Are the 3.8 Cats causing hardware burnout?

[BBThumper]

.....Couldn't decide where to put this so.........

Are CAT 3.8’s causing hardware burnouts?
Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003
at 12:50 AM by Dyre Straits - View Article Comments


G.I.Bro posted this note over at RAGE 3D:

"While I was reading through the forums, I noticed a few threads popping up in which are discussing thoughts that the CATALYST 3.8’s could be burning out peoples hardware. People on the forums are mentioning that the 3.8’s are overheating their video cards, along with monitors burning out! I just spoke to Terry Makedon (aka CATALYST maker) about this, and this is what he had to say:

1) Overheating. We have spent a great deal of time analyzing the temperatures due to the CATALYST 3.8 drivers. We do not under any circumstance see anything near a 10 degree Celsius increase in temperature (but we don’t overclock our test cards either). We do see a slight increase in temperature in certain cases (3Dmark2003 Nature Scene for example). However any temperature increase is well within our safety range. Investigation continues and we are trying to determine why this change in temperature exits

2) Monitors. We have spent a great deal of time trying to reproduce this problem and analyzing the driver code. There is nothing to be found. At this point we are working very closely with an ATI Beta Tester who experienced a monitor loss. There have been zero reports in our customer support of monitors dying.

Thanks goes out to Terry for taking a few moments out of his extremely busy day for us! "

[BBThumper]

.....anyone here seeing this?..........

....and new Omegas came out today-2496b:

link (http://www.driverheaven.net/downloads/index4.htm)

[shrae]

This was posted over at short media yesterday. Sounds pretty serious, hope no one gets their cards ruined. Amazing this could slip by QC/testing really.

http://short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4820

[LBJGH]

Sounds like Nvidia rumors trying to save Nvidia from the 3dfx fate. :rolleyes:

[Holst]

I agree LBJGH sounds like BS to me.

The 3.8 haent affected my temps at all and im on stock cooling and a decent overclock

[PTK]

I have used the 3.8 set a looong time and never had any problems with heat on my 9800 256.. the card was allways hot as hell.. even with 3.7's.

Since im doing betatesting with the card, i did keep it stock all the time [ well and since it was so damn hot :D ] i didnt notice anything so different with the card. Allways working like it should be.

The thing is that IF the temps went up a bit, serious ocers or people using softmodded cards with the stock cooling could get some pic errors, but i very much doubt that it would KILL a card. But if a R300 core that was bit flakey at best was slapped on a 9500 and then used as a 9700 with high oc and stock cooling.. that might be a different story.

The monitor issue is bit different, one beta guy did loose his monitor a while ago, but was it the drivers or the monitor just crapping out.. who knows. They are trying to figure it out right now. The fact that ATI had ZERO complaints about the issue reported shows how much people have blown this up on forums.

PTK

[BBThumper]

......whats really strange is the new Nvidia drivers on guru.com. Read the warning:

Nvidia warning (http://download.guru3d.com/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=681)

[GJ]

i installed 3.8 when i got my radeon 9600,and it is defective,maybe because that..

[phil stanbridge]

I used the Cat 3.8's and the Omega 3.8s for a short time after they were released to the public. I noticed a dramatic system temp increase. It went from around 28 degrees to 39 after half hour playing the call of duty demo. I wasn't satisfied with this, and as this was the ONLY reason for my temp increase I decided to roll-back to the Omega 3.7's. I did so and within half hour my temps were back to normal. Go figure. There is *definitely* something odd going on there.

[LBJGH]

I've used both the cat3.8 and the omega3.8 and didn't have any difference in temps... phil, it might just be time for you to clean your case fans.

[phil stanbridge]

Unlikely mate, this is a new MachII system with new fans.

[Colin]

While my card seemed to remain the same temps, I can't overclock as high with the new Det 3.8's with my 9800 Pro!

When I move back to the 3.7's everything is fine.

[hollywood]

Originally posted by Colin
While my card seemed to remain the same temps, I can't overclock as high with the new Det 3.8's with my 9800 Pro!

When I move back to the 3.7's everything is fine.

OOPS!!! He had an "nVIDIAN Slip" !!!!! :smileysex :D

[shortcircuit]

This sounds like total BS to me. I'm running the cat 3.8's now. I seem to score higher with them in 3dmark 2k1, and the card overclocks the same (540mhz with room-temp water cooling and 2.05v vgpu).

This statement really confuses me:

This has caused a number of fans on the Radeon 9800 XT series to fail, allowing the heat to completely destroy the card.

How can heat cause a fan to fail? Unless of course the fan itself melted. Sounds like total crap to me.

