Artifacting problem. Source?

Speedy_Lube · Jun 7, 2005, 08:01 PM

I have had a bit of a problem here and have never been able to figure out the source.

I have an Athlon 64 Laptop with an ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 128 MB. Ever since I got the thing, if I am playing a game, or watching a video (sometimes) I eventually start seeing problems with the screen. Polygons become elongated and stretched out. Several lines of dots will show up on the screen.

The problem usually occurs when I am doing something graphically intensive.

To fix it I usually just put the computer in sleep mode then bring it back up. Sometimes this works for several hours. Sometimes it will start doing it again a couple minutes later. Of course, a reboot also fixes the problem.

Originally I thought it was heat related. However, I have noticed that sometimes it will being to do this within about 5 minutes. I also bought a laptop cooling pad and that did not seem to help the problem.

One person suggested that I underclock the graphics card to prevent overheating. This is where it got interesting. The lower I clocked it (using Radlinker btw), the more distortion there was, and the more immediately it would start distorting.

This problem occurs with the original drivers that came with my laptop, as well as all versions of the Omegas that I have tried so far.

The only things I have not tried are sending my computer back to the manufacturer (which I am wary of doing because it could be several weeks before i get it back , and I need it for school), and doing a complete reformat.

Searching ATI's website, I found an interesting article on this sort of thing happening as a relut of insufficient power. The article is for a different card though. It said you needed at least 300 Watts for the card to function, and I thought this may be a similar situation. The article is here
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...questionID=948

Anyway I think that is everything I know about it. I hope someone can help me and please say I dont need a new graphics card!

redsolar · Jun 7, 2005, 09:08 PM

Sure sounds like overheating to me. The story with laptops is a little different, they do not nearly as much power as desktop video cards need.

Can you take a screenshot next time it happens and post it here?

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jun 7, 2005, 10:30 PM

300 W is for the desktop card, no way a mobile one would get away with that.

I'd phone customer service and scream and yell till they fixed it

Speedy_Lube · Jun 8, 2005, 05:32 PM

Alright here are pics. The first image is in KOTOR 2. It shows how the polygons are distorted, as well as the dots all over.

http://img32.echo.cx/img32/2774/problem014ed.jpg

This next one shows the distortion that happens in windows. These always happen simultaneously. That is, one will start messing up and when I exit the game, Windows will be doing this:

http://img32.echo.cx/img32/2812/problem029lf.jpg

This has occured in every game I have played, as well as sometimes when I am playing a video in Windows or a DVD.

redsolar · Jun 8, 2005, 06:21 PM

Hmm, looks like potentially 2 issues: heat, or defective RAMDAC (chip that controls display output). If the darn thing does not freeze after a while of garbled graphics, it's likely just the connection/RAMDAC issue... Neither are really user-serviceable too.

What I would try is to install the (old and ugly) drivers from the manufacturer, and if the problem persists - contact their tech support and ask for replacement.

What brand laptop is it?

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jun 8, 2005, 06:25 PM

This should be in the mobilty forum a moderator will likely relocate it for you
if it dissapars from this setion that is where it was likely moved.

Well you verry well may have a hardware problem and it wouldn't
suprize me if you did with the corruption your seeing. You really
should RMA it if it under warrenty.

Be sure to back up anything you can't afford to lose though!!!

yoda133113 · Jun 8, 2005, 06:47 PM

Have you tried using the regular ATI drivers with the mobility modder, omegas sometimes cause problems on certain hw. Good Luck especially if you need to get it RMA'd

Speedy_Lube · Jun 8, 2005, 06:48 PM

The manufacturer is CyberPower (they are similar to IBuyPower). I have heard horror stories about their support, like that it could take over 6 weeks for it to come back. CyberPower would make me pay to ship it there, and I would rather just pay $20 more to have it fixed here in town and get it back in two days. Is this RAMDAC problem the kind of thing that I could get fixed at a place that repairs laptops?

In any case I am going to do a complete reformat and what not tonight and I will start with the original drivers once again just to see.

CDsDontBurn · Jun 8, 2005, 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speedy_Lube

The manufacturer is CyberPower (they are similar to IBuyPower). I have heard horror stories about their support, like that it could take over 6 weeks for it to come back. CyberPower would make me pay to ship it there, and I would rather just pay $20 more to have it fixed here in town and get it back in two days. Is this RAMDAC problem the kind of thing that I could get fixed at a place that repairs laptops?

In any case I am going to do a complete reformat and what not tonight and I will start with the original drivers once again just to see.

I doubt that a local place could fix that problem. On laptops that have video cards, a large majority of them have the video card integrated into the MoBo making upgrading, repairing, swapping current video cards virtually impossible, so RMA will very likley be the only way out of this. There are a few notebooks here and there that will allow for a video card upgrade, but those are relativley new (within the last six months) and are very expensive.

redsolar · Jun 8, 2005, 10:09 PM

Moved to Mobility as per Neon's suggestion. And yep, I think RMA is the only way - local shops won't cut it.

