Is my x800pro going bad? Strange artifacts on primary display.

[Nuno]

I did post this on rage3d.com, but people over there aren´t exactly helping much...

I just realized a odd behaviour on my Powercolor X800pro. Whenever it starts a 3d game on the primary display "Radeon X800 PRO" there are a few black stripes across the screen. I tried different drivers, D3D, OGL, underclocking the card, better cooling, and nothing. I show here a screnshot taken by a digital camera, because a "printscreen" saves to clipboard a perfect picture, without the stripes...



In 2d or Video, there aren´t any artifacts, as there aren´t any problems if I use the "Radeon X800 PRO Secondary" as primary adapter. (actually this is the solution I found as a workaround). Printscreen returns a perfect image. And now the most strange, if a 3d app can run windowed, it also doesn´t have artifacts. Here are 2 examples with Live for Speed:
- Windowed


- Full screen, same exact scene and resolution


Any ideas?

[Tjalfe]

looks pretty much like my Radeon 9800PRO, a few days before it got so corrupt that the card was useless.. return it under warrenty and get a new one, or just buy a new one from a store with a good return policy and return your old one for money back, as I happend to do it, not wanting to wait for 3 weeks without a card

[Gurm]

I'd say "send it to me" but people are probably sick of hearing that.

Just RMA it.

[Nuno]

So, you do think the card is bad, right?

But what I find it hard to understand is why it´s doing this. If it´s the hardware that is broken (pixel pipeline?) why does 3D work windowed? Why does a printscreen render a perfect image - it captures what´s on the framebuffer right?

I really don´t want to send the card back now, because I would have to buy a new AGP card anyway, I don´t have any spare card. The workaround I told about (swaping monitors and making "X800 pro secondary" the primary monitor) actually makes the problem go away, because the "secondary" works just fine, and in 2D there aren´t any problems - I do use 2 monitors.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Does it happen when running different resolutions and/or color depth and/or AA and/or AF?

[Tjalfe]

So, you do think the card is bad, right?

But what I find it hard to understand is why it´s doing this. If it´s the hardware that is broken (pixel pipeline?) why does 3D work windowed? Why does a printscreen render a perfect image - it captures what´s on the framebuffer right?

I really don´t want to send the card back now, because I would have to buy a new AGP card anyway, I don´t have any spare card. The workaround I told about (swaping monitors and making "X800 pro secondary" the primary monitor) actually makes the problem go away, because the "secondary" works just fine, and in 2D there aren´t any problems - I do use 2 monitors.

my guess is faulty ram on the card and it is accessing different parts of this ram, depending on windowes / full screen, but that is just a guess...

Try taking the card back where you bought it and see if they will be nice and swap it for you, if not, seriously find a store which will let you return the card, buy a new one, then return the broken one.. I did this at best buy mysef ( which is where I had bought the card just a month earlier )

[Nuno]

Different resolutions, definitly. AA/AF, actually I´m not sure. I´ll try latter, because I´m at work now.

To be honest, I noticed this when I installed cat 5.7, but I tried it with 5.5 and 5.6 which I knew to work fine, and it´s the same.

I did have it "slightly" overclocked at 500/567 , maybe that killed it... don´t know.

[Nuno]

I tried with AA/AF, several resolutions and refresh rates, and it´s the same...

[Nuno]

my guess is faulty ram on the card and it is accessing different parts of this ram, depending on windowes / full screen, but that is just a guess...

But how can be the ram, if the image is rendered correctly on the second "head"? Surely the X800 doesn´t have separated RAM to each output?

[Jon P. Inghram]

Very odd. Did it always do this or just start suddenly? Does it do the same thing at absurdly low full-screen resolutions like 320x240 or 400x300?

[Wombat]

But how can be the ram, if the image is rendered correctly on the second "head"? Surely the X800 doesn´t have separated RAM to each output?

Yes, of course it does. At the very least, they operate from separate frame buffers. If it were a G400, then it works by splitting its RAM in half when in dualhead - not sure how ATI does their work.

[Nuno]

Very odd. Did it always do this or just start suddenly? Does it do the same thing at absurdly low full-screen resolutions like 320x240 or 400x300?

No, the card is almost one year old and it always worked well. As I said, I noticed it after installing cat 5.7, but I really didn´t play any game for a long time, so it could be already doing this.

It does it also at these resolutions.
Here´s a picture of Quake 2 on full 320x240 glory


But as I said, when I do a printscreen, here´s what I got (zoomed 2x)

[Nuno]

Yes, of course it does. At the very least, they operate from separate frame buffers. If it were a G400, then it works by splitting its RAM in half when in dualhead - not sure how ATI does their work.

Yes, but point is, it does it also when working in singlehead. The screnshot above was taken with only one monitor conected and with the second head disabled. It was one of the first things I tried, because when going 3D, the X800 actually doesn´t turn off the second head. If you do a printscreen, it captures the whole framebuffer where you can see the 3d rendering and your desktop side by side.
But I´m pretty sure when it works in single head, the whole 256Mb are available, right?

Anyway, if it was defective memory, why doing a printscreen shows an image without artifacts? Wouldn´t the corrupted rendering be on the framebuffer too?

[Nuno]

Ok, I found something even stranger, that may indicate the problem doesn´t lie within the hardware itself, but the drivers and/or Direct X must be to blame.

I was experimenting again with some old Dx demos (I miss my Kyro, BTW ) and here´s the result running with... RGB emulation.



With DirectX RGB emulation no graphic hardware is being used, right? (I hope not, as it´s painfully slow )

So what´s the reason for this?

Anyone knows a way of reinstalling DX 9.0c??

[rylan]

Even with DX emulation, you are still using the drawing engine of the GPU. Usually single or multiple bit memory errors show up as sparkling/twinkling pixels on the screen, or can also look like striped/blocky pieces in the case of larger block transfer errors. From what I've seen, my guess is that its a drawing/rendering engine failure in the GPU during a BLIT function.... either that or your DAC is toast.
Any chance you can try it with a digital LCD to rule out the dac?