[LBJGH]

nvidia rumors... 'cause they can't keep up in performance.... sort of like all the b.s. about heat and AMD... now the P4's run hotter. :D

[Soulburner]

Originally posted by LBJGH
nvidia rumors... 'cause they can't keep up in performance.... sort of like all the b.s. about heat and AMD... now the P4's run hotter. :D
For a reason :D.

[Admiral]

I dont know about temp increasing but since i ve put 3.8s the cards cooler (sapphire 9700np) is DEFINATELY ROARING until monitor reaches the xp weclome screen.

[Jin]

Well when I installed them my moniter started going crazy, blurring up really badly (even in bios) and my temps were higher. So I'm fairly confident there is a problem though some people might or might not have it. Needless to say when I re-installed the 3.7's everything was fine.

[mkleingeld]

Even in BIOS?
Then the drivers have nothing to do with it...

[st0nedpenguin]

I have been running them since release, my card is no hotter, my monitor still works, and my room doesn't resemble Chernobyl.

I still don't understand how the driver could be causing this, and even if it is, bad publicity or not, ATi would have issued some kind of official warning by now surely?

[st0nedpenguin]

Yesterday I e-mailed ATi to see what they had to say on the subject:

Hi, this isn't exactly a problem per se, I just have a question regarding the recently released Catalyst 3.8 driver.

I have been reading quite a few articles and forum posts online at the moment with people claiming that the new driver release is causing drastic increases in operating temperatures, and as a result is causing the failiure of both graphics cards and monitors.

Personally I am having trouble believing these rumours, but I just though it would be prudent to get some information from the horses mouth so to speak, and ask yourselves directly

Are there any increased temperature/hardware death issues related to the Catalyst 3.8 drivers known to yourselves, and if so, should I roll back to the 3.7 Catalysts?

This morning, I had a response:


Based on our experience, the issue(s) you describe are usually due to system configuration errors. We believe that the troubleshooting steps listed below may help to resolve this issue.

If you own one of our Radeon products, you may consider reviewing the information at:

http://www.ati.com/support/products/pc/radeon/radeonissues.html

If the ATI display adapter you have is an AGP card, you should also consider reviewing the information at:

http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/3179.html

You may also consider using the new SEARCH ATI function on our web site. It can be found at:

http://www.ati.com/search/index.html

Smells like a standard response to me, but I just thought you might like to know. :D

[PTK]

http://www.driverheaven.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28844 [ reg. is req. ]

Test with 3.7, 3.8, Dell Omegas and Asus leak.

3.7 and 3.8 ~ same temp.

DELL OMEGAS.. +8-9C !!
Asus leak ~same temp as 3.7/3.8 but the room temp was 4.4C LOWER... so those are running pretty damn hot too.

So you might wanna stay away from those if you are running really oced 9800's... that guy was running a 9800 Pro.

:stick:

PTK

[st0nedpenguin]

Thanks for the link PTK, looks like I'm safe on 3.8 then. :banana:

[st0nedpenguin]

Or maybe not.

The plot thickens (http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=52230#post52230).

It seems like the new driver series is attempting to pass way too many unsupported resolution/refresh rates to the monitor, overloading the monitor's relay system and frying the monitor. Instead of reading the refresh rates from the PRIMARY display INF files, it is reading the SECONDARY display INF refresh rates. For those of us with only 1 monitor hooked up, there is no SECONDARY display INF refresh rate file, so the video card starts at its own highest supported refresh rate and starts passing that onto the monitor. With Radeon 9800/9700's capable of syncing @ a refresh rate of up to 200 Hz, that means 99% of the world's monitors are at risk of damage.

So far, a total of 183 monitors, ranging from high-end 22" Viewsonic P225F's to lowly 14" Compaq SVGA monitors have been reported as dead/damaged due to this problem. It is to be taken seriously.

[PTK]

Well dont know where that guy got the number 183... What i have read 3 might be bit closer... used those drivers more than a month, no problems here.

So if you wanna be REALLY on the safe side, you could slap 3.7s with the 3.8 openGL [ 16-bit bug fix ].

PTK

[STEvil]

Just installed 3.8's today...

Had to drop ~3mhz on my core, but that could also be due to me rising 71mhz and .1v, and 15fsb on my cpu/board...

Besides, if it were feeding 200mhz to your monitor, it would just go black. At least every monitor i've ever owned goes black when the refresh rate is too high.

[berkut]

Probably there can be some problems in specific confugurations... i think the through is in the middle...

[Scrapin 240]

well not that I have a 9800 pro yet, (its in the mail) but even with my 9600 pro, I have noticed some increased temps and had to lower my OCing after installing 3.8. When i install the omega drivers, my computer hangs up. i tried it twice and same result both times. and when i try to run 3dmark03 or 01 it hangs up now when it used to always run before 3.8.

why is it also, when i disable the secondary driver, the computer hangs up also?

