Radeon 9700 Pro is CRAP!!!

boogiemon

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I purchased the Radeon 9700 Pro yesterday. THIS CARD CANNOT EVEN RUN DIRECT 3D GAMES WITHOUT CRASHING!!!!

Radeon Driver Version: wxp-w2k-radeon-6-13-10-6178
Motherboard: Asus P4S8X (SiS 648 Chipset - 533 FSB)
Memory: Samsung DDR 266 - 1.5 Gigs
Power Supply: Antec 430 Watt
Overclocking: NO
Heat: NO

To say that I am disappointed is an understatment. I reasearched my problem on the web and found numerous other people that were having the same problem. HOW CAN ATI MARKET THE WORLDS FASTEST 3D CARD AND IT WON'T EVEN RUN CURRENT 3D GAMES!!!!
 

phsstpok

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Lots and lots of problems on the P4S8X. There may be fixes. See <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=faq&notfound=1&code=1" target="_new">my other post</A>.

<b>I type sixty words per minute. Ten are spelled correctly.</b>
 

AMD_Man

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Yup, phsstpok, the R9700 has problems specifically with that board or vise versa. This is hotly debated and discussed topic. Are the crashes related to AGP8X? If so, is it ATI's fault or is it SiS or Asus' fault? Does the beta BIOS fix the problem or merely work around it? What exactly does this version 1.3 of the R97000 fix or change? I've seen these questions come up many many times everywhere I go and no one has a definite answer. Hmmm..........

Intelligence is not merely the wealth of knowledge but the sum of perception, wisdom, and knowledge.
 

phsstpok

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My answer is "yes". LOL!

OK, so I don't know the answer to any of your questions.

There are people that claim the BIOS updates (both P4S8X and 9700 Pro) work. Likewise for the SIS AGP driver update. There just doesn't seem to be any consensus. It sounds like the P4XSX BIOS update might just have work-arounds because I've heard claims of lower general performance.

I can tell you the issue must be real. I didn't even go looking for this stuff. It's everywhere.

I personally think that there may be growing pains on all fronts, ATI 9700 (BIOS or hardware who knows, probably AGP 8X issues), SIS 648 chipset with immature AGP drivers, P4S8X with immature BIOS drivers and possibly low quality manufacture.

If the message to which I linked in my other POST, mentioned earlier, is accurate and ATI is shipping a revised 9700 for some P4S8X customers then I would think this is an admission of some fault at ATI.

On the other hand, <A HREF="http://www.asusboards.com/forums/showthread.php?s=8a1663df586f64ae94994d8763df3e6a&threadid=24611" target="_new">this forum thread</A> at www.asusboards.com seems to indicate a huge number of customers with stability problems with the P4S8X and not just owners of 9700.

Who wants to deal with problems like some brands of memory work some don't, some can get DDR400 working but only 1 DIMM, some can use multiple DDR333 DIMMS but not all can run at CAS2 even if the memory is CAS2, manufacturer claims 3 GB support but <b>[edited for clarity]</b> only mentions specific 128MB and 256MB modules in recommended list for multiple slots? (These are not my claims just noting things stated in the previously mentioned thread).

<b>I type sixty words per minute. Ten are spelled correctly.</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 10/12/02 04:41 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

CtRw

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to run some games with this board to to ur settings under desktop properties, select advanced, then the troubleshoot tab, then uncheck the enable write combining box. This fixed my game lock up issues. Now I'm still stuck running a 2x bus speed with this damn card!

Asus P4S8X
P4 2.53ghz
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
 

boogiemon

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ATI has admitted fault. They are offering end users the option of shipping their graphics board back. To run the Radeon 9700 on an 8x board with any kind of stability, you need bios version 1.03 - boards had shipped with bios version 1.01 - and to top things off, you have to send it to them to get you bios updated. I did all the tricks, updated my mobo bios, updated Graphics Card bios, made changes to the settings, ..... I got to the point where I could play the game for 10 minutes.

As for issues with the Asus P4S8X - I have not entirly explored thoses yet.

This puts me in a tough spot. I want a graphics board that will support DirectX 9.0. I think I will definetly return my Asus p4S8x board - I have already returned by Radeon 9700 and told them to get me a board with the current bios on it. But I might just tell them to shove it. LOL
 

boogiemon

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THE ASUS PS48X is going BACK!!! When I bought the board, the women would not sell me DDR 333 because she said the batch of DDR 333 that she had would not run on the Sis 648 chipset. She told me that she had contacted the vendor and they were sending her a new batch of DDR 333. I don't think she was lying to me, she honestly believed that it was the DDR, not the chipset that was the problem. After reading the thread on the Asus boards concerning this chipset, I realized that it was the chipset that was the problem.

