Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB - Artifacts

[alex06]

Hello,

I've had a Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB for just over a year now and suddenly the card started displaying artifacts in 3d applications. Here are some examples:

I've tried changing the driver to many different versions now, but any newer version than the currently installed one (6.14.10.6517, 2/22/05) seems to cause the machine to halt after one or more reboots and then I have to boot in safe mode, remove all ati drivers, let Windows use its own and then apply whatever next ati version.

Funnily enough, although testing the card for artifacts with ATITool gives the result shown in the link above, if I run it after checking the "Use the old scanning method" box, no artifacts appear. All of the other games that used to run fine now show artifacts.

I suspect a hardware problem due to overheating, but I wanted to see if anybody has any other idea. I never overclocked the card and I have never changed the cooling either.

I have a Pentium IV 3.0HT, 1GB RAM, motherboard is an ABIT AI7, running Windows XP SP2, AVG, and usually Windows Defender is on but I tried turning it off as well but it didn't seem to help.

Thanks

Alex.

 

[Batou1986]

ehh check to make sure nothing is on the card somewhere like a drop of soda or something had the same thing happen to my x850xtpe turns out some how some form of liquid got between the ram heat spreader and a few resistors and such and was aparently causing it to get to much voltage or something cleaned it off with some windex works fine i had a 9800 pro 128 prior to my x850xtpe and it just died on me one day without warning

 

[trog100]

i think its memory artifact thing.. running too hot or just dying on u.. its a card hardware problem.. see if u can cool it a bit better..

trog

 

[FLY3R]

Time to look into getting a new card.