# x1950 pro black screen problem?



## pimmysays (Oct 27, 2007)

Hey guys, I just played crysis and turns out my graphics card is in need of a boost. I downloaded ATITool and when I click on "find max core" or "find max mem" I just get a black screen and nothing happens. I have the latest ati drivers and running in windows vista 32bit, any suggestions? I appreciate any help you can give me.


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## panchoman (Oct 27, 2007)

hmm that happend to me too.. i need help as well


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## Mandown (Oct 27, 2007)

The x1950 pro is not support yet for atitool, found that out when i went back to the download section and said that the x1950 pro was the only card not supported. not sure why it isn't. You can use ATi catalyst overdrive though.


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## pimmysays (Oct 27, 2007)

well that sucks, thanks for the help


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## SpookyWillow (Oct 27, 2007)

ati tray tools works fine but i dont think the max core/mem works.

try increasing clocks in 7-8mhz steps, any lower and it may go black or the clocks just revert to default.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Oct 27, 2007)

I'm using atitool 0.27 fine on vista with a 1950pro 512mb pci-e.


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## panchoman (Oct 27, 2007)

thats bull! we're the only card that atitool doesn't support


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## Kursah (Oct 27, 2007)

Set ATI Tool to perform "Driver Level Overclocking", should be in settings/Overclocking X1K Series. ATI Tool supports OC-ing an x1950pro just as good as any other program out there, the 1950pro was not necessarily meant to be an overclocker, so don't expect too much.

And as stated before it's clocks increase 5-8MHZ on GPU and Memory frequencies as compared to the industry 1MHz norm. It's not recommended you use the "Find Max" tools on any Vid Card OC Util with these cards as your VPU will be reset.

The best I could muster out of my x1950pro was 621 GPU and 770 Memory. It helped in very minor ammounts, generally maybe 1-2FPS. The 1950pro is a good card and takes well to fast CPU's, Memory, Motherboards, and those components being overclocked. Hope that helps! Start with typikng 608 for GPU, test it, then 615, then 622, etc. Same w/memory, just make sure to do plenty of testing, and watch those temps! The x1950pro can get very unstable quickly with hot temps and too much OC. Depending on the card you have, there are Bios/Hard Mods available to hopefully allow them to overclock like we had hoped they would when they were originally released!


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## panchoman (Oct 27, 2007)

sorry to jack this thread, but what are the temps for the 1950pro and how far do you think i can oc it on stock cooling?


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## Kursah (Oct 27, 2007)

Well the card's GPU itself is supposedly good to like 90+C iirc, but I wouldn't ever want to see that temp. My card is a Powercolor eXtreme model, it came with the Arctic Cooling X2 cooler w/ceramic VRM Sinks from the factory, so it ran at 36CIdle- 53CLoad. VRM overheating is the main reason for a lot of x1950pro user's frustrations with overclocking, as they get extremely hot even with ceramic heatsinks. Mine hit about 100C (which is normal!), but the point at which the card may crash is approx 126C, so extra cooling that way does help.

Also with rv 2 x1950Pros out there that do not use VRM for GPU/Memory Power, overclocking has been way more successful. Look at my max overclocks of 621/770 with a Rev 1 VRM based x1950pro, look at Tigger69's overclocks of 648/770 with a non-VRM Rev 2. Also, with overclocking memory, do not go too far, as the Driver Level Algorithm when clocks are increased is to start relaxing memory timings, which can in fact decrease performance. I believe the 750-770 range (1500-1540 effective) is probably okay. I have tried up to 790MHz on memory, but it was not stable.

Hope this helps! I finally gave up trying to get more clocks out of my x1950pro and just enjoyed it, I got decent scores, 5.5k in 3dM 06, 123k in Aquamark, most games except for Crysis, WIC, Supreme Commander played at max w/4xAA, 8-16AF and 1440x900 res. Some games like those listed needed a setting or two lowered for a few more frames to be better on playability, but nothing crazy. Crysis was best on all Medium settings, and that was beta, it still looked good IMO! Getting ready to install demo now and see what this x1950xtx is capable of!


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## panchoman (Oct 27, 2007)

how do i know if my gpu is rev 1 or rev2?


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## Kursah (Oct 27, 2007)

On the RH section of the board is there a line of Capacitors? I believe the RV2 has around 8-10 capacitors... Or are there a few black chips, I believe some say Vitec, etc?


