Dead Radeon 9500 Pro, ideas?

[nbarb99]

I purchased a used Radeon 9500 Pro card (here on AT, in fact) in December. The previous owner had installed a VGA Silencer 3 and some ramsinks, and overclocked the board fairly well.

Anyhow, about a month after I received it, it stopped working. For a week or two before it died, I had noticed some random flickering on my screen, but attributed this to my 5+ year old monitor. However, one night, the signal completely went out ("No Signal Input") and the computer refused to POST soon after. The computer and monitor work fine with my older Radeon card, but not with the 9500.

I did not overclock the card to any extremes (used ATITool to scan for artifacts) and the card was working well up to the point it died, besides the seldom flickering and some faint, odd barely-noticeable "crawling" lines on the screen - "interference" is the best way to describe it.

Any ideas as to what could be the problem? Considering the symptoms, it seems like a electrical problem or faulty component to me. To my knowledge, the previous owner did not do any sort of voltmod - just upping the clock and memory frequencies.

 

[Pciber]

you could hang it on your wall and call it artwork.

 

[JBT]

The rolling lines and flickering was a common problem with the 9500 Pros. To solve it you were suppose to use a DVI to VGA adapter on the DVI port instead of the VGA. As for the card dying that sucks.... Sorry but sounsd like key chain time to me !!!

 

[nbarb99]

Interesting... so maybe the flickering and rolling lines I saw wasn't because the card was on its last legs, so to speak.

It's a tad big for a keychain, I'd rather not attempt that Anyone else have any info about this?

 

[nbarb99]

Bump - any more ideas?

 

[Spikesoldier]

cut out the GPU

 

[TStep]

Why not call ATI? Explain your situation and find out what your options are. I know I've paid to have Abit nonworking boards fixed (replaced) in the past at reasonable fees, but I'm not sure of ATI's policies.

 

[boyRacer]

Technically the warranty is void... but I think someone here in the forums called them up... told them what happened and they approved his RMA. Not only that but I think he got a newer model card in return.

You could give it a shot. Worst that can happen is they deny your RMA.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

if it was totally busted....id cut the GPU out, shine it up real nice and make a key ring out it then you'd always be carrying the most stuff......what you got in your pockets? errr 107 ish million transistors sir!

 

[nbarb99]

Yes, I'm going to try contacting ATI personally if I can't figure out anything myself. Nothing to lose

 

[nbarb99]

Bump - one last time for any bright ideas

(Just making sure I'm not missing something obvious here before I attempt to RMA the thing)

 

[imported_bushman]

have a technician do a diagnostic on it at a computer place. Not sure if they do gfx cards, but I know a few around where I live do comp diags. check it out before you send it off for a long time. just a suggestion