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X800 GTO display problem.. checkerboard pattern after playing awhile.

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splendorlex

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Nov 19, 2006
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Hey all, I just recently bought a X800 GTO 256MB, running it through DVI to my 204BW. I've noticed in WoW and HL2 that after a short time playing, sometimes the screen fills with a flickering checkerboard pattern of artifacts/glitches. Does anyone know what this means? I am running the latest Catalyst drivers. Also, when I exit the game, my display is corrupted in a similar way until I restart. It seems kind of erratic when it does it. The other night I played HL2 for over an hour without it happening, but then earlier today it popped up after only a few minutes of game time. My temps run about 43 idle, and 67 under load. I only have an Antec 350W true blue, could that be the problem?
 
I would say return it if you recently bought it. My first thought is that it is overheating, but your temperatures look okay. I doubt it's your power supply, but it's possible.
 
post the rest of your system specs, it's possible you don't have a powerful enough power supply.
 
i have asked this before and no one has answered me but isnt the newest ati driver 6.11 only for x1k and up line?? and it does seem that some have had trouble with 6.11 on x8xx cards..what are your clocks it almost sounds like they are too high....but like i have said all night, idk i am an idiot....good luck man...:rockout:
 
Ok, here are some more detailed specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (First generation 64...not sure which core that is)
1 gig of RAM
X800GTO 256MB
Antec TrueBlue 350W
MSI K8N Neo-FSR

I run very few devices, only one floppy, one HDD, one NIC and one wireless NIC. I did upgrade to the 6.11 drivers. According to ATITool my core is at 405 and my memory is at 495, no overclocking.
 
I plan to pick up a Enermax 535W power supply tomorrow from my brother and give that a try, if I'm still getting the corruption I'll return it. I bought it off Ebay, but with a 90 day guarantee.
 
you may want to try and uninstall 6.11 completely and install something like 6.9....just to make sure it s not the driver and CCC.....:rockout:
 
Yeah, try 6.9 is has less problems and is more stable on the non1X series cards.
 
Try 6.6 if no good. Unistall all drivers, defrag, re-install driver and try again.
 
That "checker-boarding" would indicate an Overheated GPU, if that actually happens and if you actually let it continue... you are seriously destroying the GPU. Send it back and get a refund/replacement.

The GPU is gone... guys, Screen corruption/artifacts at stock settings would obviously indicate a malfunctioning GPU. Use your common sense. If it doesnt work, replace it!
 
i believe cat 6.11 is not the issue, works flawlessly with my x800gto...
 
Thanks for posting this guys. I have a Sapphire X800 GTO and I'm getting the same thing with the checkerboard effect. I think tonight after work I'll go get a new GPU heatsink and see if that helps. And splendorlex let us know if that new power supply helps out any.
 
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Sapphire X800GTO checkerboard

ahambli said:
Thanks for posting this guys. I have a Sapphire X800 GTO and I'm getting the same thing with the checkerboard effect. I think tonight after work I'll go get a new GPU heatsink and see if that helps. And splendorlex let us know if that new power supply helps out any.
Click to expand...

-Hey this is squiggles28, im having that checkerboard effect. I doubt it is the GPU overheating, mostly because i have a fan directly underneath the card. And the card runs cool, Im sure it is the fact that i have only a 300w PSU, and will be upgrading it to a 400w. At first i thought it was my dedicated ram ( to vid mem), but it has to be psu or windows problem with driver sinning. Also, does this checkerboard effect take place when you are loading up windows, or if you are in linux? Cause it only does this crap in windows for me.
P.S.- I’ll let you know if the power supply works for me. And also, if you have a 350w like they say you need- its really only running at about 305w to 325w
 
