tray Tools, I haven't tried a Catalyst driver with the Tray Tools yet but I suspect it will still work.
This card is working awesome now. :Unquote
Source:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx...ies&board_id=9

Bennett

hi, upon gettin it back i thought id narrow down the chance a bit more of it being conflicting software, i installed *cringes* vista (free from my uni) and installed the drivers, but because of this im checking for errors with the beta of quake wars, the extract from the post actually has helped SO far i believe, but im going to install oblivion again to be sure this was the problem, thank you so much for the help:) and i will need to ask overclockers what tests exactly they carried out for them to dismiss a problem with the same peice of hardware that occured on two differnt systems

Bennett

ok the problem still occurs, it just went nuts wen i tried to start it up. windows loaded, and instantly the screeen went black, a message came up saying the display driver crashed and recovered sucessfully, and then went black again, the message came up, happened repeatidly until i forced the computer to shutdown, on the last occasion i saw it "recover" the display became choppy/corrupted

Houndog777

Hi, the Asus site is full of similar stories, with many users RMA-ing their cards.
I would do the same. (check your purchase details to see if the warranty is from the store or Asus).
It's totally unacceptable, and so is returning a card to a buyer when it still has problems.

Bennett

thank you for the help, i just emailed Asus about the problem, i am also going to call up Overclockers about the problem and ask them specifically how they tested the card because i'm a bit dubious about that-given that i am charged for a "no-fault return", i would like to be sure they tested it properly and see what Asus have to say regarding it... just means no games for me till this is sorted:(
thank you again, you guys have been most helpful

Houndog777

Hi, be sure to inform Overclockers that the Asus site is full of the same complaint and queries about this particular card; that you've tested it with different drivers, that you've tested it in a different system and that you've had independant advice from people who are qualified in Hardware Maintenance & Servicing.
And challenge that "no-fault fee".
Remind them Consumers are Protected.

Bennett

hi again, im persistant i know, im trying to look at other areas the problem could be coming from while i still wait for asus to reply.
i emailed overclockers to question how they tested, they said
"The card has been tested in 3 known working test systems. In each test system the card POSTed fully and booted into Windows. Once in Windows we used a combination of 3D Mark 06, Burn In Test and up to date modern in-game tests to ensure that the card was not faulty. This card would have been tested extensively for a number of hours."
but as i said in a previous post, i tested it in a friends machine who was using a similar specced machine but he had a 500W which may have caused errors for him (thoguh the errors he got were the same as mine) but im sure my problem isn PSU related. i ran memtest again, no errors, cecked the temperatures regulary which were all fine, i checked the layout of the hardware and made sre everything was connected fine.
the problem im having now happens differntly, rather then booting up fine and crashing only when games are ran, it now happens as soon as windows loads, where it boots fine, normal post beep, but once i access the start menu or folders, the display turns choppy and the VPU resets/driver fails and recovers, this loops continuously and may result in the screen blacking out n freezing, the blue screen(i recal the/a driver name in the screen but the dislay is only visible for about 3seconds), restarting or going to standby and freezing, occasionallu the display wil be choppy from strt up but not in the bios or post stages. there are very rare occasions where it will start up fine and will run everything even games normally without problems but this may take hours of restarts and vpu crashes before this is attainable. is it possible its not my card? i had thoguht it may be the pci-e bridge itslef that may be faulty but i want to consider all options

Houndog777

Hi there,
Sorry to hear your'e not sorted yet.
Can you try it with a friends video card to see how she goes?

Bennett

hi, im still awaiting to borrow my friends card, though i did get a reply from asus-which seemed more like an automated reply given that it had asked me to do most of the things i had already tried/mentioned in the original mail i sent them
given that it has passed a month now since i got the product and the retailer claimed it was fine, do you guys think its possible to return the product to overclockers for a refund rather than a replacement? i dont know if each retailer have differnet terms and conditions but frankly i am annoyed with the product and it would be faster to just get my money back and buy a differnt one elsewhere


the reply was
" Thank you for choosing ASUS products.
My name is ######. It is my pleasure to help you with your problem.
My friend , according to the status you described ,please follow the steps below to have a try :
1. Please check whether the CPU is overheated, because the CPU is almost fully loading during you run 3D games.
2. Please check whether the VGA chip is overheated. The defective fan on the card may cause the VGA chip overheated so that the system will be unstable.
3. If you are overclocking your CPU, VGA card, memory or others, please restore the default setting. If this problem always occurs in D3D games, please reinstall the DirectX runtime or install the latest version to have a try.
If possible,we recommend you update your game when new official path released.
4. Always, we recommend you updating the VGA driver to the latest version for better compatibility. the link is :http://support.asus.com/download/dow...Language=en-us
5. If this problem doesn’t occur before, and only occurs after you have installed a lot of software in the system, this may be the software conflict. Please remove some software to have a try. But we recommend you reinstalling the OS for best solution after you backup your datum.
If these cannot help you , would you please use this card in another system to have a try and see whether the card is broken. If the phenomenon reoccurs, please let us know.

also she was from china:s prob irrelivant information but given that i wanted to contact a UK technical engineer ideally

Houndog777

Hi, depends on the terms of the purchase.
However, if totally p***** off, I'd return it to the retailer for a refund.
http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/callist.cgi

Bennett

ps i just borrowed my friends x850 and its working fine in my pc,none of the errors i had before have come up, so it MUST be the card

Houndog777

I'd return the card, my friend.
There is obviously nothing wrong with your system and plenty wrong with a card that produces the same errors on two different pc's.