Speedy_Lube · Jun 29, 2005, 05:20 PM

A couple weeks ago I sent the laptop back to Cyberpower and yesterday it came back.

I ran Jedi Academy for 2 hours, and not once did it artifact or have any other problems. Cyberpower said they installed a different set of drivers. In the card properties it says they are version 6.14.10.6458

I googled that number and it appears those are a set of secondary drivers for the regular (not mobility) 9600 card. I guess that makes sense I have heard before that the 9700 mob. is just the 9600 etc.

Anyway it work now I suppose, but now I just have one thing to ask if anyone can help me. The tech guys didn't really include a copy of the driver installation, they just sort of installed them. That is onconvenient because I want to reformat my PC once again before i start reinstalling all my stuff again.

Can anyone help me find an EXE for this set of drivers?

EDIT:

Nevermind, I think I found it finally. I just hope it is the right one

Well anyway I just want to thank everyone who helped me out. I really appreciate very much!

Jun 7, 2005, 08:01 PM	#1
Speedy_Lube DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 4 Rep Power: 0	Artifacting problem. Source? I have had a bit of a problem here and have never been able to figure out the source. I have an Athlon 64 Laptop with an ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 128 MB. Ever since I got the thing, if I am playing a game, or watching a video (sometimes) I eventually start seeing problems with the screen. Polygons become elongated and stretched out. Several lines of dots will show up on the screen. The problem usually occurs when I am doing something graphically intensive. To fix it I usually just put the computer in sleep mode then bring it back up. Sometimes this works for several hours. Sometimes it will start doing it again a couple minutes later. Of course, a reboot also fixes the problem. Originally I thought it was heat related. However, I have noticed that sometimes it will being to do this within about 5 minutes. I also bought a laptop cooling pad and that did not seem to help the problem. One person suggested that I underclock the graphics card to prevent overheating. This is where it got interesting. The lower I clocked it (using Radlinker btw), the more distortion there was, and the more immediately it would start distorting. This problem occurs with the original drivers that came with my laptop, as well as all versions of the Omegas that I have tried so far. The only things I have not tried are sending my computer back to the manufacturer (which I am wary of doing because it could be several weeks before i get it back , and I need it for school), and doing a complete reformat. Searching ATI's website, I found an interesting article on this sort of thing happening as a relut of insufficient power. The article is for a different card though. It said you needed at least 300 Watts for the card to function, and I thought this may be a similar situation. The article is here https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...questionID=948 Anyway I think that is everything I know about it. I hope someone can help me and please say I dont need a new graphics card!

Jun 7, 2005, 09:08 PM	#2
redsolar Off duty Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Las Vegas, USA Posts: 1,242 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Sure sounds like overheating to me. The story with laptops is a little different, they do not nearly as much power as desktop video cards need. Can you take a screenshot next time it happens and post it here? __________________ Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space_Bar Main rig: Intel Core i7 930 @ 4.0 Ghz \| Corsair H50 Push/Pull \| 12GB OCZ DDR3 \| ASUS Radeon HD 5850 \| 3x 1TB Samsung F3 RAID5 on Dell PERC 5i SAS + 1TB Hitachi \| MSI X58 Pro-e \| 850W Antec Truepower Quattro \| RocketFish by Lian Li Full Tower Case \| Gateway XHD3000 30" LCD \| Dell 2408WFP 24" LCD \| Dell 2407WFP 24" LCD \| Logitech Z-5500 Speakers \| Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Laptop: Samsung x360-34P \| Core 2 Duo SU9400 1.4 GHz \| 4GB DDR3 \| 128GB Samsung SSD \| Intel 4500M w/ HDMI \| WiFi \| Bluetooth \| 13.3" WLED 1280x800 \| Windows 7 Professional x64

Jun 8, 2005, 06:21 PM	#5
redsolar Off duty Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Las Vegas, USA Posts: 1,242 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Hmm, looks like potentially 2 issues: heat, or defective RAMDAC (chip that controls display output). If the darn thing does not freeze after a while of garbled graphics, it's likely just the connection/RAMDAC issue... Neither are really user-serviceable too. What I would try is to install the (old and ugly) drivers from the manufacturer, and if the problem persists - contact their tech support and ask for replacement. What brand laptop is it? __________________ Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space_Bar Main rig: Intel Core i7 930 @ 4.0 Ghz \| Corsair H50 Push/Pull \| 12GB OCZ DDR3 \| ASUS Radeon HD 5850 \| 3x 1TB Samsung F3 RAID5 on Dell PERC 5i SAS + 1TB Hitachi \| MSI X58 Pro-e \| 850W Antec Truepower Quattro \| RocketFish by Lian Li Full Tower Case \| Gateway XHD3000 30" LCD \| Dell 2408WFP 24" LCD \| Dell 2407WFP 24" LCD \| Logitech Z-5500 Speakers \| Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Laptop: Samsung x360-34P \| Core 2 Duo SU9400 1.4 GHz \| 4GB DDR3 \| 128GB Samsung SSD \| Intel 4500M w/ HDMI \| WiFi \| Bluetooth \| 13.3" WLED 1280x800 \| Windows 7 Professional x64