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## SpookyWillow (Oct 27, 2007)

it all depends on what brand you have,  i have a HIS turbo edition rev1 card and am lucky that its not defective like the majority of them and i get quite good clocks too.

nearly all x1950pro's i have seen have a temp limit of around 60-70c before they get problems,

as stated above too, when you clock your ram the driver will relax timings which does nothing for performance,  i have a modded atitool.exe that allows you to change the ram timings if you so wish.


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## panchoman (Oct 27, 2007)

Kursah said:


> On the RH section of the board is there a line of Capacitors? I believe the RV2 has around 8-10 capacitors... Or are there a few black chips, I believe some say Vitec, etc?



have no clue what you're talking about, whats the rh section? i dont know anything about vid card ocing, was gonna make a thread, but i guess i jacked this one lol. sorry about that


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## Kursah (Oct 27, 2007)

Nice, 662 GPU OC dude! What kind of 3dm 06 score does that bring in? 

I know Rev 2 x1950pros were released after the x1950GT PCB was released, both are pretty much the same card except for speed ratings. It seems Rev2 cards are more stable and more oc-able, which is good IMO, but even the Rev 1's perform good at their stock settings.


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## Kursah (Oct 27, 2007)

panchoman said:


> have no clue what you're talking about, whats the rh section? i dont know anything about vid card ocing, was gonna make a thread, but i guess i jacked this one lol. sorry about that



Right Hand, near the area where you plug in the external power.

I'm sure the OP will learn from your questions and our answers!


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## SpookyWillow (Oct 27, 2007)

Kursah said:


> Nice, 662 GPU OC dude! What kind of 3dm 06 score does that bring in?
> 
> I know Rev 2 x1950pros were released after the x1950GT PCB was released, both are pretty much the same card except for speed ratings. It seems Rev2 cards are more stable and more oc-able, which is good IMO, but even the Rev 1's perform good at their stock settings.



well those clocks me got the number 1 score for a single x1950pro and an amd cpu on 05 and 06 but i have recently been knocked off it by someone that got much higher clocks than me lol, currently 2nd in 06, 4th in 05 and 2nd in 03 

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=2495148
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=2747070
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=5558431
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=9270437


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## Deleted member 24505 (Oct 27, 2007)

Kursah,mine actually benches and runs gmes at 654mhz core and 803mhz ram.


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## Andyno (Oct 28, 2007)

Hi there.

This may be the off topic but I've browsed many forums and posted my problem there but nobody could solve it. I'm trying for months... 
I don't know much about the overclocking and I downloaded the ATITool just in case of possible solution.
This is the problem:
1. I run game and after some time (5, 10, 30 mins, sometime after 2 hours) the screen goes black. Just after that I hear the fan on the card starts to speed up and then the game runs normally (usually not for a long time of course).
2. I run the game, the screen goes black but nothing happens. I have to restart the machine.

Kursah said:


> The best I could muster out of my x1950pro was 621 GPU and 770 Memory.


This is my default screen of ATITool - is that correct? If you can understand - I don't want to overclock anything. I just want that my graphic card runs without any troubles.




Please help me somebody.  Like I said I've tried everything and I'm out of my mind. 

PS: Sorry about my english. I'm not native speaker.


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## tkpenalty (Oct 28, 2007)

Rev.3 X1950PROs from sapphire are now using the VRMs however with a large aluminium heatsink and air being forced onto it.


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## belgium_warrior (Oct 29, 2007)

I own a Sapphire X1950 Pro AGP 512MB. It's one of the rev1 boards, I got it back in december 06.
First thing I had to do was toss out the crap 400W psu and shove in an Antec Truepower Trio 650W. The trio means 3 high-Amp 12V rails. Perfect 
I too have had a lot of troubles with the screen going black after heavily loading the card, from anywhere between 5  minutes to sometimes 30 minutes of playtime.
When the screen'd go black ( as in no signal), even pressing the reset button didn't help, I had to completely turn off the system before I'd get the display up again. Only rarely did the only the game crash and did it rtd.
After a wile, I upgraded. Although the cooler sounds infinitely cool - it sounds like an F16 getting ready for take-off - it annoyed the hell outta me. Up to the point that I switched to watercooling. Not just for sound, also overclockability. I have a waterblock on the GPU _and_ the gpu RAM.
Unfortunately, this didn't improve stability, nor did I get more overclocking headroom. ( apart from the CPU that is)

