Very strange problem with 9800 PRO! Please help!

I have owned this ATI 9800 Pro for about a year and been extremely happy
with it. No significant problems that I can remember. Then a few hours
ago I was playing SWAT 4 and suddenly I noticed something strange. At
first I thought it was a red flashing light in the map of the game, but
I looked closer and it was a bunch of pulsing red dots allover the
screen. I exited SWAT, and my windows desktop icons were screwed up,
like they had been chopped up and rearranged.

Here is a screenshot:
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/r/drinklime/graphics.JPG

I rebooted the computer and everything was fine. I restarted SWAT 4
thinking it was a random bug in the game but it happened again. So now I
reboot again and this time the mess is still there. I turn off the
computer for half an hour, turn it back on, and its still there. Damn! I
did dxdiag and all the video tests would have crazy artifacts. The black
and white rectangles were totally jumbled, and the spinning directX
squares ran very slow and had red dots everywhere. So I mess around with
some settings, and I get rid of most of the artifacts by turning down
hardware acceleration 2 notches in the control panel. Most everything
looks fine, but on AOL Instant Messenger I noticed some glitches in the
text in the profile window. I turn down acceleration all the way down
except for 1 notch, and the AIM window text fixed. Any time I moved the
acceleration back up, the problem reappeared. I reinstalled drivers,
problem was gone until the new driver kicked in and everything was
messed up again. I started to panic thinking my card was fried, and
started trying to play videos. I turned the acceleration back up to
full. I played some huge high-quality .avi files from a DV camera I used
to have, and they played perfectly. Then I went back to my desktop, and
everything was fine again! So now I am afraid to play any games fearing
the problem will show up again. Does anyone have any clue what is up
with my card ? Please help!

artie beamer wrote:
I have owned this ATI 9800 Pro for about a year and been extremely happy
with it. No significant problems that I can remember. Then a few hours
ago I was playing SWAT 4 and suddenly I noticed something strange. At
first I thought it was a red flashing light in the map of the game, but
I looked closer and it was a bunch of pulsing red dots allover the
screen. I exited SWAT, and my windows desktop icons were screwed up,
like they had been chopped up and rearranged.

Here is a screenshot:
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/r/drinklime/graphics.JPG

I rebooted the computer and everything was fine. I restarted SWAT 4
thinking it was a random bug in the game but it happened again. So now I
reboot again and this time the mess is still there. I turn off the
computer for half an hour, turn it back on, and its still there. Damn! I
did dxdiag and all the video tests would have crazy artifacts. The black
and white rectangles were totally jumbled, and the spinning directX
squares ran very slow and had red dots everywhere. So I mess around with
some settings, and I get rid of most of the artifacts by turning down
hardware acceleration 2 notches in the control panel. Most everything
looks fine, but on AOL Instant Messenger I noticed some glitches in the
text in the profile window. I turn down acceleration all the way down
except for 1 notch, and the AIM window text fixed. Any time I moved the
acceleration back up, the problem reappeared. I reinstalled drivers,
problem was gone until the new driver kicked in and everything was
messed up again. I started to panic thinking my card was fried, and
started trying to play videos. I turned the acceleration back up to
full. I played some huge high-quality .avi files from a DV camera I used
to have, and they played perfectly. Then I went back to my desktop, and
everything was fine again! So now I am afraid to play any games fearing
the problem will show up again. Does anyone have any clue what is up
with my card ? Please help!


Your problem could be the video card getting too hot or a problem with
your power supply. To test the video card feel it when you start
getting the artifacts on the screen. If it is too hot to touch you
might have a fan problem. To test the power supply you will need a
monitoring program like Speedfan. When you start getting the artifacts
check the voltages and see that they are still correct.

Your problem could be the video card getting too hot or a problem with
your power supply. To test the video card feel it when you start getting
the artifacts on the screen. If it is too hot to touch you might have a
fan problem. To test the power supply you will need a monitoring program
like Speedfan. When you start getting the artifacts check the voltages
and see that they are still correct.

I think the most likely culprit is overheating and the first thing to check
is that your
graphics cards' fan is still functioning.

"artie beamer" wrote in message
...
I have owned this ATI 9800 Pro for about a year and been extremely happy
with it. No significant problems that I can remember. Then a few hours ago
I was playing SWAT 4 and suddenly I noticed something strange. At first I
thought it was a red flashing light in the map of the game, but I looked
closer and it was a bunch of pulsing red dots allover the screen. I exited
SWAT, and my windows desktop icons were screwed up, like they had been
chopped up and rearranged.

Here is a screenshot:
http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/r/drinklime/graphics.JPG

It seems the 9800 is very prone to overheating. I have had to send two back
for RMA now. I had enought and bought an X800 XL . A week or two before
mine went bad it started exhibiting red dots in Doom 3 where previous there
were none. Finally one morning I turned on the computer and the screen was
full of miscolored vertical lines. I could not play any games with
flashing textures, etc.

One thing to do is take the side off the case and aim a fan at the vid card.
See if that helps. If so overheating might be the problem.