Jun 8, 2005, 06:25 PM	#6
The_Neon_Cowboy HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,009 Rep Power: 92 System Specs	This should be in the mobilty forum a moderator will likely relocate it for you if it dissapars from this setion that is where it was likely moved. Well you verry well may have a hardware problem and it wouldn't suprize me if you did with the corruption your seeing. You really should RMA it if it under warrenty. Be sure to back up anything you can't afford to lose though!!! __________________

Jun 8, 2005, 06:47 PM	#7
yoda133113 DriverHeaven Addict Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Virginia, USA Posts: 309 Rep Power: 0	Have you tried using the regular ATI drivers with the mobility modder, omegas sometimes cause problems on certain hw. Good Luck especially if you need to get it RMA'd __________________ [color=Yellow]Guild Wars Character: Corrupted Bubbles[/color] "The muffin isn't picky, Timmy. Nor is it tasty! But it is powerful. All hail the muffin!" Cosmo, Fairly Odd Parents "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. He is not entitled to his own facts." Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan [color=Sienna]Gateway M680X P-M 750 1.86 GHz Alviso Mobility Radeon X700 128 MB 1 GB 400 MHz DDR2 60 GB 5400 RPM Hitachi HD QSI DVD+-RW DL 17" Widescreen [/color]

Jun 7, 2005, 10:30 PM	#3
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	300 W is for the desktop card, no way a mobile one would get away with that. I'd phone customer service and scream and yell till they fixed it

Jun 8, 2005, 05:32 PM	Thread Starter #4
Speedy_Lube DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 4 Rep Power: 0	Alright here are pics. The first image is in KOTOR 2. It shows how the polygons are distorted, as well as the dots all over. http://img32.echo.cx/img32/2774/problem014ed.jpg This next one shows the distortion that happens in windows. These always happen simultaneously. That is, one will start messing up and when I exit the game, Windows will be doing this: http://img32.echo.cx/img32/2812/problem029lf.jpg This has occured in every game I have played, as well as sometimes when I am playing a video in Windows or a DVD.

Jun 8, 2005, 06:48 PM	Thread Starter #8
Speedy_Lube DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 4 Rep Power: 0	The manufacturer is CyberPower (they are similar to IBuyPower). I have heard horror stories about their support, like that it could take over 6 weeks for it to come back. CyberPower would make me pay to ship it there, and I would rather just pay $20 more to have it fixed here in town and get it back in two days. Is this RAMDAC problem the kind of thing that I could get fixed at a place that repairs laptops? In any case I am going to do a complete reformat and what not tonight and I will start with the original drivers once again just to see.

Jun 8, 2005, 10:09 PM	#10
redsolar Off duty Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Las Vegas, USA Posts: 1,242 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Moved to Mobility as per Neon's suggestion. And yep, I think RMA is the only way - local shops won't cut it. __________________ Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space_Bar Main rig: Intel Core i7 930 @ 4.0 Ghz \| Corsair H50 Push/Pull \| 12GB OCZ DDR3 \| ASUS Radeon HD 5850 \| 3x 1TB Samsung F3 RAID5 on Dell PERC 5i SAS + 1TB Hitachi \| MSI X58 Pro-e \| 850W Antec Truepower Quattro \| RocketFish by Lian Li Full Tower Case \| Gateway XHD3000 30" LCD \| Dell 2408WFP 24" LCD \| Dell 2407WFP 24" LCD \| Logitech Z-5500 Speakers \| Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Laptop: Samsung x360-34P \| Core 2 Duo SU9400 1.4 GHz \| 4GB DDR3 \| 128GB Samsung SSD \| Intel 4500M w/ HDMI \| WiFi \| Bluetooth \| 13.3" WLED 1280x800 \| Windows 7 Professional x64

Jun 29, 2005, 05:20 PM	Thread Starter #11
Speedy_Lube DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 4 Rep Power: 0	A couple weeks ago I sent the laptop back to Cyberpower and yesterday it came back. I ran Jedi Academy for 2 hours, and not once did it artifact or have any other problems. Cyberpower said they installed a different set of drivers. In the card properties it says they are version 6.14.10.6458 I googled that number and it appears those are a set of secondary drivers for the regular (not mobility) 9600 card. I guess that makes sense I have heard before that the 9700 mob. is just the 9600 etc. Anyway it work now I suppose, but now I just have one thing to ask if anyone can help me. The tech guys didn't really include a copy of the driver installation, they just sort of installed them. That is onconvenient because I want to reformat my PC once again before i start reinstalling all my stuff again. Can anyone help me find an EXE for this set of drivers? EDIT: Nevermind, I think I found it finally. I just hope it is the right one Well anyway I just want to thank everyone who helped me out. I really appreciate very much!