Problems with a 9800XT I just sold

[robo22]

I sold off my 9800XT the other day and the other person just received it today, but is having quite a lot of problems with it. He's experiencing severe tearing in HL2, momentary freezes in the stress test, and really low FPS in HL2 and along with several other games including COD. There have been no artifacts or abnormal temperature readings (idles in the 60s). He just switched over from a 6800GT that he is selling so conflict with the nvidia drivers might be a problem. But we've tried using drivers cleaner and several versions of catalysts, but the problem still persists. We've also attempted to turn off ATI AI and turning on vsync, but both didn't do any good. He's running an alienware right now with an amd64 3700+ and 2 gigs of ram. The card have ran flawlessly in my setup listed below, and with no signs of artifacts or abnormal temperatures in his setup, I'm pretty sure that the card is not defective. If anyone can offer me some suggestions that preferably won't require a format, I'll really apprectiate it. Thanks.

 

[HappyNic]

ask him to try turning off fast right, and make sure his AGP bus is at 66mhz and PCI at 33mhz

 

[robo22]

He just took the card over to his friend's house with a 9600XT, and the card ran flawlessly. So it's confirmed that it's a problem with the drivers that probably only a format can fix. I already told him to turn off fastwrite and im pretty sure the agp bus and pci are already locked at those speeds. Thanks for the response.

 

[Tiamat]

At least the card is fine though. It woulda sucked if it got messed up during shipping.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: robo22
He just switched over from a 6800GT

He went from a new, high-end video card to an old, mid-ranged video card? WHY?

 

[imported_Harbinger]

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: robo22
He just switched over from a 6800GT

He went from a new, high-end video card to an old, mid-ranged video card? WHY?

i was thinking exactly the same.... ppl are strange beings

 

[stelleg151]

money....

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: stelleg151
money....

it's all about the benjamins.

 

[robo22]

Yeah we were actually in the middle of a trade, my 9800XT plus cash for his gt. He felt that he didn't need the extra horsepower since he mostly plays COD and just finished with far cry and hl2. Does anyone else have any other solutions for this problem? Drivers cleaner just wiped out all the video drivers and forced him into vgasave mode, but a restore point solved that problem so he's kind of sketchy about using drivers cleaner again. It is an alienware computer, so maybe alienware installed something that's causing this problem? Any other suggestions would be largely appreciated. Thanks

 

[Tiamat]

Sadly, formatting the HD might be your only road. It fixes most problems.

 

[HappyNic]

after driver cleaner clear all the old drivers,, and he is in VGA mode,, he can then install the new driver.

 

[Elvis2]

after driver cleaner clear all the old drivers,, and he is in VGA mode,, he can then install the new driver

yeah, he's half way home

 

[robo22]

can you restate that please? If you're talking about him being trapped in vgasave mode and not being able to install any drivers, he already solved that problem by going back to a previous restore point. Right now, he has no problems installing drivers, it's just that it's not providing him with the performance that it should be.

 

[magomago]

If he thinks he doesn't need the horsepower, he should also consider selling some of his ram...2 gigs is overkill