Confirm death please

Zenthar

Graphics card Expert

November 4, 2006 3:23:17 AM

Hi, just to make sure I don't throw-out a perfectly good card, could someone confirm that my old AGP Radeon 9700 Pro is dead?

I had the (stupid) idea of removing the heatsink to replace the default thermal crap with good thermal grease. It seemed stuck so I just pulled harder and it came off. The thermal pad had become platic solid. And now my screen look like this (just showed a part of it but the problem is on the whole screen):

I probably damaged the die that was "encased" in the old petrified thermal pad when I removed the heatsink. Can you confirm that my display problem match my hypothesis and this is not an AGP slot issue (my only other guess)?

This isn't catastrophic, I was planning on changin it to something like a 7600GS in 2-3 months, the thing will just have to be done now.

Thank you.

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Runescaper

November 4, 2006 9:10:12 AM

Looks to me like it's a quick fix - just take the card out, blow hard into the agp port, yank it back in from side to side until it really sits tight in there, then reboot.

If that doesn't work i'm afraid it's dead, but to me that looks like an rgb problem of sorts. Check all connections, and if possible - try connecting it to something using the s-video port or the vga/dvi (the opposit to what you're using now).

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BustedSony

November 4, 2006 10:24:07 AM

Quote:

Looks to me like it's a quick fix - just take the card out, blow hard into the agp port, yank it back in from side to side until it really sits tight in there, then reboot.

If that doesn't work i'm afraid it's dead, but to me that looks like an rgb problem of sorts. Check all connections, and if possible - try connecting it to something using the s-video port or the vga/dvi (the opposit to what you're using now).

No it's not RGB. RGB is analog, if one colour is bad it would affect the level of one colour evenly over the whole screen. It DOES look like a memory issue, though it was the GPU that was "yanked." Reseating the card is worth trying.

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Zenthar

Graphics card Expert

November 4, 2006 10:44:04 AM

At first I thought it might have been a RGB issue as well. I had a similar issue with a defective KVM cable once, but as BustedSony mentioned, the screen was evenly blue and screencaptures (PRTSCN) didn't display the problem (since it uses the video buffer directly I guess). Still I tried plugging my CRT directly in the (faulty) video card but the problem was still there. I also plugged a second monitor in my DVI port (using a DVI to VGA dongle) which displayed the same problem.

I also tried to plug/unplug the video card multiple time and also blowing air in the AGP socket (

reminds me of the old NES/SNES days ...) but it didn't work either. I also thought about testing a 3D application it see if it was only color-related and most of the 3D was corrupted.

So I guess I did break it. Oh well, may this be a lesson for anyone: trying to change the original thermal compound of a video card after a few years might not be a good idea since the thing is so cheap it gets rock hard.

Thank you all for your inputs, I will keep this card as a "spare" in case a need to troubleshoot other systems.

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