Graphics Card Problem

[Xuzuno]

I'm having problems with my graphics card while playing games. Usually 3D games are the problem, however it doesn't occur with all 3D ones. It seems to occur on the most demanding games. I have an ATI Radeon 9800 card.

I start off playing the game, but after about 5-15 minutes it crashes and the monitor goes black and displays 'no signal input'. Then I have to restart the computer manually. Sometimes it goes back however (so I can see the desktop) with a VPU and graphics accelerator message, saying it crashed and was reset. A lot of the time, when I reboot the system the welcome message appears and then it crashes again with thin horizontal lines coming across the screen.

I assume this is a graphics card problem. I've tested out many Catalyst Control options and I've updated the drivers to the latest to no avail. I think it might be overheating that is the cause, but I'm not too sure. Could the resolution be anything to do with this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Abhas]

Open up the cabinet and clean it up. Dust and overheating could be an issue.

Faulty RAM could also make your computer behave in this manner. I had this problem once.
Download and run Memtest, a free progam to test your RAM.

Do you have onboard graphics? If you do, try gaming with that.

 

[The_gas]

Go here and download the latest driver version for your card. Should be catalyt 8.9.

http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.HTML

If the problem still happens try to disable VPU recover from the catalyst control center.

If the problem still happens its possible you have a faulty graphics card, would not surprise me as your card is pretty old. Failing that it could be overheating, as Abhas says above try to clean it.

 

[gullkhan0]

What is mean by overheating and can it be fixed?

 

[The_gas]

Over heating does exactly what it says on the tin. A bit like Ronseal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Does_exactly_what_it_says_on_the_tin

 

[Abhas]

Lol.. nice one Gas!!

Yeah, over-heating is well.. excessive heating up.
Possible causes are :
1. Insufficient cooling fans
2. Insufficient Ventilation
3. Excessive Load
4. Faulty
5. Dust

 

[Sureshot]

You'd be amazed at what little old dust can do, I hoovered out the my CPU the other week and the performance of the PC shot up immediately.

 

[Xuzuno]

Thanks for your help. I'll try cleaning it out this weekend and I'll let you know how it gets on .

 

[Xuzuno]

I've opened it up, cleaned the dust out and managed to fix a broken fan. I also installed the new driver (8.10). It seemed to have fixed the problem. However, now I seem to be getting blue screens of death, with the problem mostly being ati2cqag.dll. Also would it be worth getting a new graphics card?

 

[Themer]

I've had a look around the internet and this problem seems to be happening to alot of people with that graphics card but on the forums I looked in noone seemed to have an answer some suggested a power problem but that was it.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

I'm having problems with my graphics card while playing games. Usually 3D games are the problem, however it doesn't occur with all 3D ones. It seems to occur on the most demanding games. I have an ATI Radeon 9800 card.

I start off playing the game, but after about 5-15 minutes it crashes and the monitor goes black and displays 'no signal input'. Then I have to restart the computer manually. Sometimes it goes back however (so I can see the desktop) with a VPU and graphics accelerator message, saying it crashed and was reset. A lot of the time, when I reboot the system the welcome message appears and then it crashes again with thin horizontal lines coming across the screen.

I assume this is a graphics card problem. I've tested out many Catalyst Control options and I've updated the drivers to the latest to no avail. I think it might be overheating that is the cause, but I'm not too sure. Could the resolution be anything to do with this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

How hot is it running? Mine was running 75 degrees idle, 95+ under load (until I cleaned out my system unit case, that is. It dropped around 30 degrees afterwards!)

Open Catalyst Control Centre, there's a temperature reading in there somewhere (can't remember exactly where though, haven't been in for ages!)

 

[Xuzuno]

How hot is it running? Mine was running 75 degrees idle, 95+ under load (until I cleaned out my system unit case, that is. It dropped around 30 degrees afterwards!)

Open Catalyst Control Centre, there's a temperature reading in there somewhere (can't remember exactly where though, haven't been in for ages!)

I don't think that feature is supported by my graphics card. It's quite old, so I'm considering getting a new one, and hopefully it will fix the problems.

 

[Kshitiz_Indian]

If the problem is isolated in your graphics card only, then sure, a new one would fix it, however is yours AGP or PCI-E?

 

[Xuzuno]

Mine is AGP. Any ideas on good, and preferably cheap video cards?

 

[Kshitiz_Indian]

No, sorry no AGP cards. Its high time you upgrade to a PCI-E platform!