Information on a ATI 9700 Pro, and testing

[Jim123]

Hi, just got and installed today a Refurbished Sapphire Radeon 9700 PRO. It's working fine, and installed easy. It's a big improvement over my old GeForce3 Ti200 card. I just have a few questions about the 9700 PRO, the card itself looks just like ATI's version, I cannot find Sapphire printed on it anywhere.

I have had not one problem with it so far, ( what would be a good way to test it ) to see if there is anything wrong with it, I have less then 15 days to return it for a refund or exchange.

It does not have a BIOS display of itself when booting up, is this the same with ATI 9700 PRO's ?

How I installed it

- Flashed the BIOS - Updated Motherboard Drivers - uninstalled NVIDIA Display Drivers - Removed Display Adapter from within Device Manager - Used Drive Cleaner (well I think it did something, but I'm not sure it did anything, within safe mode) - Removed old card / Installed new card - Installed CATALYST 4.3 Driver - Installed CATALYST Control Panel.

System Spec
Asus A7N8X Deluxe, rev 2.00, BIOS 1007 (was 1003), Nforce2 drivers 3.13 (in part)
AMD Athlon XP 2500+
768 MB RAM PC2700
Windows XP Home, with SP1

A side note on the boot screens, after flashing the BIOS the boot screen go by very very fast now, I can't read anything.

I need to test this card, because I have now less then 11 days left now to return it if it's bad.

One last thing, I got it at NewEgg.com

PS I think I got very lucky, but I want to be sure.

Thank you
Jim

 

[SilentRunning]

Originally posted by: Jim123
It does not have a BIOS display of itself when booting up, is this the same with ATI 9700 PRO's ?

ATI chipset cards have not displayed their BIOS at POST for quite some time, so yes that is normal.

 

[GtPrOjEcTX]

well, to test it, play some games, run some benchmarks (www.futuremark.com) and see if it holds up.

 

[Dman877]

Could always try the "drop" test Any second story window will do... .

 

[Jim123]

Hi, Thank you SilentRunning, OK I can stop thinking about that.

GtPrOjEcTX Thank you, so far it's played UT2003 (with all it update, and add ons) set at higher details, with no problems at all ( it looks awesome ). And Homeworld2, again no problems.

Dman877, Hi, well on one of the little can things on the card, there is a small dent, I think that test was done at the factory, and it passed, the card is indestrutible. Well the card looks used, but with a brandnew fan and heatsink unit on it, and yes no fooling that dent is there. But with that aside, the card is running, and running well so far.

Thank you
Jim:beer:

 

[Pete]

Originally posted by: Jim123
I have had not one problem with it so far, ( what would be a good way to test it ) to see if there is anything wrong with it, I have less then 15 days to return it for a refund or exchange.

I'd stress test it by looping 3DMark2003 with AA+AF (or 3DM2001SE at 1600x1200 w/4xAA + 16xQ AF, if you can't loop 3DM03 or can't download it) overnight. 3DM03 would be better because you're stressing more DX8/9 shaders. I suppose you can try Aquamark 3, too, if it allows for looping. The key is to make the whole card (GPU and memory) work as hard as possible for at least six consecutive hours, to see if there's a weak link (be it bad memory or insufficient cooling).

That would be my advice, but don't consider it final. You may want to try looping a different demo/game every night for a few nights, if you're relly worried (and can find enough 3D apps that are easy to loop).

 

[Jim123]

Thank you, I'll down load them tomarrow from work

Thank you
Jim