Destroyed ATI Radeon 9700 harware with Drivers and Hotfixes

[lancerteam]

I got into a serious trouble with ATI. After upgraded ATI drivers and a hotfix I run 3dmark 2005 with fix 1.1. The whole computer hangs. Windows XP seems to stable usually but this was an exception. After a reboot the computer would not start at all. The story and details can be found at:

http://koti.mbnet.fi/~lancer/

[saturnotaku]

So? That kind of stuff happens all the time. Hard drives, motherboards, video cards - all can go up in smoke without a hint of warning. Time to start saving your pennies for a new card.

[lancerteam]

So? That kind of stuff happens all the time. Hard drives, motherboards, video cards - all can go up in smoke without a hint of warning. Time to start saving your pennies for a new card.

I have had quite many hard drive crashes (no motherboard crashes nor processors). They all have "natural cause" because they don't last forever. However, a processor or a video card should not be destroyable programmaticly. If this is true, somebody finds out how and builds a clever virus to do that. Then we are in deep trouble and hardware market grows quite a lot :clap: ..

Ofcourse you could try to overwrite programmaticly bios, but that should be prevented with drivers.

I only hope this will be the last incident with drivers and software destroying videocards.

No other option than buy one.

:nanahump:

[theultimo]

You didn't flash you BIOS until the card gave up, right? How does the Flash-BIOS come into play of destroying the card?

[lancerteam]

You didn't flash you BIOS until the card gave up, right? How does the Flash-BIOS come into play of destroying the card?


That is true, I didn't flash it before the card gave up. Flashing was the last thing I tried to do because if something goes wrong doing that it will be harder to get everything work again.

One of my friends suggested that the drivers might have altered cards BIOS settings.

Unfortunately it didn't help at all, the state of card remains the same.

[RpPRO]

What's your PSU? If it cannot supply the necessary voltages everything goes unstable, which may result irreversible damages.

[Drumphil]

er, exactly how is it you are sure this has anything to do with the ATI gpu powered graphics card? It seems like you are at the point where you need to start the troubleshooting process, not declare your findings.

However, a processor or a video card should not be destroyable programmaticly.

I still think its just an assumption that the drivers or graphics card is the cause of this, or is dead itself, unless you have done other testing we don't know about. Testing time!

[lancerteam]

What's your PSU? If it cannot supply the necessary voltages everything goes unstable, which may result irreversible damages.


--

Ok. I have an enlight PSU, 250W output. I also have a DVD - RW and a DVD-drive. If there's not enough power the system won't start and there will be some beeping. This has happened when I configured the systems DVD drives and power cables. The whole thing has worked with only one configuration. Normally you can connect the power cables in many different configurations.

You may have it right. 3dmark05 stresses the machine to its limits and they may have been exceeded. The interesting part is that it's the processor test that crashed the machine.

The damage seems to bee irreversible. So I have to buy a new PSU also when buying a new 3d-card.

Thanks for your advice!

[lancerteam]

er, exactly how is it you are sure this has anything to do with the ATI gpu powered graphics card? It seems like you are at the point where you need to start the troubleshooting process, not declare your findings.



I still think its just an assumption that the drivers or graphics card is the cause of this, or is dead itself, unless you have done other testing we don't know about. Testing time!

--
Do you have some advice how to test? I'm not a hardware specialist. If the computer works perfectly without Radeon 9700 (I'm using S3 vision without 3d-graphics) I won't blame other hardware.

But as mentioned earlier my 250W PSU might have been the problem. :lame:

[CATALYST MAKER]

there is zero percent chance that drivers destroyed your card. It was other causes for sure

[saturnotaku]

there is zero percent chance that drivers destroyed your card. It was other causes for sure

QFT

OT - I know I've been hard on 'ya in the past CM, but I have to give you guys props for the 4.10 and 4.12 beta sets you've released. One or two more releases like these and my faith in your driver team will have been restored. Keep it up. :)

[-=Gib-McFragger=-]

Besides, even if the card happened to fail, does it not carry a 5 year warranty from ATI? My 9700 Pro I used to have blew up and ATI RMA'd it without question. :) Now if you have modded the card, then don't bother, but if you haven't, it should be RMA time.

[Clay]

QFT

OT - I know I've been hard on 'ya in the past CM, but I have to give you guys props for the 4.10 and 4.12 beta sets you've released. One or two more releases like these and my faith in your driver team will have been restored. Keep it up. :)
What's with the love fest? :p

[saturnotaku]

It ain't love 'till I get another couple driver sets that actually work as they're supposed to. Right now, ATI is merely back on the right track. Now don't make me give you a love fest up-side your head. :p

[Clay]

Now don't make me give you a love fest up-side your head. :pI don't see how that would be physically possible but I'm sure that Gib could help you out with that. I'll pass. :angel:

[lancerteam]

Well, the best advice (this far) I got was that my PSU had not enough power.
Thank you for contributing this chain!