I've had a similar problem with my card, a Sapphire X800GTO 256 AGP, although it's unlocked and overclocked. Usually it runs fine at 540 core and 590 mem (it's R480 core and 1.6ns ram). The core goes higher, but the ram doesn't. It refuses to do 600, and will crash within 30 seconds. Thing is, I've been running it this way for a while, upgraded to the 6.11 Catalyst drivers, and all was well. A few minutes ago, while playing lost cost, I got a nice plaid of green, pink, and white all over my screen. I know my card isn't overheating. I have a Zalman VF900 on the core and it routinely registers no higher than 32c at idle and 45c in game. The ram isn't too warm either since I put the tiny zalman heatsinks on it. I even put a heatsink on the rialto bridge, to cool it down, used alumina epoxy since it's non-conductive/capacitive, and ceramique on core for the same reason. I've run it like this for a month, and it won't crash, unless it's Jedi Academy, and then it just goes out in a few minutes. But it crashed in HL2...after a half hour in the game. It runs fine at stock speeds and unlocked. Is the card bad? Should I be sending it back, or should I just lower the clock and live with it? Granted, system specs are Athlon XP 3000+ (Locked) @ 2.25 Ghz on 1.65 volts. Abit NF7S-2.0 board. 1GB of Samsung 333 RAM in dual channel mode OC'd slightly to 174 Mhz, 2-3-3-7-2T timings on 2.7 volts. 120G Hitachi 180GXP HDD, 1 Lite-on 52 CD drive, 1 Lite-On DVD Burner, and 7 fans, all powered by a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 470. All voltages off the power supply are within 1% (really .5%) of their rating. Mobo northbridge voltage is 1.5 volts, AGP is 1.5.
I'd really like some help too, guys, this is driving me nuts. Only thing I haven't tried yet is upping voltage to the vid card slightly (never liked the idea) to 1.6V. Would that really help? Thanks much for any help.

~Cow
 
Ok, just an update here. The new power supply, up from a 350w to a 435w, did nothing. I had the same problem. I am now RMAing the card. It's my own stupid fault for buying an off branded card. I got it off Ebay and thought it was an ATI made card, but it's some company called retek I never heard of before. Oh well, at least they're sending me a replacement.
 
UnexplodedCow said:
I've had a similar problem with my card, a Sapphire X800GTO 256 AGP, although it's unlocked and overclocked. Usually it runs fine at 540 core and 590 mem (it's R480 core and 1.6ns ram). The core goes higher, but the ram doesn't. It refuses to do 600, and will crash within 30 seconds. Thing is, I've been running it this way for a while, upgraded to the 6.11 Catalyst drivers, and all was well. A few minutes ago, while playing lost cost, I got a nice plaid of green, pink, and white all over my screen. I know my card isn't overheating. I have a Zalman VF900 on the core and it routinely registers no higher than 32c at idle and 45c in game. The ram isn't too warm either since I put the tiny zalman heatsinks on it. I even put a heatsink on the rialto bridge, to cool it down, used alumina epoxy since it's non-conductive/capacitive, and ceramique on core for the same reason. I've run it like this for a month, and it won't crash, unless it's Jedi Academy, and then it just goes out in a few minutes. But it crashed in HL2...after a half hour in the game. It runs fine at stock speeds and unlocked. Is the card bad? Should I be sending it back, or should I just lower the clock and live with it? Granted, system specs are Athlon XP 3000+ (Locked) @ 2.25 Ghz on 1.65 volts. Abit NF7S-2.0 board. 1GB of Samsung 333 RAM in dual channel mode OC'd slightly to 174 Mhz, 2-3-3-7-2T timings on 2.7 volts. 120G Hitachi 180GXP HDD, 1 Lite-on 52 CD drive, 1 Lite-On DVD Burner, and 7 fans, all powered by a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 470. All voltages off the power supply are within 1% (really .5%) of their rating. Mobo northbridge voltage is 1.5 volts, AGP is 1.5.
I'd really like some help too, guys, this is driving me nuts. Only thing I haven't tried yet is upping voltage to the vid card slightly (never liked the idea) to 1.6V. Would that really help? Thanks much for any help.

~Cow
Click to expand...

