Is something wrong with my video card/cards?

[Romstar]

I currently have 2 2900 xt's in cf and have had them for about a month or so running fine and all of the sudden since last night I started getting artifacts on the monitor... what does this mean? are my cards dying? is my monitor dying?

 

[Romstar]

Maybe it could be my motherboards pciexpress slots? or something with the motherboard?

 

[bolt14]

Are they overclocked?? What does the ATI Control Center say about temperature? They could be overheating. (Big Suprise :roll: )

 

[vertigo_2000]

Especially with 2 of them in the case.

:roll:

 

[Anoobis]

Especially since they vent to the outside of the case.

 

[Romstar]

well they arent overclocked but last night while I was gaming I noticed they reached 97 degrees C in the ati over drive thing and well they have never been that high but during the night we turn off the ac so maybe I shouldnt game at night I guess. They are 80 C now but I am still getting the artifacts..... on the desktop so maybe they're permanetly damaged?

 

[goldragon_70]

What PSU are you using?
What are the temps of the GPU in the CCC when you get these artifacts?
Have you checked and made sure everything is connected correctly?
Have you tried another monitor?

 

[Anoobis]

RMA either through where you bought them or through the manufacturer.

 

[Romstar]

When I first bought them one was a dud and gave me tons of artifacts I rmaed it and ran off one beautifully until the 2nd one came and I ran CF and everything ran great up until last night when I was on the desktop I started getting these random artifacts which are still going on right now and seem to be worsening anyways the temp is 80 C in the overdrive panel my PSu is a 1 kilowatt silverstone which has 2 8 pinn connectors and 4 6 pin so I think I am good on power. I havent tried another monitor as my monitor is a dell 3007wfp which weighs 35 lbs but I guess I could try another 1 real quick.

 

[SEALBoy]

What is your case and fan configuration? What nuclear reactor are you using? Did your house burn down? Is melting the polar ice caps really worth it to play some games?

 

[Romstar]

I have a 25 cm side fan blowing air in and a fan on the back blowing air out pretty well. Yeah well w/e man all I knwo is i'll never go ati again that is for damn sure.

 

[Romstar]

I think I just fixed it by switching disabling crossfire and switching dvi ports on the video card then reenabling CF. The picture looks a lot better and there arent any artifacts.

 

[goldragon_70]

It's not unusual for the 2900 to hit in the 90's. My x1950xt hits 92 when OC, and none of the ATI software has a problem with it. If another video card has a problem, you might want to check the PSU connectors, even with a 1000W PSU, it still might be bad. Check to see if anything visibly might be shorting one or two of the cards as well. Trying another monitor will help to narrow the problem down some.

 

[goldragon_70]

I think I just fixed it by switching disabling crossfire and switching dvi ports on the video card then reenabling CF. The picture looks a lot better and there arent any artifacts.

Maybe a bad port, or the CF drivers are still a little buggy.

 

[rammedstein]

yeah, i had this same problem, i just switch the cards around and it ran fine, its got to do with the composition engine, it goes from one card through the crossfire to the composition engine then to the dvi encoder thingy, but sometimes it sends it to the ports on the wrong card and then has to be bridged back so you get artifacts, well, i hope it all runs well, those temps seem fine, my top card maxes out at 92 and my bottom at 88, lowest load was when i had my overvolted 25cm fan on high, it was 82 on the top card and 78 on the bottom

 

[Romstar]

well I just physically switched each cards slot and i am still getting artifacts........ohwell.

 

[eric54]

RMA it. Sounds like a bad card to me. Been there done that, move on.

 

[Romstar]

well i just switched the dvi things and it has been working perfect since last night so lets see how this continues.

 

[Romstar]

How do I know which card it is? I swapped the cards around and am still getting the same effect so is it both of them? or is it the motherboard or the software or something else?

 

[Anoobis]

Just get rid of them both under RMA/warranty while you still can. And I wouldn't use this experience as a reason to not consider ATI cards in the future.

 

[Romstar]

well it turns out all i had to do was turn on a setting in the ati control manager to alternate dvi operational mode and it took care of the artifacts like nothing.

 

[goldragon_70]

That's something new.