I go to the ATI website to download the latest Catalyst drivers (because I need to keep installing them every week or so to make my 9800 AIW perform properly) and on their main page I see them advertising the 9800 Pro and ... the 9600 AIW!!!! I would think the 9800 AIW was more recent, but they are pushing an older card instead?!?! I don't have hours to wade through their customer complaint maze in order to send an email that will never get answered (ok, they might answer - but with a scripted answer offering a tip for running a game that I've never installed!) - and I don't think I should pay for a phone call to ask them why my video card isn't working properly, or even if they actually still support it!

Does anyone here know the status of the 9800 AIW card?

Thanks -

Don

I just have all summer, so I'll find the latest driver for you. Download it to a CD or floppy if you are using a different computer than the one with the 9800 AIW. What OS do you have so that I can get the correct version for your OS?

What is the problem you are having with your card.

Thanks, 123456 - but I do download the latest Catalyst drivers (about once a month - maybe THAT should tell me something?) and the 'fix' only lasts for a week or two each time.

The problem:

Whenever I am engaged in graphics-intensive stuff (one game in particular) - or even the Windows XP pro splash screen - I get what you can see in the attached jpg file.

When I downgraded back to my Creative Annihilator 2 I never got any graphics corruption.

This pattern even occurs quite strongly in the Windows splash screen, as I said, but how to get a screenshot of that? I have a picture but the file is too big - I hope this jpg is sufficient to get the idea across.

Thanks -

Don

That is a sure fire sign of graphics board memory troubles. Have you overclocked the card at all?

How old is the card. You may want to consider returning or exchanging the card if still under warranty. I had a similar problem with a 9800Pro card. It didn't always happen, but occasionally I would get this corruption when the welcome screen appeared or I ran a 3D application. Luckily I noticed this fairly soon after buying the card and after a bit of struggle (different story), I had the card replaced and all was well.

No - it isn't overclocked (don't know how...don't WANT to know how).

I bought it from Essential Computer Inc. in November but didn't install it until early Feb. After about a month (maybe sooner) I started to get this kind of picture corruption, first in Warcraft 3 and then in Demise, followed closely by the XP splash screen.
So far I've written to ATI (they sent me prewritten scripts on how to deal with various gaming issues, none of which applied)
I wrote to the website where I bought the card
I posted on various forums to see if anyone knew where the problem actually existed
I wrote to ATI again and this time never heard back at all
I've gone through 6 Catalyst upgrades, done innumerable uninstalls & installs and swapped out the ATI card for my old Creative card trying to get screen caps to send to ATI

This thread is the first time anyone has so much as hinted they know where the problem lies - but I fear that after 'waiting' so long I might not get any satisfaction. However, since I have nothing to lose, I will pursue the ATI path (I get the impression that dealing with the online retailer is a dead end, while I have heard a number of good things about ATI support) and see where it gets me.

Thanks, malcore -

Don

Sounds like the hardware is failing, my friend was given a Geforce 4 that is only usefull for anyting non-3d related (basically no games, not even CS, lol :( ), worst part is its a t14400!! such awaste, we think its a problem on the GPU iteslf, basically its messed up, but i could be a bad Video BIOS (hmm i think ill try to flash it, worst things worst, a broken card would be broken lol) sorry for going off topic, but soudns to me like it may be that or overheating, is there alot of dust in ur pc, Graphics cards hate heat almsot worth than an Athlon XP, also, can u give us the rest of ur systems specs, it might help.

That could be related to your bios settings. It sort of looks like some patterns I was getting a couple of years ago when I installed a geforce4 4400. I had things like bios shadowing and such enabled, and found out later that I should disable those settings. So you might want to play with some of your bios settings unless you've already ruled those out as a problem. good luck.

marty

Just curious - is there any possibility that it's a case of my motherboard not being able to handle the video card?
I have an Asus P4B266, designed to handle Intel chips up to 2.4 GHz, which is what I have - so I would think that wasn't the case. But getting a new motherboard is cheaper than getting a new video card, so it's worth asking.
Anybody know about this motherboard?

Did you buy the card retail?

It is an AIW card? So it is built by ATI, not an add-in-board company like Giga-Byte or Powercolor?

If so, ATI has a three year warranty on all cards since the 7000. I assume the card is less than 3 years old. Go to ATI's warranty page (http://www.ati.com/support/rma/index.html) and fill out the form and request an RMA.

I doubt it is your motherboard. These cards work fine with an AGP4x board. I used both a 9800Pro and 9700Pro in an Asus I850 board that was AGP4x.

You could check your bios like alex666 said and disable any bios or memory "shadowing". I feel strongly that it is your video card's memory that is malfunctioning though.

Try the RMA (return merchandise).

Good luck.:)


Edit- if you fill out the online RMA form, include a link to this thread so they can see the picture you supplied showing the problem.

Oh, well...

I did what malcore suggested; I filled out ATI's online RMA request and included a link to this forum, telling them that it had a screenshot of my problem. I did this on August 26th.

ATI has not yet responded in any form.

So much for taking the high road.

Are you using an LCD monitor attached to the DVI port? If you are goto the advanced settings in the display aplet in control panel click on the options tab tick the box "Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displays"

While you are there click on the SMARTGART tab make sure the AGP settings slider is set at 4X.

Thanks, rond36 - I will try that tonight when I get home. My monitor is a Viewsonic 810G (a CRT, several years old), but I'll give it a shot. Anything would be better than the way it looks now.
If there is something else I should try instead for a CRT, please let me know.

Thanks again -
Don

Didn't work. I still have loads of horizontal green lines running through my graphics.
Here's hoping Santa brings me a new video card - preferably an nVidia.