Hi all

After a few weeks of reinstalling I keep getting this really odd thing.

when I sometimes boot my system gets strange stripes over the bottom of the screen, but sometitmes after a new reboot they disapear.

During the events I also did some upgrades just to see of the problem would go away, thing like a new HDD, a new PSU and extra memory, since it was so wierd.

here the old setup:

AMD AthlonXP 2700+
ASUS A7V333-R Rev.1.02 VIA Apollo KT333
1x 512MB PC2700 Samsung Original
ASUS AX800XT Platinum Edition AGP 256MB
3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 PCI 64MB
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 Platinum eX
Seagate Barracuda III 30GB 7200.7 rpm PATA HDD
Enermax EG365VE 350 Watt PSU met max peak of 365 watt

and here the setup with the replaced parts:

AMD AthlonXP 2700+
ASUS A7V333-R Rev.1.02 VIA Apollo KT333
1x 512MB PC2700 Samsung Original
2x 512MB PC2700 Kingston new
ASUS AX800XT Platinum Edition AGP 256MB
3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 PCI 64MB
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 Platinum eX
Seagate Barracuda V 120GB 7200.7 rpm PATA HDD new
Thermaltake W0073: PowerStation 520W Active PFC PSU new
http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17919-2/R350demoPS.JPG

here is how it looks like when those scary stripes appear:
http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17901-2/Boot.JPG http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17904-2/stripesa.JPG http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17907-2/stipesb.JPG

and sometimes I'm in the clear, no stripes at all:
http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17898-2/nostripesa.JPG http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17910-2/nostripesb.JPG

and even 3D demo's run safely all day, no crash to be seen:
http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17913-2/R350demo1.JPG http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17916-2/R350demo2.JPG

So if anybody knows something please throuw in a line.  :-/ :-[

With Windows XP the same thing happened also, first I thought it was the HDD, and that one crashed so I bought a new one, no HDD crash yet, but the stripes keep appearing when I do a cold boot, but not all the time, so it kinda comes when it wnat's to that strange idea it has.

The Voodoo5 5500 how ever , never has this problem, so it is an AGP card thing, at first I thought if it was the X800XT PE AGP why would work perfectly running games  and 3D demo's all day and when I reboot itwon't go further than the Wi2K or XP pro welcome screen :-/

So it's a very strange alien type of thing I have never whitnessed in my PC life. This system has been running with the old config in my room since 1999 and with the old config as the new one I get these strange effects.

The only thing I was thinking about is to test my Leadtek GeForce4 Ti4600 AGP and Gigabyte GeForce FX 5700 AGP cards see if they get  the same strange things, of they do then it might be the motherboard, but then again why are there tiems that nothing happens and I can work all day on it?

It makes me feel confused, as my friends find it very strange as well.  :-/

Can you connect the notebook or another pc to the monitor to test it?

well I have the Ti4600 on the monitor and no more strange ness, at first I tested the DVI out from the X800 as the D-Sub out and both outputs gave the same problems.

after a numerous reboots with the Ti4600 the problems hasn't appeared yet.

So maybe that the filter chips of my X800XT PE were somehow damaged ? :-/

Of course it is possible... I think that you can try a reflash of the bios... But before to do anything... Try to return to the old system setup...

well the problems started with the old setup that's why I renewed it all, but neither that didn't help.

what do I need to flash that ATi card?

This problem is due to BIOS on some Radeon cards.

It can be seen as one of the following...

MINOR
=====
Stripes or squares will appear on screen
(from cold boot ONLY)

MAJOR
=====

Many black squares appear and the whole screen is garbled
(again, from cold boot ONLY)

But on reboot the problem will go away...

What causes this?

When some (third party only - e.g. Connect 3D, etc...) Radeon cards were programmed at the factory - they got the memory timing INCORRECT in the BIOS.

How do I know about this?

When I was modding my 9500 into a 9700Pro, I initially flashed a BIOS with incorrect RAM timings...I saw lots of black squares.

Then I flashed a NEW BIOS that had the correct RAM timings that matched my RAM (and card type) - the black squares disappeared, and never came back!

How widespread is the problem?

It only affects third party Radeons (not ones built by ATI)

e.g. I own a Radeon 9800SE AIW from Connect 3D that does this every time from COLD BOOT.
(been meaning to fix the BIOS, but I will have to use RadEdit to build a custom BIOS...ah well!)

How can I check for this on my card?

Turn off your system, and at the wall socket, leave it off for about an hour or two. Then come and power it on, if you see artefacts at boot (and sometimes in Windows) then you have the problem.

How can I fix it?

Check the RAM chips on the card and write down all the info you can (important parts are brand and speed).

Match up the brand and speed of RAM to the type of card and find a BIOS that matches your card type and RAM - then re-flash the card (even if the BIOS is from a different card manufacturer. e.g. Connect 3D BIOS on a Club 3D card - or whatever!)

Phew! I think that's enough for now!

well mine problem I had was the the following you mentioned :)

MINOR
=====
Stripes or squares will appear on screen
(from cold boot ONLY)

from a cold boot indeed! :) and yes my card is an ASUS it has the orange PCB thus manufactured by ASUS with an ASUS bios.

it's ram is clocked at default speed of 560Mhz physical [ 1120Mhz DDR] true XT PE speeds, it has 1.6ns 256Bit GDDR3 memory, from Samsung I believe, I will check this right away thanx for the tips.

What I did change is that I'm using Omega Catalyst 7.01 which is based on Cat 7.1 the problem after driver installation hasn't occured yet.

In the Bios I have disabled Fast Writes & AGP Performance control.

I will turn this fella off and in an hour or two I will see if the artifacts are gone.