HERE IS MY ADVICE TO EVERYONE:
1.) DO NOT BUY THE Sis 648 chipset, it doesn't run stabily with DDR 333 - they might fix this problem, but there are acusations that this is due to poor manufacturing quality.

2.) Think twice before you buy the Radeon 9700 Pro. Yes it is the best performing board on the market and supports directX 9. But Ati has some serious software issues. This has been the case for ATI for sometime, but people thought that might have changed with the 9700 pro. I think that ATI might fix issues with this board if they stay on top for long enough. Some people might say, "these issues will be fixed with driver updates." Let me remind you, that in order to get this board to run stabily on a 8x agp, you have to send the board back so that ATI can send you a new one(with bios 1.03).

This is the result of the computer performance rat race. The driving force for computer manufactures is to put the next fastest product on the market with little concern for quality. This is a direct result of consumer demand. I urge people to contact their manufactures and tell them you want quality over speed. Or better yet, only buy stuff that is proven to be quality. A car with a jet engine doesn't do any good if it blows up after 10 miles of driving it.

Don't make the same mistake that I did.
 

AMD_Man

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Since, you just bought your R9700, just call ATI (free call for the first 30 days, I believe), and tell them you want to exchange your card for the newest revision. If you want to minimize down time, you can put in a security deposit of around $200, receive the new card and return your "defective" card, and once they receive it, they'll completely refund your deposit back to your credit card. I've done that with a couple of ATI products and I've never had issues with is arrangement.

Intelligence is not merely the wealth of knowledge but the sum of perception, wisdom, and knowledge.
 

phsstpok

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That's kind strange that you have to ship back the board just for a BIOS update. We've been able update VGA BIOSes for years (not that it was ever critical or even important in the past). I wonder why it's different with the Radeon 9700 Pro.

There are no hardware differences for the revised board?

Hopefully, a BIOS will resolve the P4S8X problems but I'm kind of used to motherboards needing updates. It has always seemed liked manfuacturers are still beta testing their BIOSes even after a new board is released. Definitely not used to this with video cards.

<b>I type sixty words per minute. Ten are spelled correctly.</b>
 

noko

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Maybe why you can't update the bios is because ATI didn't want people to mess with their bios like their previous cards by some kind of physical lock as in an open jumper. Which means now ATI is stuck with exchanging cards if a bios problem becomes apparent. ATI may have created one problem by trying to solve another, kinda like their driver history.
 

phsstpok

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Hey Noko, glad to see you back. Where have you been hiding?

ATI doesn't need these kind of problems after all the driver issues they had with the 8500 series. Looks like they rushed the card to market. Too bad. They had plenty of time to get it right with the NV30 delays. Now the 9700 introduction is tarnished.

<b>I type sixty words per minute. Ten are spelled correctly.</b>
 

Black_Cat

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I just parted out my system. My next board will have AGP 8X. Should I send my 9700 back while I'm waiting for my next board? It ran perfectly on my Asus P4S533 which only had AGP 4X.

To start press any key. Where's the "any" key? --Homer Simpson.
 

Ghostdog

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Thank god I still use AGP 4x.

BTW, if anyone knows about issues with Soltek´s SL-75DRV5 or with the KT333 chipset and the radeon 9700, warn me now.

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

phsstpok

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You might want to research any issues between the 9700 and your next board before you send back the 9700 or purchase the new motherboard.

As AMD_Man mentioned, make sure you don't already have the revised board before you send it back.

<b>I type sixty words per minute. Ten are spelled correctly.</b>
 

noko

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Hi phsstpok,

I've been around just havn't been posting to much here.

AGP4x versus 8x, here is an article telling what it is for. For current games it won't do much for you. Intel designed agp8x to be more for the workstation and professional market vice desktop, read article to find out why:

<A HREF="http://www.planet3dnow.de/artikel/diverses/agp30eng/index.shtml" target="_new">AGP 3.0 specifications in depth</A>

Looking at performance figures you can look at Digilife article using Nvidia's NV18 and NV28 version of the GF4 series cards to see that for games AGP4x and 8x performs virtually the same.

<A HREF="http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/gf4/nv28-nv18.html" target="_new">Digitlife Article</A>
 

phsstpok

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Sorry, I'll read your article a little later when I have more time.

