3D graphic errors with Sapphire 9600XT Ultimate

[RJ]

Hello there,

last monday I finally got a new graphics card: A Sapphire 9600XT Ultimate.
But unfortunately, I get graphic errors in 3D mode. It's only in 3D Mode, all 2D graphics have been flawless.

Here are a few pics so you can see how it looks like. The small rectangles are actually constantly flashing, even when the game is on pause.
I got these errors in all 3D games so far.

http://mitglied.lycos.de/thegeek/bilder/ATI_1.jpg
http://mitglied.lycos.de/thegeek/bilder/ATI_2.jpg
http://mitglied.lycos.de/thegeek/bilder/ATI_3.jpg
http://mitglied.lycos.de/thegeek/bilder/ATI_4.jpg

When I got the card on monday, I first installed the rivers from the CD and I got the errors. Then I updated to the newest driver and the picture was perfect, with no errors at all, I played like an hour or so that night. After turning it on tuesday I got the errors again.
Since I thought I might have uninstalled the nVidia drivers the wrong way (I had a GeForce 2 before), I did a clean install, and installed the newest Catalyst drivers. Still, no change. Monday evening was the only time that I got an error-free 3D picture.

The first days I left the cover off, so I don't think it's a heat problem. Actually I touched the heatsink and it's not really hot. The old ATI Xpert 2000 I had 5 years ago was way hotter and it ran fine.
ATI control panel reports the temp between 40°C and 45°C. I have a case fan right above the graphics card, blowing air out. The second case fan is located at the bottom front, before the hard drives.

I've also tried to lower the AGP speed to 4x and turn fastwrite off. The problem still prevailed.

My full specs:
Enermax 350W PSU
Asus P4P800
P4 2.6
1 GB RAM
Sapphire 9600XT Ultimate
Pinnacle DC10plus
SB Audigy
2 WD SATA HDDs
Plextor 116A2 DVD-ROM
Plextor 12/10/32A
HP dvd200i
WinXP Pro SP2

I haven't had the chance to test the card in another PC yet. But since I get these errors after a clean install, I guess that card is broken and I have to RMA it. Can anyone confirm this or is there maybe something I can do about it ?

RJ

[pam123]

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthre...rtifacts+games

The specific section :


Artifacting.

Artifacting is a generic term referring to graphical errors encountered during gameplay. Artifacting might include black, flashing lines in the center of your screen; tiny squares along the vertices of objects; white speckles popping up in various parts of the screen; or "garbled" portions of the screen. There are infinitely many kinds of artifacts one can encounter, but there are, typically, only five reasons as to why you would get them: your video memory is overheating, an application has a specific issue with the Radeon driver, your RAM is bad, your monitor is having problems, or fast writes.

If you're over-clocking, then artifacts are a common sight. When you go too far, they begin to appear. Even if you are not over-clocking your memory, if you go too far on the core, the PCB on which the memory rests might heat to the point that it causes the memory temperatures to shoot up, and thus begin artifacting. The obvious solution, of course, is to reduce the clock speeds, thus reducing the temperatures. If you have done permanent damage, however, the artifacts still might not go away.

Another possible cause is, of course, a faulting application. The app might have some sort of conflict with the driver. You should report any such instances to ATI's driver feedback program.

There is also the possibility of faulty RAM. I've added this cause entirely out of experience; I had a bad stick of DDR-RAM that would cause massive artifacting in Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I would recommend you run MemTest in order to determine the integrity of your system's memory.

Artifacting may also be caused by your monitor. This isn't to say it's faulty; however, try toggling on and off the control panel settings "Reduce DVI Frequencies on High Resolution Displays," "Alternate DVI Operational Mode," and "Alternate Pixel Center." Obviously the first two options only pertain to DVI panels--again, toggle these on and off to see if they help; the other, Alternate Pixel Center, applies only to Analog monitors and is recommended to be on in case of display corruption. Once more, play around with these settings and see if they help.

Fast Writes, as mentioned in an above section, often cause more problems than they are worth. Sometimes they can even cause artifacting. Try disabling these via SMARTGART (Right Click the desktop -> Properties -> Settings -> Advanced -> SMARTGART). Reboot for the changes to take effect

You should test your memory, it might just be coincidence, but I think you're right about needing an RMA for the card.

[RJ]

Thanks for the reply.

I tried the settings (like FastWrite Off and reducing AGP to 4x, also play with the DVI Settings), and nothing helped.
I took out the ATI card and put back my GeForce 2, and I don't get the artifacts, so it looks like the card is indeed defective.

I'm gonna RMA it right now. Hopefully I get a good card back.

RJ