Dead Radeon 8500LE ?!?

[Lonemagi]

Last night, I was looking up my email, when I got a flicker on the screen like I was refreshing the screen, then a black screen. I then received an error message that a commponent on my system had failed, and windows would reset to these settings.

Now 640x480 and 4 colors looks interesting on a 19in monitor.

So I reinstalled the latest drivers from ATI, which restarted the system to its normal look, but still the same reselution.

After windows XP asked if I would likr to resize my desktop to fit my screen btter, I said OK. I then got the flicker again and the video was back to being bunk.

Frustrated, I went to bed.

This morning, I fired up the PC, mostly out of habit, then I remembered last night. Right about the time I hear XP start, but dont see it start. interesting. So off I go to open my case.

I made sure the card was seated right (dont know how it could function for a week seated wrong, but hell, its worth a try), and rebooted. i got POST, I got to the windows XP safe mode selection, chose to boot normaly, and it went. UNTIL it got to the windows logo with the blue bar that bounces like nightrider. that thing was artifacting and bouncing all over the place.


I shut down the pc disgusted, and am now at work.

I got this card off of an <A HREF="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2050411253" target="_new">auction</A>, it was used. THe auction never said it was used, just it came card only. I figured this was whitebox, and didnt bother to ask "new or used?".

I am going to go home tonight and use a 4meg rageII to test the AGP slot, and have a PCI voodoo3 to get me by for a few days.

What am I looking at here guys? A fied card? My system has been hanging on some things, and I havent been able to run windows overnight for a while. Jut sitting there running ICQ and KazzaaLite freezes it if I leave it for day. When it is up, it runs things like NFS5 and UT2K3 fine.

CArd? Mobo? Floppy Drive?
Any Ideas of what to look for when I get home?

XP1800
Abit KG7
Radeon 8500LE 64mb
756mb DDR (512 unknown PC2100, 256 Crucial 2100)
WinXP Pro SP1
20gb IBM Desktar HD
10 Maxtor HD
generic sound (Cmedia)
Hapagaug TV
3com NIC



<font color=red>Red meat isn't bad for you</font color=red>,<font color=blue> Fuzzy blue meat is bad for you.</font color=blue>

 

[Ghostdog]

Sounds pretty bad. You could try contacting the seller and ask him. Or maybe ATI tech-support?

Check if the cards cooling is functioning.

A new 8500LE isn´t too expensive, then again you might not want to get a 8500LE at this point anymore.

Sorry I couldn´t help you out more, but i´m no expert.

<font color=red>I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I´m all out of bubblegum...</font color=red>

 

[Lonemagi]

Last I looked, the cooling on it was working fine. or at least the fan was spinning.

I wouldnt mind another 8500LE, I am very impressed with the graphics (from a GF2 MX400). I want to test the AGP slot before I email the seller. Only prob is, that on the auction it says :

All eBay sales are final. All products I sell are guaranteed to arrive in perfect working condition. If anything is wrong the buyer must contact me within three days of receiving the product. No restocking fee.

I am wondering if this technicality will win in the end. I got it a week ago. If need be, I will take it up with ebay. I just cant afford to buy another vid card, and I just sold my GF2, so it looks like I will be going with reliable (but slow) voodoo3.

But I will test it tonight, I was hoping to get someonw with a similar xperiance on the board , so I can look for more ways to troubleshoot. I will try adding sme direct cooling with a delta fan tonight to see if that is the case.

<font color=red>Red meat isn't bad for you</font color=red>,<font color=blue> Fuzzy blue meat is bad for you.</font color=blue>

 

[Crashman]

Sounds like your power supply is the problem.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Lonemagi]

I got a 400w Antec in there, and all of my voltage readings in my bios are above the base, ie higher than 5.0, 3.3, and 12. Says the same in MBM.

Would I get to boot at all in windows at all if it was my PS?

<font color=red>Red meat isn't bad for you</font color=red>,<font color=blue> Fuzzy blue meat is bad for you.</font color=blue>

 

[Cooldoud]

I would find it pretty strange that your card could work at normal resolutions for a time and crashes after a while. I mean, I dont think you've got a hardware problem, at least not W/ radeon. What I would do is either test it under DOS (if it crashes, well, say goodbye to the old lady, requires some DOS experience though) or, if you cant, a "format c: /q", or something like that... Reinstall Windows pal ! I don't guarantee you at all it will solve the problem, but I've had some troubles in the past (like sound card malfunctionning etc.) which were not solved after drivers update, and the machine was, by some miracle, working normal again after that.
<font color=red>WARNING : This hint is not supported by ATI, nVIDIA, nor myself </font color=red>

 

[Lonemagi]

Guess I could test it under dos with some old games like Wolf3d.....

But I might just try the thing in my dad's pIII and see what happens, then try his rage 2 in mine.

I am already expecting the worst though.. I am guessing that this will be dead and the battle over selling defective merch. will begin.

And I hope I dont have to format.. I hate that, expecialy when I just did that and reinstalled XP last week, before I got it.
<font color=red>Red meat isn't bad for you</font color=red>,<font color=blue> Fuzzy blue meat is bad for you.</font color=blue>

 

[Cooldoud]

But I might just try the thing in my dad's pIII and see what happens

Yep ! sounds simpler to me

 

[Crashman]

I was simply giving you the most common cause, when the driver is loaded the card has more features enabled, meaning it draws more power. And even more in games. But that doesn't appear to be your problem.

