UNSOLVED
Graphic Card problems
I've been having a few problems with my computer. On certain resolutions the sides looked like they are squashed in a little and whenever I try the highest two resolutions when I go back to 800x600 the left side is always squashed in a little.
I have a Radeon 128mb 9800 (using ATI's 6.5 driver) and I recently got a new monitor last year when my old one was going bad it was really really dark.
Now when I first got my replacement monitor either when I first plugged it in or after installing the newest ATI driver (that was the newest at the time) it became squashed on the left side just like when I now go back to 800x600 after going from the two highest resoultions I can do now. In fact every single time I updated the graphic driver when I had the old one uninstalled and before I would install the new one it would get squashed on the left side. The first time this happened when I first got the monitor the Dell tech I talked too on the phone said it was just a corrupt driver and a reinstall should fix it. Which led me to think it should never happen again even thou it obviously did every time I had to install a newer driver.
I don't know if it means anything but on my old monitor (which came with my computer) each time I uninstalled the old drivers by Add and Remove programs (there was no ATI uninstaller back then) it would default back to the ATI drivers it had when I first got the computer. With the new monitor it would just use a generic video driver before I installed the new ATI one. Not sure if that means anything.
I first noticed all this when I went to locate Lost Coast in the steam game menu. I opened up steam and then tried to make the window larger when it go to a certain point the window glitched. I could see parts of it and couldn't see other parts but the mouse still acted like if the full window was there. Somehow I fixed that but now each time I open steam it makes a window super long. Even if I make it normal size after a restart or whenever Steam restarts the window is super long again. After this is when I tested each res to see which ones gave me problems and which didn't. Basically numerous resolutions have squashed in parts of the screen and the last two have bigger squashed parts and when I go back to 800x600 it pushes in a large part of the left side of the screen. Which ends up making me having to reinstall the driver. I know these resoultions worked before so not sure what the problem is.
Bad driver, Bad graphic card, or Bad monitor? I'm leaning too either bad driver or bad graphic card. I am going to call Dell and ATI tomorrow but wanted to know if anyone here could help me first or at least maybe can say for sure what's going bad here. And I'm also going to be reinstalling Steam just in case that can fix anything but I doubt Steam is the problem here.
Message Edited by Baowoulf on 06-18-200611:00 AM
- well, here's what I would try:1. if you have another monitor or access to one just connect it and see what happens (to rule out monitor)2. how are you installing (and uninstalling old drivers now)? you must completely uninstall old drivers first following the sticky in the XPS Video FAQ section under ati driver instructions.3. if 1 and 2 ruled out, then it is probably your vid card...that 9800 is getting alittle old.
Message Edited by xcator on 06-18-200612:32 PM
Sorry for the long message btw in my first post.
1. The only other monitor I have access too is a bad Gateway one that is fried. This res thing happened day one from this monitor. But the Dell guy said originally it was only because of a corrupt driver. But since it happens every time inbetween driver updates I was planning on calling Dell but never got around too it yet since it wasn't being such a problem like it is now. The old monitor I had that went bad Dell had me send back to them after I got this new replacement one.
2. On my old monitor I'd go to add and remove programs check both things ATI told me and then I'd restart and then next install the new driver and then restart and be done. I think I had to uninstall the Control panel(when it was just the Control Panel before the Cataylst control panel) separately.
Now with the new monitor I use their uninstall utility (that they recommend too) it uninstalls the driver and the CCC. Then it has me restart and I do the usual things with installing the new driver and restarting again and I'm done.
The resolutions I'm having problem with did work before even when I did the new way of installing new drivers. I'm not sure if they came out with the ATI uninstall utility back when I had my old monitor around July of 2005 or so.
3. I'm not sure how long a graphic card is suppose to last. I've had this since 2002 or 2003. The only things I had changed were this new monitor I'm on and a new HDD when my old one died. It's been a good card until now which is why I'm trying to double check everything before just calling it a card gone bad. My computer doesn't get super hot I always keep it cool and clean out dust. How long does a graphic card normally last?
- Yeah the card still works in games like HL2 played that yesterday. I think I'll try it with Doom 3 and Quake 4 again too. But talking with a friend we thought the monitor had none of the real syptoms of going bad either. The only thing I ever changed was maybe the gamma a bit and maybe how far down the screen is by one tick.I think I might just ask ATI first in case something is up with their driver and then call Dell at least to find out why it squishes the screen in between driver updates.Thanks for your help.
Message Edited by Baowoulf on 06-18-200601:16 PM
- well, it's a really easy to rule it out (if you can get your hands on another working display). Heat is the enemy for all electronic components. I don't know how much you use your system and how long it's on and how hot it gets. Check to see than the fan on the 9800 is spinning, what temps are you getting with it? Your symptom doesn't quite fit a bad card, but ...
"1. The only other monitor I have access too is a bad Gateway one that is fried. This res thing happened day one from this monitor. But the Dell guy said originally it was only because of a corrupt driver. But since it happens every time inbetween driver updates I was planning on calling Dell but never got around too it yet since it wasn't being such a problem like it is now. The old monitor I had that went bad Dell had me send back to them after I got this new replacement one."
I just reread my second post. Where I say the res thing happened since day one wasn't with the two biggest resolutions if you thought that my bad. I meant the res thing with the screen being pushed in a bit on the left side. But maybe it lead to bigger problems I wonder like now with my two biggest resolutions causing me problems.
- If the monitors a dell you can take it out of your computer and plug it into any wall socket and do the little monitor check (I forget what they call it but a little box floats around the screen showing all the colors). If thats not squashed I dont think its your monitor but I could wrong.
- Both monitors that I had were Dell ones. I think the guy had me do that test before when my first monitor was going bad. We saw the box but it was like ultra ultra dark and then eventually became all black. This new Dell monitor worked great except for the screen being pushed in on the left which only use to happen in the middle of updating graphic drivers until now that is.I still need to call them but I did fix my Steam problem. I think it was a separate thing from my problems with the monitor resoultion. Going to recheck to see if the two highest resoultions still give me problems thou first.
xcator
2 Intern
•
887 Posts
618
0
Posted June 18th, 2006 16:00