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


here is how it looks like when those scary stripes appear:


and sometimes I'm in the clear, no stripes at all:


and even 3D demo's run safely all day, no crash to be seen:


So if anybody knows something please throuw in a line. 

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

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...

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 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:



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

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.

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?

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?

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}