Another common problem I've seen is with the VIA AGP driver, if you have a VIA chipset you might need to reload 4-in-1. Also, you should be using the Catalyst 2.3 driver for that card.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Lonemagi]

Interesting, Im on it now, and wondering how long it will last. I will try the 4in1 driver, I have an AMD/Via chipset. I also raised the IO voltage on the booard from 3.5 to 3.65, which is what I thought I had it set at.

Now which should I load, the Via Drivers or the AMD Agp drivers?

HEre is some info for my mobo from wcpuid:

Host Bridge: AMD-761
ISA Bridge: VIA VT82C686B
IDE Controller : 1106 0571 06 05711106
VGA Device : 1002 514C 00 013A1002 ATI RADEON 8500

AGP Revision : 2.0 / Enabled
(Status) (Command)
Data Rate : 1x 2x 4x / 4x
Fast Write : Supported / Disabled
4GB Addressing : Not Supported / Disabled
Side Band Addr.: Supported / Enabled
Aperture Size : 128 MB

You know, no settings on my bios will ever allow for fast write... wonder why.

<font color=red>Red meat isn't bad for you</font color=red>,<font color=blue> Fuzzy blue meat is bad for you.</font color=blue>

 

[Crashman]

Actually you need the combined drivers, your motherboard manufacturer should have them.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Lonemagi]

Here is the page I am downloading <A HREF="http://fae.abit.com.tw/eng/download/driver/i_amd.htm#KG7" target="_new">from</A>

It says I dont need the drivers from AMD in XP.. either that or they dont know..

but it has same VIA drivers that I have...

Any clues? I installed teh VIA 4in1, but minus the AGP pack that I was going to install from AMD's site.. or should I do the whole VIA pack now?

A side note, I am getting nice artifacts in my display here, mostly when a page loads up in the colors....

was thinking heat my be a part of the whole prob (my case is sitting open now) think I should get a slot fan to suck the heat off of the card? my PCI there is empty.

You dont have an <b>ANY</b> key? Your keyboard must not be Windows XP certified...<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Lonemagi on 09/19/02 01:59 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

Sounds odd to me, I'd test the card in another system.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Lonemagi]

I am on another comp right now, not very comparable to my main system, but right now it is :

450 PIII Slot 1 100mhz FSB
192 mb SD ram
6gb HD (slow as hell quantum)
Radeon 8500LE (normaly 4mb Rage 2C)
Yamaha sound
ISA NIC
Win 2K


Gonna take the rage up to my comp and throw it in, see what happens, if it is the same, i can guess it is not the vidcard.....

But I still dont have much to test the thing out with down here..

UPDATE:

Tried teh Rage AGP card.. lots of beeping, no image, until I just got different colored screens... that changed when I hit the ESC key. Right now I am running a Voodoo3 3000 pci card (16mb). This sucks.. so.. anybody have a suggestion? I am stumped!

You dont have an <b>ANY</b> key? Your keyboard must not be Windows XP certified...<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Lonemagi on 09/19/02 05:21 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

Wow! Dood, you have a problem!

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Lonemagi]

Flashed my bios, updated drivers, no AGP signal.. I am thinking this Mobo is toasted. It runs fine with the voodoo card (if you call that fine) and my 8500 is running nicely in my dads computer, but only at 2x AGP (Rev. 1.0) So I am going to check the card on a buddie's system that I know can at least keep up with the card.

So if it is the mbo, anyone suggest one for AMD xp's with at least 3 DDR slots and 5 PCI? onboard anything is not needed and I am near broke, So I am not looking for bleeding edge, kt266 or 333 class is fine with me.

You dont have an <b>ANY</b> key? Your keyboard must not be Windows XP certified...

 

[Ghostdog]

Soltek 75-DRV5.

KT333 chipset
Support for 3 GB of memory and atleast XP2200, they´re still testing the 2600 on it.

<font color=red>I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I´m all out of bubblegum...</font color=red>

 

[Lonemagi]

how are they on stability? Donthave any experiance with them , I have mostly worked with Abit Epox and Tyan boards.
How much does one run?

I saw an Abit KX7-333 for 86 dollars. Anybody use one of these?

You dont have an <b>ANY</b> key? Your keyboard must not be Windows XP certified...

 

[Ghostdog]

I´m running Win 98SE so I can´t realy soeak for stability, but I doubt it´s the mobos fault.

I can´t remeber how much I paid for it, but it wouldn´t be compareable anyway. Here in Finland everything is more expensive.

<font color=red>I´m starting to feel like a real computer consultant.</font color=red>

 

[Lonemagi]

WHATS THE oc ABILITY ON THAT? hAVE YOU TRIED VIA THE fsb?

You dont have an <b>ANY</b> key? Your keyboard must not be Windows XP certified...

 

[Lonemagi]

Whats the FSB OC ability on that? how are the dividers set up?

You dont have an <b>ANY</b> key? Your keyboard must not be Windows XP certified...

 

[Ghostdog]

I haven´t overclocked so this is a un-educated anwer:

It has some DIP-swithes which lets you change the frequency ratio and the CPU´s external frequency.
It also has something called "Redstorm overclocking", which I think is an automatic OC´ing utility.

<A HREF="http://www.soltek.com.tw" target="_new">http://www.soltek.com.tw</A>

It´s not as purple as on the picture

<font color=red>I´m starting to feel like a real computer consultant.</font color=red><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Ghostdog on 09/20/02 05:29 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Lonemagi]

Cant find anything about the red storm OC, but looks like a nice board. I am also thinking of buying another Abit KG7 as well, just wont go and try to replace the northbridge HSF.

You dont have an <b>ANY</b> key? Your keyboard must not be Windows XP certified...