Radeon 8500 Issues

[Zaei]

My friend just got a Radeon 8500 card off of ebay. When playing games, the computer will freeze, and the screen will simply be covered with junk. It looks like a black screen, with a bunch of horzontal lines in different colors, ALL over the screen. Ctrl+Alt+Del has no effect, and we had to restart the PC. The card is made Apollo/Joytech, and is a Radeon 8500LE Pro, Devil Monster II. Does anyone know of problems like these with either this specific card, or in general?

Z.

[Cander]

Well I was going to say this in your other post where you mentioned it, but I decided not to you as it may not have been a problem for your friend...but the Radeon 8500 sucks arse!

Only thing I can say is to make sure you get the latest drivers ..but really the Radeon 8500 is a piece of junk. He shoulda awaited for the new 9000(or soemthing like that) which are getting good reviews.

[Zaei]

Yeah, he just yanked the 8500, and put the Radeon back in =). Im back to my TNT2, but its not a real problem for me =). Hopefully someone knows about this problem, so we can get it all sorted out though....

Z.

[Cander]

FYI a good video card deal

at best buy you can get an xtasy Geforce 4 440MX 64MB card for 129$ with a 30$ rebate. so it ends being the same price as the slower 420MX.

Its a very good card for the money.

[Cander]

Originally posted by Zaei
Yeah, he just yanked the 8500, and put the Radeon back in =). Im back to my TNT2, but its not a real problem for me =). Hopefully someone knows about this problem, so we can get it all sorted out though....

Z.

hey thats not fair. tell hoim tough doo doo..he already gave you the card..

LOL

[Zaei]

No big deal =). Besides, I was actually buying it, and hadnt paid up yet =).

Z.

[parksie]

Hey I like my 8500 Works perfectly here under 2000 :-/ Although maybe that's because it's built by ATI

[Zaei]

Yeah, this one was made by some wierd manufacturer... Hell, their drivers come in a .rar archive o.O.

Z.

[JungleMan]

Originally posted by Cander
Well I was going to say this in your other post where you mentioned it, but I decided not to you as it may not have been a problem for your friend...but the Radeon 8500 sucks arse!

Only thing I can say is to make sure you get the latest drivers ..but really the Radeon 8500 is a piece of junk. He shoulda awaited for the new 9000(or soemthing like that) which are getting good reviews.

The Radeon 8500 owns, man...it's better than the GF3 and is great for the money. Trust me I know a thing or two about video cards...

To me it sounds like the thing was defective, software won't cause problems like that.

Originally posted by Cander
FYI a good video card deal

at best buy you can get an xtasy Geforce 4 440MX 64MB card for 129$ with a 30$ rebate. so it ends being the same price as the slower 420MX.

Its a very good card for the money.

Now THERE is a card that sucks, ugh!

That card isn't even a GF4, it doesn't support Pixel/Vertex shaders and stuff the GF3 has, or the 8500.

You buy stuff at Best Buy? Ick, how lame.

Zaei: I'd get an RMA on the card, if I were you...I'm very sure it is a hardware issue and the card is defective.

/edit: You bought it on eBay. Go to the nearest computer store, buy an 8500, and pull the old "switcheroo", as long as the cards look the same

[Zaei]

Thanks Justin... Ill pass that along =). I think that Ill tell my friend to test the card in another computer, and make sure, too =).

Z.

[JungleMan]

OK, be sure to tell me how it goes.

[Sastraxi]

You said the drivers came in a RAR? Well, download the reference drivers from ATI's site, unless those are the RAR drivers

[JungleMan]

Cam, this is a cheap card he bought...3rd party manufacturers use their own drivers.

If you need a guide to installing official ATI drivers on a Powered By ATI card, ask for it

[Zaei]

Nope, we tried all the drivers we could find. The card renders, but just goes freaky after a few seconds.

Z.

[Sastraxi]

I know Justin, but I was thinking along the lines of tweaking. I have a freaky 3rd party card and the reference drivers work for it.

Try first disabling fast-writes, and then bump down the AGP level in the BIOS. If that doesn't work, could you cite the name of the manufacturer?

[Zaei]

Its up there ^^ =). Its a Joytech/Apollo card.

Ill pass along all of this advice =).

Z.

[Sastraxi]

One more thing..

My card refuses to work on AGP 4x (though I have NO VIA parts in my computer to speak of). However, it works just fine on AGP 2x.

[Sandrock]

I'm having a similar problem. I just built a computer early this week. I have a GeForce4 Ti4200 card built by Palit Daytona or something and whenever I play any 3D games, I can play for about 3 minutes before the entire system freezes. At first I thought it was a bad install of windows, but I got a new version and the installation went perfect. It doesn't freeze except when playing 3D games. It might be the video card, but I'm also leaning towards the motherboard. Guess I'll have to start sending stuff back...

[JungleMan]

Originally posted by Sastraxi
One more thing..

My card refuses to work on AGP 4x (though I have NO VIA parts in my computer to speak of). However, it works just fine on AGP 2x.

Wouldn't worry much about it. BTW, I am running a VIA KT266a and 4x works great for me

[Zaei]

He tried disabling AGP 4x, but no luck. He says that he is going to try the card in another computer, so we will see.

Z.

[Sastraxi]

Have him try it in yours ^_^

And then when it works in yours, and not in his...

[Gimlin]

try updating your BIOS, too, I had problems with my older ATI card, because the BIOS was not handling AGP correctly.

[Zaei]

We did. Then we couldnt even boot =).

Z.

[Sastraxi]

Then reset the bios by using the jumper, and you're back to square one!