I recently got an ati x1300 video card which was fine when I got it but lately it's started locking up. The screen turns all green & stuff. I've tried updating the drivers but no success, there's a desk fan aimed right at it so I don't think it's heat although my infra-red thermometer did read somewhere around 46 degrees max temp on the card. At first the ati vpu recover thing was able to reset the vpu without having to hit the reset button on the pc but now it seems not even that can save it.

I previously had an nvidia video card but uninstalled the drivers & tried some detonator destroyer to completely get rid of the drivers.

It used to just lock up in cs but I was browsing the internet before and it did the green lines all over the screen thing. Could the video card be rooted or is it more likely a driver/compatibility issue? I have a 480W thermaltake PSU running 3 SATA hard drives, 2 DVD drives and a fair few fans (like 8 of them) is it likely to be a power issue? My old nvidia card had no lockups with the same setup so I figure the card is rooted :(

Sounds like its f***ed if its artifacing. Is it doing it immediately or only after warming up ? (ie heat)

Usually when you see artifacts there are basically only 2 possibilities. The card is has faulty video RAM or it's a driver issue. Considering CS has been out for a while I would dare say it's a faulty card.

I would test this theory by trying the card in another system.

It does it usually after the system has been on for a while, sometimes doesn't do it all night. It's usually only in cs which is what made me think it could be heat since windows doesn't put any stress on it & make it heat up, but it did it in windows just before.

I'm currently downloading the 3dmark 06 thing & I'll stick the demo on loop or something to see if that makes it die. I wonder what umart's return policy is :)

The only other system at my house is incapable of playing many games, it's only 866mhz and none of my friends have fast pc's either (damn non nerdy friends). Oh well, back to my trusty geforce 4 ti4200 for me it seems.

I'm currently downloading the 3dmark 06 thing & I'll stick the demo on loop or something to see if that makes it die

Save yourself the trouble and download ATITool and do "Scan for Artifacts".

It not only stresses the card and detects the smallest artifact (even those invisible to you), but it does GPU temperature readings too. Also works on nvidia cards. Very valuable for detecting problems.

Temperature monitoring and fan speed control (on supported cards)

there's no temp sensor on my card so the monitoring part is quite useless :)

5 minutes later, 0 artifacts detected. How long should I leave it going? all day?

Thats pretty cool para, will add that to my bag of tech tools :) Should make testing videocards at work easier.

parabol, nice find !
One question tho, while it sounds like a nice utility, I can't see anywhere on the app's site where it says it works on nVidia cards.

Added support for NVIDIA video cards

right down the bottom of the page

I tried it on my 7900gt and it worked fine, it sais most features are disabled but the atifact finder will still work... and it did.

I tried it on my 7900gt and it worked fine, it sais most features are disabled

On my 6600GT almost all of the features work, including temperature monitoring, overclocking, gamma control, 3D detection, etc. The only thing missing is "Driver Tweaks".

I guess the program is too popular to be renamed from ATITool?

or the clock speed is too high.
Always had artifacts with my ATI 9800 pro.
Lower the ram speed a bit until they go away. no probs.

^^ how? there's no clock or memory speed options in the catalyst control center

Massive props to parabol for the linkage of this prog.

I bought a 6800xt at teh beginning of the year and got really lucky with being able to unlock all shaders and pipes, moving me from 8 pixel pipes and 4 shader units to 16 pipes and 6 shaders all for the low price of $215. The only down side is that it's the Leadtek version, and anybody who has done their homework knows that this card comes stock at 300mhz core and 700mhz memory. I've been happily rinning the card at 360mhz and 800mhz for the past few months (with an Arctic Cooler added, stock cooler sucks balls). I'm running the core test atm and it's pumped up to 405mhz core quite happily, sitting at 66 degrees.

In summary: This prog rocks and helps me find just how lucky i got with my 6800xt.

/rant

^^ how? there's no clock or memory speed options in the catalyst control center

ATITOOL.

On my 6600GT almost all of the features work, including temperature monitoring, overclocking, gamma control, 3D detection, etc. The only thing missing is "Driver Tweaks".

Perhaps brand dependant? My 7900 is XFX and the only thing I can do is the artifact test. Everything else is greyed out, doesn't even detect my clock settings.

ATITOOL.

IT'S DISABLED

well then thats just retarded.