[Evil_Spork]

hmm thsi kidna scares me.. i JUST got my 9800p and shes clocking reeeaallly well.(460stock)

is there any consistancy with these reports? i seem to just see alot of people saying temp increase, and then a similar amount of people saying no differance. hmm. should one(ME) go to 3.7's for now to be safe?

[STEvil]

There was a speed boost brought with these drivers, too, so maybe they way they are accessing the hardware has done something to the effect of going from P4 style (high mhz, low IPC) to AMD style (less mhz, more IPC).

Those of us with good cooling wont notice it as much, or at all, but anyone on stock cooling or bad case airflow might notice it in a hurry...

[BBThumper]

.....FROM A MEMBER AT abx:

Originally posted by YoBoGo
Whether this is rumor, fact, truth or lie, this is getting screwed up...

I called newegg.com this morning to see if they would crossship a new 9800Pro to me. Mine went dead on Friday night, but newegg.com is closed on weekends so I couldn't do anything about it. I was on hold for about 10 minutes and then got a rep. I explained that I had a 9800 Pro that was not working and that I wanted to know if she would cross ship. She looked up my order number from 2 weeks ago when I got it and told me that newegg was not taking any ATI 9800 Pro's back, that I needed to contact ATI directly! (she was VERY rude about it BTW). I asked her why, she said she didn't know. I asked her if it was normal policy not to except RMA's for ATI, she said no (no explanation). So I started to get irritated. I asked her then if it was not normal, why did I have to go to ATI? She said that was her instructions given to her that morning. I asked he if it was due to ATI asking that or if she knew why. She said she did not know and then asked if I wanted to speak to a supervisor. I told her that would not be neccessary. I asked her if newegg was getting lots of calls regarding ATI products. She said she could not tell me that and again asked if I wanted to talk to a supervisor. I hung up. (FWIW, I have never got rude service before from newegg, they have always been great in the past IMO).

So I called ATI, was on hold for about 30 min (and Long Distance too, ouch). Got a rep finally, very nice. I told him I was calling about a faulty 9800 Pro. He asked me where I bought it and I told him newegg and then told him that I had already called there, and what she had told me. He didn't know anything about it, so I told him he might want to pass it on to his supervisory just so that they know (he was extremely nice, very courteous). I asked him if he was aware of the heat theory going around the Internet, he said yes, everyone is aware of it and kind of laughed. I asked him if he was getting more calls than normal, he laughed again and said yeah, just a bit. Said that they had gotten more RMA requests that he could ever remember. I asked him if there was anything officially being said by ATI regarding it, he said no, that they were instructed to treat RMA's like normal, but that he would be happy to give me an RMA number and I could send it back, but that it would be at least 2 weeks to get a replacement and probably more because of the number of RMA's. So I got an RMA number although 2 weeks or more is kind of ridiculous IMO.

I went back to newegg, but their website this time. Did the RMA proces on line AND IT LET ME RMA AND GAVE ME AN RMA for the card, so I guess their no ATI return policy hasn't been updated yet on the website. And since they usually RMA within about 3 days, I just got back from fed ex'ing it back to newegg.

Hopefully this will all get straightened out soon, for me, I just want my 9800 Pro back! :D

[Evil_Spork]

interesting....

[Craig]

Thumper's post makes me think that this is more than just internet BS.

Also went to Short media and read about 4 pages on this. A lot of people having much the same problems, does not sound good.

[BBThumper]

.......I don't know about heat or refresh rate problems but I tried the 3.8 again last night and within 15 mins my 100% stable rig was random rebooting :( . I guess it just doesn't like them and I don't have an extra 400$ to put out if there really is a problem so I'll stay with the omega 3.7's........

[esoteradactyl]

i took the heatsink off my 9800xt this morning to install a waterblock and the thermal compound was baked on the core. completely dry. too bad im stuck with the 3.8's. hope ati releases a new driver soon.

[Evil_Spork]

hmm.. i think ill try taking my HS off my 9800p tonight and check the TIM.

ill probably replace it.

[Dr.Demonic69]

Originally posted by Evil_Spork
hmm thsi kidna scares me.. i JUST got my 9800p and shes clocking reeeaallly well.(460stock)

is there any consistancy with these reports? i seem to just see alot of people saying temp increase, and then a similar amount of people saying no differance. hmm. should one(ME) go to 3.7's for now to be safe?

Damn, 460mhz stock?? Any artifacts at that speed? What make is your 9800 pro?????? My Retail Hercules 9800 pro only does 412mhz stable?? I dont get it how some other cards score alot more...wtf?

[Scrapin 240]

Originally posted by Dr.Demonic69
Damn, 460mhz stock?? Any artifacts at that speed? What make is your 9800 pro?????? My Retail Hercules 9800 pro only does 412mhz stable?? I dont get it how some other cards score alot more...wtf? maybe a vmod?

