[Tyrian]

Some of you might remember my thread asking for help in getting my Radeon 9800XT graphics card running again.  After several weeks of effort and many driver reinstalls, I have reached the conclusion that the card has bought the farm.  I reached this conclusion after playing several of my games with different sets of drivers, only to see the graphics deteriorate the longer I played.

So now I'm looking for a replacement.

These are my system specs (minus the GPU):

Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz
Intel D865PERL Motherboard
2GB OCZ DDR PC3200 RAM in Dual Channel (The exact model escapes me; I can't find the packaging)
NEC AccuSync LCD 9V
Windows XP SP2

There a few requirements for the card:

1.)  It needs to be an AGP 8x card.

2.)  I want about 256MB of memory. 

3.)  Must have 1 DB-15 and 1 DVI connector.

4.)  It needs to be cheap, less than $200.  The card was in a desktop, and I am leaving for college at the end of summer with a new laptop.  It still needs to be able to run Oblivion, as that is the most graphics intensive game I own.  This is just to make sure that stay sane until college.  (For those of you who are saying, "Just get the laptop," I still haven't got enough money for it, I haven't decided on the exact specs, nor have I even found a place where I could purchase such a machine.  I'm comfortable speccing a desktop, but not laptops.)

Beyond that though, I'm not 100% sure what to get.  I haven't kept up with the new GPU stuff (like I should have), because I didn't forsee this happening.  *Scolds self*  I have checked out what's on Newegg though, and am a little overwhelmed.

That should be all the relevant info.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks!

[redsniper]

Oh, just take your desktop with you. I'm living in one of the smallest dorms available and it fits just fine.

[Tyrian]

I can't.  I need to be able to take it around campus with me, plus it's also my parents business computer.  There's too much of their stuff on it for me to move.




(Plus, I really want a new machine... )

[CP5670]

This should fit into your price range after the rebate: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102071

You aren't going to get any decent cards with native VGA connections these days, but the DVI-VGA adapters they come with work fine.

I guess I also need to decide soon whether I should lug my existing computer with me or not. It's about as far from portable as you can get, but I won't really need to move it once it's in place.

[Tyrian]

I actually looked at getting that card when I was at my local computer store last time...Heh...

I already have a DVI-VGA adapter, but I don't like to use it if I don't have to.  The screws are a royal pain to undo...

EDIT:  Holy God...I just looked at the length and power req's...I'm gonna have to see if my system can take that card...

[IceFire]

A X1600XT or a 7600GT should do nicely and will probably fall into your price bracket quite well.

[Scuddie]

OK, before giving the card up to Silicon Heaven, do this...

Go into your BIOS and set your AGP voltage to 1.6v, and set your AGP bus multiplier to 4x.  If you cannot do this in the BIOS, try and do it in your system settings.  Doing so will greatly increase stability, and have zero effect on performance.  If it is better, but still not stable enough, increase voltage to 1.7.  It will increase your GPU's stability even further, but the voltage might be too much for it to handle (not likely, though).  If it is still not stable, uninstall your motherboard's GART driver.  This will force the GPU to go into high level PCI mode, and your texture transfer rate will decrease, but your card should be a lot healthier that way. 

If this method works, it was because your card was/is not getting enough power per cycle.  The cause could be a number of things, but whatever is failing may do so fairly soon.  TBH, I would suspect your southbridge and/or PSU over your video card.

Good luck .

[Tyrian]

@Scuddie -- I understood all of that except the southbridge...What's that?

And I probably should have done this in the first post, so this is the whole story from when the problem started.

[diceman111]

@Scuddie -- I understood all of that except the southbridge...What's that?

The Southbridge is a chip that controls the "slower" connections on your computer such as the PCI ports USB ports and in your case I would also guess that you have an onboard soundcard then that is also controlled by the southbridge.

if you want to read more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southbridge_(computing)

/Dice

[S-99]

My 9800 pro had the same problem as his. Instead of giving it to silicon heaven my friend was going to buy it from me, but it ended up going to silicon heaven when he ripped off the little heatsink right by the power connector putting it into his computer. At least it wasn't my fault, i made him pay me 25$ for breaking it because that card was still useful.

[Tyrian]

Alright, with that explanation, I don't think my southbridge is a problem.  My card is an AGP one, and it's the northbridge that handles AGP. 