I would suggest to decrease the clocks to 520/560MHz or 500/560MHz and to fix that within the BIOS. It is nice card with R480 (with 16 pipes ;) ) and for sure is far better compared to the card you paid for :D .
 
i had the checkerboard my Sapphire X800 GTO AGP.

i am just pulling this from memory:
purple-ish checker pattern is overheating
white-ish is low onboard power/card failure or the sign of christ retun!

i got the purple-ish screen with the stock heatsink or the zalman v700 at silent
while trying out 16 pipes or overclocking.

i am using 520:540 for a couple of days 3 hours in COD2
i volt-mod the card resitor down to 10kohm (from 41kohm) and the most voltage is puts out is 1.28v (1.07 under heavy load) from 1.17
the memory will cause checker screen over 550 (though i can artifact scan a 600[errors])

i am satisfied though since i seem to hit a bootleneck .
all overclocks using atitool
and cat 6.2 (will try the 5.4 if any probs)

system:
Sempron 2800+ (@2ghz)
512mb kingston value pc3200(ddr500) - 2months strong) 2.5-4-4-7
dfi nf3 250-al (general)
80gig seagate 7200.9
generic 500 w (20A 12V)
 
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dolf said:
I would suggest to decrease the clocks to 520/560MHz or 500/560MHz and to fix that within the BIOS. It is nice card with R480 (with 16 pipes ;) ) and for sure is far better compared to the card you paid for :D .
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick reply. I've been testing through the night, and the core is fine up to 570, the ram however, is still unstable at 560. Keeps giving me that beautiful checkerboard screen. Mostly white, with some purple, little green (or blue, depending on when it froze). Tried upping the voltage to 1.6, and it made no diff. Haven't tested power on the extra molex yet. Oddly enough, it did give me a no-connector issue once, during a restart, when the computer hadn't been moved, bumped, or anything. Restarted it, and all was well. Drivers don't seem to matter at all. I was hoping for 850 XTPE, but my system is so cpu limited, it really doesn't matter. At least it does 16pp flawlessly! Big thanks for all the help I got there.
 
Oh, yeah, to further my message..I've never had real issues with artifact scanning...it'll be going along swimmingly at 600 Mhz on ram, then my screen will just turn off, after 15 minutes or even a half hour of no artifacts. Core gets to around 580, then boom, my screen goes blank and I have to restart. I've never even had VPU recover kick in, even when I OC the core. My system just crashes. Been using ATI tool .24. Scanning is set to most conservative, with old scanning method checked. Never had a problem with Trixx, but that said my core was good to 470, and ram 573 (but still crashes in game). Tried diff. timings on ram, made no difference at all.
 
One more thing, i read up about the r480,an the power consuption ability, could that be causing problems.

if i get a crash i will try a r430 bios
 
Wouldn't using a 430 bios on a card with 480 screw the card?
 
when i had the checker problem my PSU was 300 stock i went and got a ultra 500w and the card runs fine clocked to 500/540 steady at a 47c,:rockout:
 
Yeah, my card will do that just fine, I was just trying to get a little more out of it (always am)...maybe I can check some voltages on my card, and see what it's getting.
 
Ok i downloaded the Sapphire X800gto bios from the bios section and modded it to 16 pipes.
i appears to be from a red sapphire agp x800gto (2 letters are different in th P/N)
i have a blue gto.

the thin that bother me is that customers at newegg that bought blue gtos got
R430 - 16 pipe unlocked at factory
R480 - 12 pipes (why?)

the almost random checkerboard crashes don't make sense! it has to be the bios or the way the bios and the r480 work.


the flashed the modded R430 bios to my R480 and i got 1.35V idle [from 1.15v)
and got 1.30v in farcry boat map [from 1.07]
the R480 has power control features maybe the sapphire bios is causing problems?
the driver installation shows the secondary and primary on pci and agp ports when it showed N/A before.

i will test this bios out over the weekend and post back .......i have a good feeling though:)
 
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