But browsing these fora and extremeoverclocking.com provided the answer. 
2 things I changed;
one guy suggested setting AGP to 4x and disabling Fast Write ( this is done in CCC)
The other thing is get some cooling for the VRMs ( I have the teeny tiny versions)
I got some very small  blocks (pathetically small to be honest, I never thought they'd make any difference) for the 3 vrm's, putting me back a whopping 1€( that's like 3 US$) . Today, after playing Bioshock for 6 hours ( girlfriend is still mad at me) I never once got the black screen. Not only that, before I only got 621/721 ( as opposed to the 580/700 default clocks) overclocking without the game crashing before games even loaded. Today, so far, the card has been running at 635/755. No artefacting, no crashes. The card never goes over 50 degrees. When in 2D the card switches back to stock clock speeds and it idles at about 37. I run Bioshock at 1280x1024 with ALL details enabled. Always smoooooth as a baby's - let's not go there. 
I'm sure I can get higher clocks, I 'playtested' long enough yesterday with the above specs. Temps are not an issue, so hoping it can take 650/7??. I'll try later today. ( and post the results if anyone gives a frag)
Oh and I use Ati Tray Tool, latest version for the OC'ing bit. ATI drivers are also the latest version ( 7.10?)

So, I feel it is my duty to pass on my experience;
*anyone with a Rev.1 card, cool the VRMs and/or downgrade the agp port.*

Update; still running free of probs at 654/772. I'll post the 3DMark06 scores as soon as my ISP gets their act together and I can access the online results.


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## LoTHaR007 (Jan 30, 2008)

Hi there.
I do have an Sapphire X1950 Pro AGP 512MB as well. Unfortunately I do have several probs with it.  Hopefully someone of you could help...

1st of all I also had to buy a new PSU - 520W Corsair instead of 450W something. The reason - it just blow up... Firstly the PC just turned off - I had to use the PSU switch what allowed me to turn it on again. I thought it is fixed now but after I was running the 3DMark06 today, it did the same again :shadedshu I am afraid it could blow up again. ( fortunately there is still warranty on it  ) Should I buy something much stronger??

The second issue - none of original ATI drivers are working for me. I tried Cat 7.09 to the latest one (I assume it's 8.1). But when I tried to launch some game I got a message that there is an unsupported graphic hardware or some other stupid error.... I was able to work with Omega Drivers only (currently 3.8.442 I think it is based on Cat 7.12). Any idea what could be the point?

And the third one - Today I realized that after my logon the VPU recover reset the GPU because it stopped to respond. Afterwards it worked fine even I OC-ed it a little bit (just MEM from 702 to 716) until I decided to use the "Preserve ATI Overdrive settings at logon". (I just think it was caused by that, may be there's a different reason.) What happened: OS booted fine but after logon the screen turned into black - PC working, monitor got it's signal (like you have the Blank Screen screensaver). I had to use the "last known good menu". The VPU recover message came back again but the screen is fine.  Nothing new installed except this 3DMark06 and it was running with no errors on ATITool 0.26.

Thank you for your hints...

My config:
MB: Asus A7N8X Deluxe / BIOS ver 1013
CPU: Barton 2800+ OC to 3200+
RAM: 1024 MB PC3200
GPU: Sapphire RX1950 Pro AGP 512MB
SND: SB Live! 5.1
HDD: 2x WS3200YS / RAID1
OS: Win XP SP2


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## MadCow (Jan 30, 2008)

The rev.2 cards have 2 gray rectangles, arranged vertically near the power connector. Also, I'm pretty sure only Sapphire makes them. My rev2 actually didn't OC very well at stock volts, but after bumping them up a bit with a hardware vmod I was able to bench at around 700 core and 800 memory, I had to lower the core to around 680 for games though.

Your problem sounds like the VRM's overheating, check to see which revision yours is.


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## LoTHaR007 (Jan 30, 2008)

I am back with some news.
The blank screen problem has returned. I decided to remove ATITool from Startup folder and it helped - no VPU recover error anymore. Anyhow the rest of them still remain (at least I think so, I'll keep trying).


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## LoTHaR007 (Jan 31, 2008)

getting worst and worst...
Yesterday the BSOD appeared saying "windows is protecting my HW" and it referred to the display drivers. It happened twice - I do remember two files: ati2cqag.dll and ati3duag.dll. I have removed everything related to that (ATI, Omega...) and I installed back the most recent Catalyst 8.1. Drivers are causing problems if I launch something using DX (reason why I replaced them with Omegas). Could there help a reinstallation of DX and replace it e.g. with the latest SDK pack? Because the regular one always says "the most recent version installed".
The CCC also does not work. There appears error saying "Could not load file or assembly 'CLI.Implementation' or one of its dependencies" or something similar with "MOM.Implementation". I do remember it could happen if .NET was missing or the low version. But I do have 1.1, 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5.  getting angry...

