Need help with x700 Pro card

[hergieburbur]

I need a quick sanity check here. I set up a PC withAbit An8 boardAthlon 64 3500+1GB Patriot DDR400Sapphire Radeon x700Pro 256MBAntec Case with 350w Smart Power PSUAnyway, I built the system and it ran fine during setup for about 6 hours. Then all the sudden the video goes all screwy and just displays randomly colored pixels everywhere. I tried most of the standard troubleshooting (I am on the road for the holidays so don't have a spare PSU or GPU to test) and can't seem to isolate the problem. It's not a driver problem because the monitor won't even show POST correctly (the monitor is fine). I cleared CMOS, it doesn't seem to be a BIOS problem, as the PC seems to boot though I can't see for sure. The POST Message Center does seem to be picking up a video error (though not a fatal one).

I am thinking it is either the PSU or a bad card that needs RMA'd. I will aprreciate all the help I can get.

Thanks in advance.

 

[NorthernCross]

U forgot to say if your monitor is connected to the digital output. If it is, try connecting to the standard analog output or test an analog monitor if the place you are right now has one. IMO it is a connection related problem (are you sure there is a POST message?).
Btw, you can also check if the TV out works. You can easily find a TV anywhere to test it.
Hope i helped a bit

 

[lol4fun]

it sounds like one of the ram chips on the card are static damaged, have you tried taking the card out and putting it back in? it may have creeped out a lil due to heat expansion, i had a simalar problem coz the fan on the card is very small and it runs at about 50C without extra cooling.

 

[vetter83]

Did you check the Vid Card's cooling fan to make sure it is working? (also the PS fan(s) ect..)
Could be a heat issue ...

 

[Rabidpeanut]

Does VPU recoverer go mad? Cause if so i think your card may be broken, Probably static damage, a friend of mine had a loose screw rolling around in his pc and his card does the same thing, we think it broke a few things on the motherboard too.

 

[hergieburbur]

Thanks for the advice guys. I already tried most of the things you sugessted and RMA'd the card. I put in a PCI card as a temporary fix, and it works fine till the good one comes back.

 

[lol4fun]

no problem, hope you have betta luck with ya replacement card

 

[Rabidpeanut]

It will really suck if it turns out to be your agp slot.

 

[lol4fun]

true but they can take alot of stick, mine got kicked while a card was in it and it broke the card but the slot is fine, apart from the scratches on the top lol, the card that broke was a 9800 pro

 

[Rabidpeanut]

If a ever broke a 3d card i would probably cry. But if you managed to get some silver compound or tinfoil or something in an agp slot it could really mess it up. How the heck did it get kicked? Where do you keep your motherboard? SACRILEGE! You were working on in while it was on the floor?

 

[lol4fun]

wel it kinda peed me off a lil so it got a kick and the side of the case was off at the time lol, i had to suffer with a gf2 for months after that until i got an 9800xt, then that broke and i had to go back to the gf2 lol, now i have an x700 pro and its still going strong

 

[Rabidpeanut]

Well it had better hope it does not piss you off, my monitor and keyboard take all the damage from my misbehaving hardware, funilly enough they have never given me any trouble at all.

 

[lol4fun]

well.... i got thru 2 keyboards, a normal cheapo one, that got completely abliterated and a managed to crack a z-board, and my mouse has disintegrated(via a wall) but suprisingly enuff it went back together and it still workin now lol. umm what else has surcome to my wrath lol oh i killed 2 hard disks with a large pair of pliers back in the day when i had a 200mhz pentium lol

 

[Rabidpeanut]

A friend of mine was playing mortal combat against his brother, and he was whipping him like nobodies business and he got so angry that he hit the keyboard and every single letter key and , and . jumped out. They managed to fix it using notepad.

 

[lol4fun]

lol, this one found the corner of the desk and kinda folded around it lol and the keycaps went everywhere, i saved the ctrl, alt and delete keys tho lol. that z-board of mine was good but the paint on the keys started to wear off, not summat you would expect from a 40 quid keyboard, same wid ma saitek eclipse, it has backlit keys and the s key is startin to wear away and i only had it for about 2 months

 

[NorthernCross]

Once i got very angry with street fighter at mame (the pc has the ability to win even if you are @ full hit points and the cpu player has 2mm remaining bar only), and i kicked my screen to the wall. The backtube broke. If my pc is on the floor i kick it. If it is near the screen i punch it. I changed 5 towers because none of them had CD and floppy plastic covers. The best of the best is the sound of a hard slam on the keyboard and then the keys falling on the floor after 1 or 2 seconds (depends on the hit). Well, i broke a HDD. After losing all the data from it (horrible message: invalid system disk, replace and press any key), i went in the yard, kicked a tree very hard and almost broke my leg. PC is NOT a healthy product.
Growing up, I managed to hold my anger for other situations.

 

[Rabidpeanut]

You broke a 40 pound keyboard? That's like 480 rand, holy dog. I find that cheapo keyboards last longer and since i dont trust myself i will alway be stuck with noisy plasticy pieces o' skyte. I think gaming definetly makes you more aggressive, i messsed up a 10 mark question on a test and i kicked the lecture hall i wrote in in so hard i broke a few tarsels in my foot, funilly enough it only really hurts for the first few minutes, and afterwards i had to walk to my flat which is 2k away. I didn't even go to the doctor, which was dumb 'cause you get this weird dull ache for about a month.

 

[lol4fun]

slight update on the keyboard thing, i managed to spill a large quantity of budweiser in it it still works tho altho the numberpad sticks sometimes, i think ill have to send the saitek eclipse back because the w, s and d keys are starting to wear off, this is stupid i mean if you spend 40 quid on a keyboard you'd expect it to last more than a few months, i also have an ibm keyboard with the clicky keys and the date on the back is 1985 and that still works fine with all the keycaps intact. things these days arent built to last, my cd drive is on its way out as wel and i only had that for about 2 years but the one in my other computer is 7 or 8 years old and still works perfectly, oh and just a word of advice, dont buy 4in cold cathode lights, they start off really bright but get dim after a few months. and the stupid pump is leaking slowly so i gotta spend more money on my computer now, money i dont have, grrr i may just get an xbox 360... and umm watercool it :lol:

 

[Rabidpeanut]

Or you could buy a ps3 and dump it in a big vat of oil

 

[lol4fun]

na a ps3 would deserve compressor cooling lol, can they be bought yet? oh and i think the oil would slow the dvd drive, or whatever the ps3 will have, probably a bluray drive

 

[Rabidpeanut]

Just think what you could do if you over clocked a ps3. That would just be so 8) Killzone at 200fps. :drool:

 

[hergieburbur]

I doubt you will even need to overclock a PS3, considering the very impressive specs. Plus, most console games get a high enough framerate that you wouldn't notice anyway.

 

[Rabidpeanut]

I still don't trust what i saw at e3, i think they are trying to pull something. I want that to have been the truth, but you never know.

 

[hergieburbur]

well, it was pre-rendered, not actual gamep play, but we can (eventually, as we did with ps2, expect to see that. The hardware specs are too good. If it ever actually comes out :?

 

[Rabidpeanut]

They say that they will sell at a loss and make profit from their games.