A long time ago I posed a question regarding AGP 2X vs AGP 4X. I know that there hasn't been much performance difference in first person shooters, even with today's video cards but I was wondering about flight simulators. I had heard that because the scenery is constantly changing in flight simulators that there is a large amount of new vertex and texture data that has to be passed to the video card in real-time. Unlike FPS games where the textures are passed and then stored in local video memory and this mostly happens between scenes, in flight simulators it happens continuously. My question was has anyone done any personal benchmarks at AGP 2X vs 4X (and now 8X) to see how severe the differences are?

<b>I type sixty words per minute. Ten are spelled correctly.</b>
 

Black_Cat

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Check out the revision of your R9700 first.
I looked on the card and didn't see any indication of a revision number. Is it in the part or serial numbers?

To start press any key. Where's the "any" key? --Homer Simpson.
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Actually the Gigabyte 8SG667 doesn't seem to have the problems of the P4S8X, so I doubt it's a chipset problem either. Has the possibility that Asus just produced a shitty board crossed your mind?

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

noko

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Maybe ASUS got stuck with a number of bad SIS648 chips is the other possibility. I've read the latest bios is more conservative and slower which increases the stability but loses performance. If this is the case I think ASUS will be little bit more careful with SIS in the future. Do you know when the SIS 655 chipset is going to be out? It does look like Intel will further increase their performance lead over AMD due to hyper threading and duel DDR configurations pumping the quad bus of the P4 to its limit.
 

noko

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phsstpok,

That is a good question, usually the video card is waiting on the cpu to process in a flight simulator. Well in the future I think I will try that out, I will be getting a Radeon 9700 pro in the near future once the drivers shape up a little bit more and more fixes for new games are out. I was going to update my whole rig but got turned off by the SIS 648 chipset and lack of Intel chipset DDR speed capability. Now it looks like Intel is finally catching up on the DDR front. Duel DDR ram P4 chipsets and hyper threading seems like a good upgrade path. For now I just bought a XP 1600 processor from NewEgg to play around with while I wait for a better more worthy upgrade.
 

phsstpok

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I heard good things about the overclocking ability of the current stepping of the 1600+ but I'm still stuck with an SDRAM board. Perhaps around Xmas I'll upgrade to a nForce2 board. Don't really need it, though. I'm not a heavy duty gamer nor do I use any intensive apps.

<b>I type sixty words per minute. Ten are spelled correctly.</b>
 

boogiemon

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Yes, it crossed my mind that Asus just produced a crappy board - LOL - that is why I returned. I don't know if Sis 648 is having universal problems, but I am not completly confident that they are putting out stable chipsets. I have to give my money to the monoply, as much as I hate to. I order the P4PE yesterday. As for Asus, I have been pretty happy with them in the past. But this latest stint really has me doubting them. Not because of the fact that this P4S8X blows, but because of the way they handled it. They took us all for idiots - offering a bios that fixes the problem but kill performance!!! AHHHHHHGHHH
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
I seriously doubt Asus got bad chips while other companies didn't. The Gigabyte board has always performed better, and has always been more stable. Both. And it can run 2 or 3 DDR400 modules while the Asus unit has trouble with one, more trouble with two, and can't run three.

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

Chase121

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I just put together my new computer and came into the same problems as seen here, although I didnt go with the Asus P4S8X cuase it dont support Rambus (personal preffernece), So I went with the Asus P4T533. I saw someone here say they got the ATI 9700 Pro to work fine with it, well Im in the same boat as the people with the P4S8X. I cant play UT2K3, nor Quake 3 for more than 5 Minutes before a complete computer crash (sometimes the computer restarts on its own). I get no error mesages just a lock up with a goofy display at times. Forcing me to reset my computer. To my dismay, I never get an error report, so its very hard to trouble shot whats going on (I us Windows XP Pro, Fat32). Sometimes it will reboot and check harddrive for consistency, so at first I thought my SCSI HD was failing and reverted to my IDE HD.... Had same problem with IDE, so That illiminates that option. I will be calling ATI in 1/2 hour to see what they say, after reading this I am sure its something to do woth the viedo card or motherboard. More than likely the Card, becaus sometime when the game fails it will take me to screen and the picture is so distorted or even checker display at times. This is upsetting after I made this decession seeing the great bench marks it got of Quake 3 and I cant even run it for more than 5 minutes. Maybey Im doing something wrong... who knows... but I will keep posted.