badldragon

My latptop (Acer Aspire 1622LM) is having problems with anything that uses the gfx card to any extent.

the gfx card is an ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 64MB

Been doing it for a while but not figured out what is wrong

Sometime I can play a games for 30 minutes before it fails most of the time though it'd be a coupld of minutes tops

It evn does it when watching some video - it rquires me to manually re-boot the lappy

No scandisk runs after reboot so its cleary not a hdd problem anyway i wantto find out how i can fix it

here is an image of what happens when it crashes



should point out that its not always the same colours etc - depends on what im viewing at the time, but always this "barcoding" sort of thing

Cheers

Malc

Deadcrow

damn thats *not nice*

1. heat problem? maybe your card is overheating after 30min<-> fan clean?
2.connection between display and card is (partly)broken<->foil cable checked?
3.Card died? because of 3.1 overclocking?
3.2 overheating (before and got dammaged)
3.3 static damage because of changing Ram,hdd
4. Under windows/linux any problems with your screen?
5.make sure that it's not a software problem
5.1(try a linux live cd like knoppix or anything else), deactivate DDC in Catalys CC under display (should help in some cases)
5.2 switch down your sceen resolution and try to run some test programms like 3dmark (take an older version than 06 as your card is an 9700 and 06 would be to much )


looks for my like some artifakts that indikates that the card is dead but try to figure it out

ATI Tool!!! look for artifakts with that programmm if you want

hope that helps.....

badldragon

-- Never overclocked, fan seems ok never changed ram. Uni thas been opened by Acer when in for repair due to faulty hdd. ill run through your options

OK tried ATItool - zero artifacts!

Dunno waht that means like! lol

I'll try puttin the screen res down and running a 3d app like you suggested..

Malc

ONe thing though, if its dead is it possible to replace a gfx card in a laptop??

Vikingod

Well, it sounds like a heat issue, I would look into that. If the comp is still under warrenty, send it back to get fixed. YOu can also try and blow the heat sink with some compressed air and try to get rid of any thermal dust that might be causing the heat problem. Look to find a program that can tell you what temperature readings are after running games. Laptops are ofter difficult to find these types of programs, but I'm sure there is something out there (speedfan maybe). I once had a similar problem, and it turned out it wasn't the video card but the processor that was causing the crash.

badldragon

Sorry, im a bit of a noob about gfx cards etc

DOes the cleaning of the fan this way require me to open up the lappy or just point it at the fan holes on the outsde of the unoit??

Cheers again

Malc

badldragon

Im running sppedfan and it says
HD0: 54C
Temp1: 62C
Temp2: 56C

i click configure and get a pop up dialog box with various tabs, when I click the fans tab there are no fans listed.

Is this correct or is somthing went wrong?

Also usingthe SMART tab and analysing the hdd it says its working too 100% fitness and performance (cept it does say that the GSense error rate is only at Normal - every thing else is hitting very good)

Malc

badldragon

Tried running that 3dmark software - ran the DEMO setting this is what I got



What do you all think ?

And again - Is it possible to place a gfx card in a laptop (if needed??) or even upgrade to a better one?

Malc

Zardon

Temperature 1 is the CPU/Processor temperature and temperature 2 is the motherboard temperature.

62 at idle seems a tad on the high side. What processor is in the laptop? Have you tested the machine by looping Sisoft Sandra in cpu arithmetic and/or multimedia? this will ensure there is not an issue with the processor and it will not stress the GFX.

If after stressing with 5-10 loops of each of those tests and the machine is fine, try underclocking the graphics card by 50mhz on both core and ram. I know this may sound ridiculous but it is a good method to ensure there is not an overheating issue or an issue with the core on the GFX.

so to recap.

1: stress test the processor alone by looping CPU only tests such as CPU arithmetic or multimedia in sisoft sandra

2: if this passes without issue then use ATI tool or similar to underclock the graphics card. try both core and memory 50mhz UNDER spec. if it passes this, then raise one to normal and find which is causing it. If it is indeed an issue with the GFX overheating then phone the dealer/company to explain the situation. Armed with the right knowledge and sounding as if you know what you are talking about frequently gets companies to listen and resolve issues rather than say something lame like "have you got an antivirus app installed?"

3: if the machine fails with 2: or 1: you are going to need to check fans and heatsinks on CPU and / or Graphics cores. if you are uncomfortable with this and are not under warranty find a good local dealer/engineer who wont rip you off having a look.

Zardon

ah you posted this after I replied last time. What drivers are you using? are you using a modded set? try and think back to when it started happening, if you are running a modded set, deinstall the drivers with driver cleaner www.drivercleaner.net and then use our mobility modding tool www.hardwareheaven.com/patje on an offical ATI set to verify its not a bad installation issue. also turn off vpu recover....

badldragon

Zardon,

I've only once updated my drives and that was like 2 days ago using the software you are advising.

THis problem has been ongoing for about 5 months (its not a huge issue cos i dont play much games etc on the laptop i just use it mainly for browsing and recording audio and it never crashes when doing that) I thought that mybe installing the latest drivers would help and the program you refer to is the only one I could seem to find that wuld let me update.

ill get drivercleaner and run through what you said. One thing though VPU recover? how do I turn it off?

(newb)

Malc

Zardon

I dont honestly think turning VPU recover off in this case will solve it - the screenshot you showed me looks to me to be a core issue - if it was a GFX ram issue you normally see a different corruption effect, however in my experience there have been certain configurations that have benefited from it being turned off, I know I always turn it off.

it is in the catalyst control centre, in VPU recover just under color and avivo video.

I really suggest you try underclocking the core like I said, I have a feeling (although I could be wrong) that this is the issue. firstly install a clean set of offical drivers with the mod tool.

badldragon

ach, whats going on now???

badldragon

so i ran sisoft snadra - the two test that Zardon referred me too here are a screengrab showing results of each

Arithmetic:


and Multimedia:



after running both of these I started up ATI Tools lowered the settings for mem and core as directed (a little over 50 less than default) but still same result

ALl thats left to do know is open up the lappy - Im not scared of getting into it but don't really know what I have to do once in there.

Any clues?

Also can you tell me if you can replace/upgrade gfx cards like i have in laptops or am I stuck iwith it?

Cheers

Malc