And I was checking the revision as well. As it was written by 'tkpenalty' it could be rev 3. There is the aluminium heatsink on the VRMs and it uses this stupid stock fan forcing the hot air back into the case directly to my harddrives... 

any help appreciated


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## SpookyWillow (Jan 31, 2008)

i just had that MOM.Implementation error so i just uninstalled everything using the ati uninstall utility and reinstall everything again.

works now except i have the dvi connection doesn't work anymore problem, have to use a vga cable and adapter :/


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## LoTHaR007 (Feb 5, 2008)

Well, drivers fixed using the hotfix xp32_8.451.4_57941 I found on Sapphire web site.

To SpookyWillow: The CCC is still causing problems. The funny point was that even I uninstalled all ATI things there remained a lot of garbage in Program Files folder --> ATI Technologies subfolder as well as in registry. There was still a path in the Run key. I decided to delete it manually. Then restart --> installation of all things back. The result: Could not load or assembly 'MOM.Implementation, Version=2.0.2910.39003, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken= 90ba9c70f846762e' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. I checked the ATI folder, all the MOM and CLI dlls were there. I searched the net and I found this hint: http://de.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071017084958AA5XaWH. I did it exactly this way and there is no error message anymore. Unfortunately I am not able to launch CCC neither.  It does not work automatically nor manually even there is the ATI CCC option in the context menu and I can see the CCC.exe process running in the TSKMGR.


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## SpookyWillow (Feb 5, 2008)

i'd remove all ati drivers and then run driver cleaner and start from scratch.

tbh ati drivers have always been good to me until i got this x1950pro,  had more trouble with this card than any other ati card i have owned


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## LoTHaR007 (Feb 5, 2008)

Do you think it has something to do with drivers? They looks fine as the games work. I just miss those settings accessible via CCC.


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## sneekypeet (Feb 5, 2008)

When I had my 1950PRO I just ran the WDM's out of the CCC suite, and clocked with ATITray tools. Dont forget the math on raising the clocks...it only moves in certain incrimental jumps IIRC.


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## LoTHaR007 (Feb 5, 2008)

OK, done. I removed the 8.1 CCC and replaced it with 7.12 CCC. It works. 
Current status: 8.1 drivers, 7.12 CCC. Gonna burn it out a little bit to check the stability. 
Last (regarding CCC topic, the rest still remains) maybe very stupid question: I was searching for some x1950 pro specs and I found a picture on Sapphire site:






 or a bigger one http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/productfiles/168image4.jpg
The heatsink on my card is rotated in 180 dgrs - the hot air is going back into the case. Do you think it was just a manufacturer's mistake and I could rotate it to "as on picture" position? Or could there be some serious reason for that?


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## mikek75 (Feb 5, 2008)

That picture is a revision 1 card, which had digital VRMs and some people had problems with them overheating (I had this card and didn't have any problem with it....). 

They changed to analogue voltage regulation with Rev 2, and the fan was moved to the other end for some reason, so no, you can't just turn it round. Besides, whichever end it was it would still chuck heat back into the case as that is the direction the fan blows, and there are no vents in the bracket to release the air. Just make sure you have adequate airflow through the case and its fine.


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## LoTHaR007 (Feb 11, 2008)

mikek75 said:


> That picture is a revision 1 card, which had digital VRMs and some people had problems with them overheating (I had this card and didn't have any problem with it....).
> 
> They changed to analogue voltage regulation with Rev 2, and the fan was moved to the other end for some reason, so no, you can't just turn it round. Besides, whichever end it was it would still chuck heat back into the case as that is the direction the fan blows, and there are no vents in the bracket to release the air. Just make sure you have adequate airflow through the case and its fine.



Thanks for the explanation. I rather leave it as it is or I replace the fan. Could Zalman VF1000 be a good choice?


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## LoTHaR007 (Feb 11, 2008)

sneekypeet said:


> When I had my 1950PRO I just ran the WDM's out of the CCC suite, and clocked with ATITray tools. Dont forget the math on raising the clocks...it only moves in certain incrimental jumps IIRC.



Well, this could work, I can try. I was using just ATITool before but it caused some problems to me - my screen went black after it has been started.


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## MadCow (Feb 12, 2008)

LoTHaR007 said:


> Thanks for the explanation. I rather leave it as it is or I replace the fan. Could Zalman VF1000 be a good choice?



I would get the Accelero X2, I have one on that same card and it's amazing.


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