[Evil_Spork]

its a retail box from best buy.

i just took it out, popped her in and let her fly! no vmod yet.. i will later when i get the watercoolign on it. for not im gunna get a 1U server HSF.:D

im pretty amazed my self.. im looking at getting new cooling for my GPU then i can aim higher.

[Scrapin 240]

that is very sweet

[st0nedpenguin]

blah, blah, official response fom ATi.

Will this never end? (http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.html?i=20734)

:D

[Marci]

If you're worried about the monitor issue, there is a REALLY simple solution.

Every 9800 Pro I know of comes with a DVI adapter. Plug your monitor onto that, and use the DVI output.... therefore running the monitor on secondary display RAMDAC, which is where the driver is apparently looking according to the above post.

Personally, I have seen no difference in temps, and have no probs with monitor refresh rates either. In my case, these drivers fixed a refresh bug I've suffered from for a while that I couldn't shift and didn't want to blitz the windows install.... so no complaints here.

[BBThumper]

Originally posted by Evil_Spork
its a retail box from best buy.

i just took it out, popped her in and let her fly! no vmod yet.. i will later when i get the watercoolign on it. for not im gunna get a 1U server HSF.:D

im pretty amazed my self.. im looking at getting new cooling for my GPU then i can aim higher.

.....from what I have had ATI is always to best card to have for o/cing........

[thetruememphis]

the 3.8 drivers for some reason made my video card act like i sprung a leak in my watercooling setup and my video card was getting condictation on it. When i rolled back my drivers to the 3.7's all was good again. Weird

[STEvil]

condictation?

[BBThumper]

.......I think he means condensation?..............

[Marci]

If you've got condictation you should shake the drips off b4 u zip it up... ;)

[PTK]

Short story:

Those drivers CANT harm your monitor. Doesnt matter if you had it in DVI or normal out. The only thing you would get unsupported refreshrates if you manually FORCED them in XP.

That guy that splashed "183 monitors dead" @ Shortmedia was contacted by ATI asking to provide the list for the damaged monitor users.

The guy didnt have one.

They asked so how many monitors do you know about ?

And the answer was....... 2. [ MonkeyBoyz and the betatester from Rage3D forums ].

This mofo was just spreading sh*t to promote his site like me and other betatesters suspected. So sit back and forget this all this §§§§.

PTK

[BBThumper]

.......I have seen since Cat 3.2 people have always had issues with certain cat drivers. If you look in any video forum you will see people who crash, random reboots, losing refresh rates, when a new driver comes out. I've been lucky up till now but even though the 3.8 ran awful for me the Omega 3.9(or whatever he calls it) runs great...........

[Ewok]

Originally posted by BBThumper
.......I don't know about heat or refresh rate problems but I tried the 3.8 again last night and within 15 mins my 100% stable rig was random rebooting :(

VERY STRANGE!!

ive been runing these cat 3.8s since they came out officially and havent had a problem until yesterday, when just like you, my pc started randomly rebooting. first it crashed in windows with an atapi error (odd) then after unplugging both cdroms and rebooting, it just randomly turned itself off, mostly before even reaching windows. I suspected the memory had died, the cpu had gone, or the mach2 was playing up again. But perhaps the graphics card had somehow got too hot suddenly and was causing the shutdowns.

im only at 397/354 so its not exactly a big overclock and also have 2 80mm fans blowing accross the card (which never seems to help anyway and actually DECREASED my old gf3 overclock for some reason).

either way after testing and pissing about trying to work out what was wrong, im now pretty much back to the same cpu and mem clocks as before and its fine now.

im gonna go back to cat 3.7s anyway, i dont trust these 3.8s now, and its not like theres anything in it that i really need.

*edit**

what an amazing coincidence! uninstalled cat 3.8, rebooted, started installing cat 3.7 and the pc shut down. waited the 120 seconds for mach2 to sort itself, turned it on again, mach2 got to boot temp and pc didnt come on. waited few mins, this time it booted and i was able to install cat 3.7's. either something VERY strange is going on with my pc or suddenly for some reason them cat3.8s were screwing something. I did feel the heatsink on the 9800pro and it didnt even feel really warm so i doubt it was overheating. big coincidence that it shut itself down just as i was installing the cat3.7s after removing 3.8 though. knowing my luck its probly the mach2 dropping dead.

[st0nedpenguin]

Originally posted by Marci
If you've got condictation you should shake the drips off b4 u zip it up... ;)

But don't forget, any more than three shakes and you're playing with it...:p:

[Scrapin 240]

Originally posted by st0nedpenguin
But don't forget, any more than three shakes and you're playing with it...:p: :lol: