Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256bit - 2004/11/26 02:07Hi all,
I need some help. I bought one of the above mentioned cards from ebay(second hand) and it arrived in its box, with all the extras like cd's, cables etc. Before I put it in my pc, I took off the old heat sink checked it had a R360 core (which it does ) and stuck a Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer REV3 on it. So I booted it up and what do I see on my screen- a thin line about a quarter of the way down the screen. It goes from one side to the other. Also, in the top right hand part of the screen, it is flickering very slightly.
Could someone tell me whether this has been overclocked and damaged before I got it? If so, should I flash it to an 9800 XT and hope that fixes the problem? I was planning to flash anyway, but now I'm wondering whether it is a good idea.
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Mavke
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Re:PowerColor Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256bit - 2004/11/26 02:26Hi there
This issue you are getting looks like the card has been overclocked a bit to much... Can you check with ATITool how high the card is clocked now? And at the same time it would be good to dump the BIOS of the card and provide it for checking. Did you also check when brand or memory your card has? Hynix? Samsung?
Can you provide all that? Then I can check and see if it is somehow damaged due to to much overclocking...
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Fury
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Re:Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256bit - 2004/11/26 03:04VanScythe wrote: Hi all,
I need some help. I bought one of the above mentioned cards from ebay(second hand) and it arrived in its box, with all the extras like cd's, cables etc. Before I put it in my pc, I took off the old heat sink checked it had a R360 core (which it does ) and stuck a Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer REV3 on it. So I booted it up and what do I see on my screen- a thin line about a quarter of the way down the screen. It goes from one side to the other. Also, in the top right hand part of the screen, it is flickering very slightly.
Could someone tell me whether this has been overclocked and damaged before I got it? If so, should I flash it to an 9800 XT and hope that fixes the problem? I was planning to flash anyway, but now I'm wondering whether it is a good idea.
Does this anomaly accure during post? if so send the card back its fried...
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VanScythe
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Re:Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256bit - 2004/11/26 03:10I can't see it during post or in the BIOS/CMOS setup. I have now noticed a second line also about a quarter of the way up from the bottom of the screen. The lines are very thin and black. I have installed the lastest Catalyst drivers, but that didn't help. Will run ATITool and post screen shots when I get home today.
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Mavke
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Re:Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256bit - 2004/11/26 03:23Okay... Fine then I wait for your feedback. But I am suspecting what Fury is saying. You might have a bad card, so you might have to return it.
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VanScythe
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Re:Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256bit - 2004/11/27 01:10Good morning. Here is the ATITool settings. I just installed. I have not touched the clock speeds. As I bought this graphics card second hand of ebay, I don't think any warranty is valid - especially if the card has been o/c'ed. As you can see, I have o/ced my CPU but I have kept the GPU clock standard on 66MHz (I think?) 512MB Memmory is on 3:2.
The Graphics memory is Hynix.
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Mavke
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Re:Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256bit - 2004/11/27 05:00Well still if you bought the card via ebay and it is defective you can claim your money back from the seller and just send back the card... As you did a bargain for a working card and not a defective one. The clocks seem to be okay, but you never know if it was overclocked to much in the past.
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VanScythe
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Re:Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256bit - 2004/11/27 05:10It has been about a month now, I only noticed it when I changed my background from a very dark/black background to a white-ish one. You can't see it in any games unless you are 50cm from the screen.
I think it would be too much trouble to try and get the young guy who I bought it from to give me my money back, as I have been using it for a month. Could you please advise what programs I should use to capture my video bios and which ones I should use to "upgrade" to a 9800 XT? The problem is so small, I can barely see it. So now I'm just worried about getting some performance out of it
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VanScythe
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Re:Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256bit - 2004/12/22 07:55Unofficially I am an idiot. Officially it's not my fault- too much paranoia about overclocking the cards too much. I plugged another screen into it and there was no lines or flickering!!! Yeehaw, prob is I have to get another screen! I noticed that there are no Powercolor 9800XT bioses in your download section so where would I get one to flash mine?
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IntelGuy
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Re:Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256bit - 2004/12/22 09:45When I flashed my Ati 9800 Pro I matched the memory chips from this list:
and used the "force" function in the flash utility with no problem. Don't forget to back up the original BIOS first thing.
I don't see a Hynix 128 listed. I'd try the Samsung 128 myself. Also, I can't find the link, but I think I recall reading that if you use the 256MB BIOS with 128MB of memory, it just spends a little time looking for the rest of the memory, when it boots up. You can always flash back to your original BIOS if these don't work out. I have recofvered from a bad flash a couple of times by sticking in the flash disk, waiting until the computer has had time to boot up, and then typing the flash commands, even though the screen was blank. You may want to write down your flash command and the original file name, just in case.
This article would indicate that the Sansung/Hynix BIOSes are interchangeable.
EVGA 9600GT (SC) PCIe 512MB - Rev 01
) and stuck a Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer REV3 on it. So I booted it up and what do I see on my screen- a thin line about a quarter of the way down the screen. It goes from one side to the other. Also, in the top right hand part of the screen, it is flickering very slightly.
Yeehaw, prob is I have to get another screen! 
I noticed that there are no Powercolor 9800XT bioses in your download section so where would I get one to flash mine?
I'd try the Samsung 128 myself. Also, I can't find the link, but I think I recall reading that if you use the 256MB BIOS with 128MB of memory, it just spends a little time looking for the rest of the memory, when it boots up. You can always flash back to your original BIOS if these don't work out. I have recofvered from a bad flash a couple of times by sticking in the flash disk, waiting until the computer has had time to boot up, and then typing the flash commands, even though the screen was blank. You may want to write down your flash command and the original file name, just in case.
