CAT 3.8 blow up your monitor? WTF

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 9:51 am

http://www.overclockers.com/tips00479/
im trying to get the links to work but my cable modem is acting up today so I havent read the links yet. This is crap though, people need to take responsibility for testing stuff before they put it out to the public. I just installed the 3.8s on my comp but if this is legit ill have to put the 3.7s back on.

MGP · Post by **MGP** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:16 am

The issue is that the drivers force some monitors to hit unsupported specs (i.e. 200Hz refresh rate)...basically, there are somewhere around 183 reported cases...hasn't happened to me though.

I own a 19-inch Diamondtron NF CRT (Gateway) and run the Cat 3.8...but I also heard this is primarily a problems with Radeon 9700/9800's? Am I correct?

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 11:06 am

ive heard that cards 9500 and up are having this problem. And in all three forums ive read of quite a few dead monitors and overheated cards. Problem is some people are saying that the 3.7s have the same problem, and ive even heard that the 3.6s may have it too. No cases of the 3.5s having it though. Its scary because my 9800pro is running very very hott and i am getting artifacts in Arcanum, but i thought it was just a game bug, but i got the latest Arcanum patch and it still garbles up every once in a while and i have to restart the game to fix it. Also I figured that the 9800pro was suppose to run that hot?? Even at cold boot if i let it sit in windows for an hour or so doing nothing the heatsink will get almost too hot to touch.

GenghiS_KhaN · Post by **GenghiS_KhaN** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 12:01 pm

maybe thats why I sometimes get artifacts in windows when I just turned on the computer

Then I turn it off again and back on and their gone...

btw I'm running the 3.7's

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 12:17 pm

I just put the 3.6s on my computer im still worried though because it has the graphics card listed twice and they said that this was one of the signs. I disabled the 9800 pro Secondary driver in the device manager but i dont know if that helps any. It also shows me as having 2 monitors, which i dont. ATI needs to get their $h!t straight. If I was to lose my video card or monitor I would be screwed. Well the monitor has 3 year warranty but video card is oem.

bob670 · Post by **bob670** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 6:20 pm

I don't wanna' come off like someone ragging on ATI because there is no doubt they are the performance champs, but the main reason I ditched my Radeon 9000 and went back to nVidia was to avoid ATI drivers. nVidia fudges up drivers once in a while, but not as often as ATI.

fmah · Post by **fmah** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 6:33 pm

Yeah, I notice the redraw in OpenGL on my ATI is messed up now. Anyways, waiting for next generation of cards, next year I guess, or at least Doom III.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 6:35 pm

I cant prove it scientically but im pretty sure my card is running cooler now. The heatsink was running very very hot, and now it barely gets warm under heavy gaming, so maybe this thing is true. I dont see any difference between the 3.6s and the 3.8s either other than the card running cooler. I think I found out was wrong with arcanum too, I think it was because i had directX 9, and directX 8a is what it wanted, since I switched back it hasnt messed up.

MGP · Post by **MGP** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 6:39 pm

Wait. Gaminggod, so what Catalyst version are you exactly running? 3.9?

MGP · Post by **MGP** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 6:41 pm

Nevermind...I reread your post and now all is clear...but does anyone know the deal with how the Catalyst 3.9 drivers perform (in terms of the "overheating problems" Gaminggod talks about and the refresh rate woes)?

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 7:28 pm

Supposidly ATI is claiming that nothing is wrong with their drivers and they are basing the new 3.9s off of the 3.8s so it will probably have the same bug. Im sure they are investigating it, they just arent taking responsibility for it publicly. At least that is what i gather from reading the 3-4 forums that had LONG threads on it. My 9800pro still shows up twice in device manager hardware profile and its worrying the hell out of me now. But at least the card seems to be running cooler now.

Haggis · Post by **Haggis** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:00 pm

My 9700 non pro has always shown as Primary and Secondary display adapters. I wouldn't worry about it.

Edited for spelling

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Wed Oct 22, 2003 2:54 pm

Hmm well thats good to know, but Im pretty sure that my video card is running cooler now that i put the 3.6s on. Maybe ill test it with a thermal probe when i get one.

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Sun Oct 26, 2003 3:38 pm

GamingGod, seriously I think you have nothing to worry about. If the 3.8s fix something for you, then install them.

As for your card showing as primary and secondary -- it's perfectly normal. All 9800's do that. I have a BBA 9800np and it does the same.

Take the time to read that thread at Rage3D if you want, but I think I can save you the time by telling you to not sweat it.

I'm not saying that there is definitely no relationship between drivers and sudden monitor problems, but I have a very hard time beleiving that is the case here. And, yes, I have ready many threads about this at all the popular sites. I know the reports sound like too much of a coincidence to be taken lightly, so I'm not disregarding them altogether, but there are simply too many factors to consider when a monitor goes bad. It's difficult for me to point the finger at ATI as the soure of monitor failure or damage.

Interesting note: you know what happened to my monitor when I tried to run it out of spec by a mere 5Hz recently? It shut off. That's what most modern monitors do. It's a built-in safety feature.

Oh and btw, my personal veiw on 3rd party programs like Refresh Lock, Multires, and all those others that "lock" the refresh rate is that they easily lead to problems with the interaction of the video card and monitor. I say this based on bad experiences I have had with them, but even then I never lost a monitor.

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 2:39 pm

I want to add to this, just so I am being clear on my perspective.

I do beleive there are problems with the 3.8s because I have seen reports and pictures of graphical irregularities in games.

But I am not convinced that the drivers are killing peoples monitors. I could end up being wrong. If you feel the 3.8s represent a threat then by all means go back to an earlier version. I'll admit that I did return to the 3.7s when I first read the overheating and monitoring-destroying news. But I never had an issue with the 3.8s, so I went back to them.

It's difficult to guage the whole monitor issue. Of the ones that have gone bad recently (and I have no official count of just how many that is --- could be a miniscule number), how can we be certain it had to do with the 3.8s? I beleive in the truthfulness of the posts that are being made, but it's difficult to assess which are mere coincidence, and which are not.

MikeK · Post by **MikeK** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 12:06 am

GamingGod wrote:I just put the 3.6s on my computer im still worried though because it has the graphics card listed twice and they said that this was one of the signs.

I always thought that this was because you can plug 2 monitors into it. I have the same thing with my 9800 pro and my 9000 pro. EDIT::Well I just confirmed it in display settings tab. Hmm, maybe the driver is causing my card to overheat and that might be my restart problem... time to get a cpu intensive tester that doesn't use the gpu.