# Artifacts with ATI 9800 XT even at default settings



## Halindar (May 14, 2005)

Well I have an ATI 9800 XT card for a little over a year now.
Some months back I suddenly got artifacts after installing a new Catalyst driver and FarCry, after a reinstall and reverting back to the 4.9 driver I didn't have any artifacts for a good 3 months and now suddenly I have heavy artefacts again without having installed any new drivers.
I checked my settings with the ATI Tool and they are at factory default and still I get the artifacts.
Most times now when I start up everything is fine but after half an hour or so yellow vertical bands of artifacts start appearing in the tool. Even when rebooting I sometimes have artifacts at the BIOS boot screen now.

Does this mean my card is dying or is there some fixable software problem?

I did install a Cu Zalman GPU cooler half a year ago and the inside of the case does not get overly hot, so I don't think it's the temperature.

Any help is appreciated.

Halindar


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## gR3iF (May 14, 2005)

hm can you check if your gpu cotacts probalbly because watch the test of the 700cu on techpowerup look for same prob


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## Halindar (May 15, 2005)

I already checked the contact my 700Cu is making with the GPU and it does not have the problem described in the review.

I fear my problem is getting worse because now almost every time I boot up the system I get white artefacts in the Intel screen that displays during the POST tests. When I have these artefacts at POST I get vertical smears of yellow artefacts in my windows desktop screen after boot-up.

Specs of my system:
MD8083 - Medion
P4 MSI MS-7048 MoBo with Phoenix BIOS 1.0A (2-12-04)
1 Gb memory (2x 256 samsung 1x 512 kingston)
ATI 9800 XT (R360) GPU with BIOS 008.017 (04/01/2001)
Windows XP


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## gR3iF (May 15, 2005)

guarante? drivers or just temporally overheating 98xt is very hot
check also if something changes while open case and look if the fan is working


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## Halindar (May 15, 2005)

Case open or closed makes no difference, I even noticed the artifacts disappearing when I had my system on for over 3 hours with the ATITool artifact test (with the case closed).
All the fans are running as they should so that is not the source of the problem either it seems.

As for drivers, I'm back to using the manufacturer supplied 4.9 versie of the ATI Catalyst drivers because the 5.3 version resulted in the system booting up and showing a black screen instead of the windows desktop.


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## 65tweet (May 15, 2005)

Halindar said:
			
		

> Case open or closed makes no difference, I even noticed the artifacts disappearing when I had my system on for over 3 hours with the ATITool artifact test (with the case closed).
> QUOTE]
> 
> One quick thought. Have you always used regular ATI drivers? Some vendors like ASUS will use modified drivers so that you can use their utilities. If that’s the case get the latest driver from the vendor.
> ...


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## Halindar (May 16, 2005)

Thanks for the input. In FarCry when I have artifacts it's much worse, vertices are drawn wrong resulting in me not being able to see any features of the landscape. In the multiplayer monkeybay map particular I can't play due to everything getting distorted.

But that is unfortunately not the only issue. I already mentioned that I have problems at boot time on a regular basis. Yesterday I left the system on for 4 hours and when I came back and rebooted there were no artifacts and I could play FarCry and other 3D applications without problems. I ran 3DMark and it passed all tests without a single artifact.
Since then I have not had a single artifact, it's almost as if having the system on (at the desktop) for so long has 'solved' the issue. But I'm sure it will come back in the future. It always does.

I use the vendor drivers now, not the ATI drivers from the ATI site. I tried them before and they seem to produce more problems.

I'll keep my fingers crossed the problem stays away this time, but somehow I doubt it will.


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## jfb9301 (May 17, 2005)

IMHO the 700cu (while an awesome cooler) is very hard to mount perfectly level on the core.  It took me a try or two to get it just right. It seems that even a half turn difference on the stand offs makes a big difference in how level the cooler sits on the core.  I thought I had it right and even then I was off by just a hair.  When I got it perfect everything worked great.

can you check the temp of the core?  It could be getting hot and you not know it.  I've found that even a hair of not level with this cooler can be as much as 20c difference in temps.  It will still work even with the cooler not level, just runs super hot.

another question, what are you using as thermal compound between the heatsink and the core?


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## Halindar (May 17, 2005)

Unfortunatly there is no thermal sensor on the GPU, so I can not really check the temperature of the core itself.
I believe I got the thing on level I'll double check it to make sure though.

As for the thermal compound I used the paste that came with the 700Cu, if you have a better suggestion I'd like to hear it.

Also on this card the holes are placed such that the heatsink is at an angle to the sides of the core. The core is a squary and the heatsink is placed at roughly 45 degrees clockwise when one looks at the core from above. I don't know if that it the case with all cards but I thought it a bit odd.


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## gR3iF (May 17, 2005)

no i dont have but look at the review here then look on yours


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## jfb9301 (May 18, 2005)

for thermal paste I'd suggest arctic silver 1 or 3 (which were designed for bare core applications).  arctic silver 5 is more for applications where you have a heat spreader.  But it's probably going to be hard to find that old stuff.  I happen to have an almost full tube of AS1 for my use.

The difference is more about the amount of contact area than the content of the arctic silver.  

AS5 would probably still be better than the white paste that shipped with the cooler.

Your card lay out is exactly the way the ATI reference design has it, so no supprises there.


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