On the subject of voltages, I've done a bit more research on AGP slots, and based on my slot type, I have a 1.5V AGP slot.  If I increase my voltage to 1.6V, won't that technically be overclocking the card, which would push it closer to total instability?

[Bob-san]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102085
Sapphire Radeon x1650, 256mb -- that should hold you over for quite a while; priced at $100!

[Scuddie]

Yeah, my bad.  The AGP PCI channel is indeed controlled by the northbridge.  I was under the assumption that ALL PCI devices were handled by the southbridge...  I'll have to remember that one .

And about the voltages, it's not overclocking, it's overvolting.  Two entirely seperate beasts those two are.  For each clock cycle, the voltage has to rise and fall, causing a differential signal.  If the cycles are too fast, the voltage will destabilize, and there will be signal degradation.  The only way to get around this is to either use higher quality transistors/capacitors (which is obviously not an option), or increase the signal strength, i.e. voltage levels.  However with higher voltage there is also higher heat.

Some voltage paths get old and tired over time, and cause a slight increase of resistance.  This results in a device getting less power, and thus not performing as it should.  Increasing the voltage helps, but only delays the inevitable.  One of your devices are failing, and you dont likely have any real method of finding out which...  Unless you could swap out your video card and PSU.

Oh, and by the way, in AGP 8x mode, your voltages are 0.775v, 4x is 1.5 (the voltages are split among two cycles).  Overvolting to 1.6 or even 1.7 shouldnt give your card too much of a problem.

[CP5670]

The AGP voltage setting actually makes no difference. That is only what's supplied to the slot. The voltage regulators on the card will automatically convert it to the appropriate amount for the GPU and memory themselves.

EDIT:  Holy God...I just looked at the length and power req's...I'm gonna have to see if my system can take that card...

The length may be an issue for a smaller micro ATX case, but it's shorter than the width of an ATX motherboard and will fit fine in standard ATX cases. As for the power, if you have a decent power supply (basically, something from a good brand) then you can pretty much ignore AMD's official power requirements. Those are meant to cover the no-name, crap quality units that many people are using.

[Scuddie]

The AGP voltage setting actually makes no difference. That is only what's supplied to the slot. The voltage regulators on the card will automatically convert it to the appropriate amount for the GPU and memory themselves.

My GeForce Ti4200 8x and FX5500 would disagree with this statement.

[CP5670]

Did you actually measure the voltages supplied to the GPU with a multimeter?

It may just be the age of those cards. The voltage regulators on newer AGP cards (that have extra power connectors) will have a minimal impact from the AGP voltage changing, as they draw most of their power externally anyway.

[Tyrian]

I've made a note to check all these things...I'll post more once I try all this.  It'll probably be on Sunday.  From tomorrow morning to Saturday night, I'm packed.

[Scuddie]

I didnt measure them with a multimeter, no.  And they didnt have molex connectors either.  However, when they were failing (my mobo or PSU was actually at fault), my system would run stable at 1.7v, while it crashed after 30 seconds with 1.5v.

I didnt realize the 9800XT does indeed have a molex connector.  If it draws a reference voltage from the AGP slot (the FX5900s did that), and it is not high enough, it might cause the card to act up.  However, I dont know if the same applies to ATi cards.  And even then, it would cause occasional texture corruption, not polygon artifacts.  After taking that into consideration, it does look like the card itself is tired.  Shame, really.

Your best bet is to just uninstall the GART driver and set the voltage to 1.7 and hope it's enough for your card if you still need a little time, but I personally wouldnt put too much effort into it after this.

[diceman111]

Yeah, my bad.  The AGP PCI channel is indeed controlled by the northbridge.  I was under the assumption that ALL PCI devices were handled by the southbridge...  I'll have to remember that one .

Ok well just for the sake of accuracy the AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Graphics_Port ) port is not a Version of the PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_Component_Interconnect) port the newer PCI-Express and PCI-X is however improved versions of the PCI databus.

One of the consekvenses is the with PCI-Express SLI has been introduced again so you can use two or more graphics cards at the same time (SLI/Crossfire) (This was also possible with the old Voodoo card using the old PCI databus) sinificly increasing the graphics performance of your system.


/Dice

[Tyrian]

How do I go about uninstalling the GART driver?