I purchased a Sapphire X800 GTO2 from Newegg a few months ago. Since then, it's been running fine. I overclocked it as soon as I got it, and while I heard it was supposed to have excellent overclocking capabilities, I was never able to get it past 450/525 with ATITool (the default is 400/490). These results weren't very impressive, but I let it be at 450/525 without really worrying about it. The temperature at that clock setting always seemed fine, and that wasn't much of an overclock anyway. Plus, I flashed the BIOS to utilize all 16 pipelines (which all GTO2's are supposed to have...and I also checked ATITool to make sure it had 16 to be unlocked...and it did) so it was running as fast as I needed it to be.
Recently I overclocked my CPU as well, but not by very much. I have an Athlon 3400+ with a default clock of 2.4ghz, and I overclocked it to 2.55ghz and increased the voltage from 1.5 to 1.55, so nothing drastic. I also made sure to watch my temperatures and at 1.55ghz my CPU idled at about 30C.
I'm not sure if those two events are related at all, but while testing my CPU clocks in Half-Life 2, after about 3 minutes or less of playing my screen turned mostly white with a frozen distorted image of the game on it (although the distorted white lines on the screen were moving). After about 5-10 seconds, my monitor shut off then back on, and then the game appeared again (looking normal) and unpaused. I was able to play again for another minute or two when the same thing happened. Again, the screen came back on after a while, and the picture reappeared. I could play for another minute, then the screen did it again. However, on the third time it wouldn't load the picture again. I exited and went into ATITool and when I clicked "Show 3D View," it said Direct3D was unable to initalize (or something like that).
So this happens over and over again. I'm not running my CPU and graphics card at default clock speeds and still getting the same problem. I uninstalled my video card drivers and installed newer drivers...same thing. I have an Antec SmartPower 2.0 400W PSU, so I doubted the PSU was having trouble supplying the graphics card, but I recently installed my computer into a new case, with a big 25cm fan on the side and I have two 80mm case fans also installed, so I figured I could try disconnecting them. So I did, hoping maybe that would give my PSU a little more headroom, but it didn't seem to do anything, and my video card still goes crazy on ATITool's Show 3D View after about 10 seconds.
I read about problems with x800's where the fan would stop spinning and needed to be directly connected to a molex, but that doesn't seem to be the problem. The fan never stops spinning. Also, the GPU temperature on the card never goes far above 60C, and the problem often happens with temperatures as low as 50C.
Any ideas? I'd rather not have to RMA my card, and I can't imagine permanently damaging it like this with just a little overclocking.
Recently I overclocked my CPU as well, but not by very much. I have an Athlon 3400+ with a default clock of 2.4ghz, and I overclocked it to 2.55ghz and increased the voltage from 1.5 to 1.55, so nothing drastic. I also made sure to watch my temperatures and at 1.55ghz my CPU idled at about 30C.
I'm not sure if those two events are related at all, but while testing my CPU clocks in Half-Life 2, after about 3 minutes or less of playing my screen turned mostly white with a frozen distorted image of the game on it (although the distorted white lines on the screen were moving). After about 5-10 seconds, my monitor shut off then back on, and then the game appeared again (looking normal) and unpaused. I was able to play again for another minute or two when the same thing happened. Again, the screen came back on after a while, and the picture reappeared. I could play for another minute, then the screen did it again. However, on the third time it wouldn't load the picture again. I exited and went into ATITool and when I clicked "Show 3D View," it said Direct3D was unable to initalize (or something like that).
So this happens over and over again. I'm not running my CPU and graphics card at default clock speeds and still getting the same problem. I uninstalled my video card drivers and installed newer drivers...same thing. I have an Antec SmartPower 2.0 400W PSU, so I doubted the PSU was having trouble supplying the graphics card, but I recently installed my computer into a new case, with a big 25cm fan on the side and I have two 80mm case fans also installed, so I figured I could try disconnecting them. So I did, hoping maybe that would give my PSU a little more headroom, but it didn't seem to do anything, and my video card still goes crazy on ATITool's Show 3D View after about 10 seconds.
I read about problems with x800's where the fan would stop spinning and needed to be directly connected to a molex, but that doesn't seem to be the problem. The fan never stops spinning. Also, the GPU temperature on the card never goes far above 60C, and the problem often happens with temperatures as low as 50C.
Any ideas? I'd rather not have to RMA my card, and I can't imagine permanently damaging it like this with just a little overclocking.
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