HD 2600 Pro crashing/forcing redraws

[dearnold]

Hello, white box system WinXP ProSP2, with ATI Radeon HD2600 PRO video card on a Gigabyte P35C-DS3R mobo, 3GB RAM, 620W PSU running two monitors ViewSonic 22" & 19".
I was unable to boot directly into Windows and show desktop on both monitors -- and other funny stuff happened yesterday. I uninstalled the ATI CCC & drivers; and installed the 10.2 package.
Now both monitors are recognized in the right order when Win starts, but I've had a crash when moving between several windows (had both Adobe Acrobat 9Pro and Photoshop CS4 open, plus Word and Outlook); a crash produced a error log which I try to send to ATI, but the autoemail address is rejected. So, that's frustrating.
In addition to the crash, I still have occasional slow redraws of windows, and stuttering when I move a window too fast -- seems like the CPU need to catch up. After the crashes, I made sure the Accelerator was turned off/down. Doesn't stop the problem; I just go a little longer between symptoms.
Is the card dying; is this something else manifesting itself through the video? Not sure how to troubleshoot.
THX.

 

[mister g]

Not sure where to start but, are the res of both monitors set up correctly. And why SP2, do you have problems with SP3.

 

[nforce4max]

Hmmm the driver issue that you are having are interesting but I don't have a HD 2k series card on hand to hunt down the best driver packages since some generation cards don't work so well with the latest drivers from ATI. I have a x1900xt and a 3870 both do dual display perfectly. So lets rule the card its self being the cause (hardware failure) make sure the card is free of any dust and the fan is spinning. Check the temps (need to below 70c under load) and that the cooler on the card isn't lose. Also some of the 2600s were 64bit or used hipermemory so those that did are very slow at games and 2D work as well 3D. If the normal 128 bit then you are ok in that even though it is DDR2. How much vram is this card (256/512mb)?

Once the card is ruled out what is the ress of your monitors?

 

[dearnold]

sorry for delay - been traveling.
Will check the card later tonight, but I've had the case open recently and my guess is that the card is dust free and the temp is OK.
It is a 512mb card
The res of the monitors is set correctly for each one 1680x1050 for the 22" and 1440x900 for the 19" - both 60Hz (is that what you're asking?)
I haven't gotten around to upgrading from SP2 to SP3 - was waiting for it to stabilize - and have just been lazy.........so I could do that tomorrow. I've kept everything else for Win updated.

Interesting thing is that it is now booting up correctly with the dual monitors..........but I'm having the delay in redraw when scrolling through files in all apps.........haven't had Acrobat 9.3 and Photoshop open at the same time since I posted, but Acrobat 9.3 has locked up a couple of times........

 

[nforce4max]

Well this is a budget card and performance reflects that but then again it should be doing 2D better than it is currently. I will admit that the cards I used for my own multy monitor setup were of a higher performance. A x1900xt, 3870, and a 8800gtx. If the temps are good lets try playing with the clocks Try a very small over clock on the core and mem like 25mhz more on the core and mem at once. If there is a small boost then you should look into a better card BUT if no increase in performance at all then it maybe software holding you back. Tell us more about your system like cpu, ram, and board.

 

[dearnold]

playing with the clocks Try a very small over clock on the core and mem like 25mhz more on the core and mem at once.

Have never done this - what utility do you recommend? can you link me to a "how to"; I'm not afraid to give it a whirl.

System:
CPU – Intel Core2 Quad Q6600@2.4GHz
Gigabyte P35C-DS3R mobo
3GB RAM (2x1GB, 2x512MB Kingston DDR2 (PC2-6400)
ATI Radeon HD2600 PRO video card
620W PSU
Win XP Pro SP2
two monitors ViewSonic 22" & 19".

 

[nforce4max]

Got a decent system there so it is definitely underperforming. Load river tuner and once installed and running click on the icon on the bar that say R630 120sp under the drop down bar that have the name of your card and click the icon that looks like a graphics card (lol). Then clock detect now (don't reboot) and (enable low-level hardware overclocking) then overclock remember small oc nothing crazy just 25mhz. Also you can check temps in real time.

 

[dearnold]

Thanks - I loaded and ran RivaTuner; did a small overclock on core and mem as you suggested. So far, things are fine, but I haven't had the time to load up the heavy apps and work that where it would really show. Will do that later today or tomorrow and the report back.