Well after all this testing and finding out what the caused this strange problem was that I must disable FastWrites in the bios.

Now the card functions the way it should do on my ASUS A7V333-R Rev. 1.02 Motherboard with VIA Apollo KT333 chipset and Bios 1017.

I also posted a thread on the dutch forum and they said to fiddle around in the Bios with the AGP settings, so I disabled AGP Performance Control & AGP Fast Writes but I did enable AGP x4 because I could only choose AGP x1, x2 and x4, though AGP x4 is 100% backwards compatible by the X800XT PE AGP x8 card, so that was the most logic setting, since there was no Automatic setting, I would of chosen that if that was available.

here some shots in Quake3 Ver 1.32, just to show that the card functions perfectly in 3D apps:
http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17934-2/Lone+wolf+on+X800XT+PE+AGP.jpg http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17943-2/Lonewolf+Jumping+mode+on+X800XT+PE.jpg http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17937-2/LoneWolf+bowing.jpg
http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17946-2/LoneWolf+X800XT+PE+AGP+x4+FSAA+x65+AF+x16HQ.jpg http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17940-2/Lonewolf+find+a+secret+area.jpg http://www.3dfx.ch/gallery/d/17949-2/LonewWolf+encounters+a+Sith+Lord.jpg

My doggy LoneWolf Says Hi 3dfx peopel this baby is runn'n hot!! Woof! ;D

Well So far so good right ;) o funny glitches in the Quake3 run I made there, all went fine, after that I turned the system off, had dinner came back in an hour's time did a cold bootup and still no stripes, so the Fast Writes setting may have been the main problem.

Was this problem present from the beginning or did everything work fine with fastwrite active?

well not all the time, when I installed Omega 6.03 with the option Enable Fast Writes, then the problem started to happen once in a while.

now with Omega 7.01 , heh might as well use the latest one, which shouldn't matter, I decided to skip that Enable FastWrites setting just to see what would happen you see :)

Here by I haven't seen the stipes since 40 hours ago with Omega 6.03 with that option enabled, and also I disabled it in the bios, which wouldn't work because in the driver that option is disabled allready, but hey the system I am using isn't blazing like most systems around here, it an oldie and now that eveything is working the way it should do, aka no funny stuff, I am happy.

With the Dual Opteron setup I had with this card some 2 years ago the card was placed in a native AGP Pro x8 slot, and there I could enable the Fast Writes with no problems, could it be that when the card is opperating in AGP x4 mode, that Fast Writes makes this card unstable?  

Fast Writes VERY often causes unstability on S462 Systems. Furthermore, it doesn't provide any advantage ;) Just leave it turned off :)

ah thanx TweakStone heh the system is running solid as rock now no more funnystuff haha :)

though I don't know what AGP Performance Control is meant for, you any idea's on that one?

I agree - I forgot that I always have ;):

FASTWRITES = OFF

When I install Omega drivers. :)

yeah that really did the trick allrighty 8) thanx for the help everyone , I appreciate it very much :)

May The Force Be With You All!

_{hmm can't seem to sleep somehow LoL ;D}

wrote on 07.02.07 at 22:31:07:

ah thanx TweakStone heh the system is running solid as rock now no more funnystuff haha :) though I don't know what AGP Performance Control is meant for, you any idea's on that one?

Where do you have the "AGP performance control" option? Never heard of it ???

it's in my bios of my ASUS A7V333-R Rev.1.02 :) I use Bios 1017 the final WHQL Bios, there is also a 1018 beta bios, but that was a use at own risk bios, so I left that one aside.

The AGP Performance control can be set to manual and auto.=, it's a setting which finds it's self under the AGP Fast Writes tab. with AGP performance control you can OC the AGP bus stand alone, anyways that is what I think it does.

I had resolved a similar problem with Fastwrite on a Barton 2600+, Asus Kt600 and Radeon 9600 updateing both the bios but, after this, with Fastwrite disabled this sistem was ok afterall and there wasn't differences in the framerate ;)

yeah well nice one Max-R :) good to see you used the same methods as I did :)

Thanx for your help to by creating idea's to solve mine, it's running as stable as a rock now, and I'm preparing it for a LAN party, the ultimate test :)

Of course yes but... Before the upgrade I was forced to disable the fastwrite... With the upgrade of the bios this incompatibility was resolved and the fastwrite enabled with no differences in the framerate :)

hmm well quite logic that your Chipset has more compabillity as my much older VIA Apollo KT333 chipset :), My Motherboard the ASUS A7V333-R Rev.1.02 has it's latest bios aka 1017, there was some babbles about a 1.18 beta 11 bios, but that was a use at own rick bios, so that are things I'd rather evade, some boards didn't even boot witht hat bios, they just showed a black screen ... :-X

So resolving that problem wasn't possible, oh well, not to fear this system shall be replaced by a nice MSI MS-9130 K8T Master2 FAR7 motherboard and 2 Opteron 250 CPU's 4x 512MB PC3200 ECC REG Low Latency ram from Corsair XMS Platinum soon :)

withthis board, I can also make use of dual core Opteron CPU';s, and I want to have a low cost AGP sollution, allready have a nice PCI-Express setup :)

Kt600 motherboards are good to be crashed to the ground ::)
However I think that you have already resolved the problem: in every case, disabling fastwrite will give you more stability without loss of speed ;)

yeah it sure does, the system is rocksolid and also no problems when switching from the Radeon X800 XT PE AGP to the Voodoo5 5500 PCI and back also, and no more funny look'n boot ups from a cold startup too.

thax to your grave idea, My system with the VIA Apollo KT333 is a solid as a house now, thanx to your brightfull thinking 8)

also install Flight Simulator 2004 , finally made it ready for some long haul flights, real time ofcourse :)