video card issues

thejck

i have a vizio 47 inch 1080p LCD display. and have some strange issues..any thoughts would be apreciated.

i have a dell ati x1300 video card that works fine. i also have 2 visiontek x1300 video cards and both the vt's have issues.

one card will display full 1080p using every pixel of the display but it will occasionaly just freeze the whole pc making me reboot

the other one displays the 1080p picture displaced to the left with an ugly black strip on the right. and occasionaly the screen will go blank on me I know the computer is running because i can rdp in and work on it but I cannot get it back up on the tv.

the second card is newer straight out of the box. and this is a dell gx280 mini tower..

shadowofnight

Are you leaving the dell video card driver loaded in the pc when you are trying the VT ones ? If so that could be your main problem...some dell video card drivers are neutered for the hardware installed in the dell...this mostly happens with video cards and audio cards...dell gets the hardware made for them and them only.

Usually while you have the dell video card in the system, change the driver to a standard VGA driver...it will look horrible...leave it like that....power down the dell...remove the video card...replace it with the VT....now power up....it should detect that the hardware has changed . Now with the VT installed , load the newest CATALYST driver for your x1300 GPU... it should work fine now.

Sometimes...rare with the lower end cards...common with the higher end cards...you have to run a cleaner software between revisions of the CATALYST software...you shouldnt have to worry about that with a x1300....good luck


http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html ( AMD and ATI merged...thats why the link says AMD )

Bamadude

ATI supposedly fixed a lot with their latest driver, catalyst 7.10. Sounds mostly like improved efficiency, but might help with bugs too.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34344/135/

jflail2

Just a guess, but it does sound like a driver conflict. I'd do what shadow said, but take it a step further. After removing your old drivers and powering down, remove the dell card and install the appropriate VT card.

Upon bootup, boot in safe mode and run Driver Cleaner to get rid of any left over bits from your dell card, and then reboot. After rebooting, make sure to install the most recent drivers for your VT cards (from ATI's site.)

You'll obviously want to download driver cleaner and install it before you proceed with the above steps.

This has helped me in the past, hope it works for you too.

thejck

i have been using the 7.10 driver
and i even went as far as to blow it away and reinstall windows with the vt card in there

Bamadude

are you running the stock power supply? there's usually only a little headroom in an OptiPlex power supply and the x1300 might be right on the edge of being too much especially if you've added any other hardware. i ran into that once and had a blank screen problem.

Daniel

thejck

i have though about that the gx280 has a 305 watt psu and the card recommends a 250 watt psu i have a secont hdd in there

shadowofnight

The low end 1300 cards all use about the same power....and your dell 1300 card works fine correct ?

That is unless your dell 1300 card has 256mb onboard ram and the VT versions are the 512mb versions.

( Visiontek makes 256mb regular...512mb regular and a 256mb XT version...which are yours ? )

The 512mb and 256mb XT versions would be questionable power wise in your system

thejck

they are both 256 and its not xt

Bamadude

My second guess is that you may have some heat issues since the cards do run but then crap out. Do you have other pci cards mounted nearby that could be moved to help with air flow?

I'm still wondering about the power supply even though all three cards have the same specs. Visiontek could have used less efficient memory or other components that make a difference... but who knows. Video can be a pain in the arse to troubleshoot.

thejck

i might try stripping it down and removing everything but the basics and see if that helps with the power supply issues.
i will try that tonight and let you know. thanks for that tip

thejck

so i pulled out the other pci cards and the only one i left in there is my chaintek ac-710 sound card. i also went back to my previous visiontek 1300 card. they are both the same. so far the computer is up and running and i have full 1080p. however there are horizontal lines across the screens that keel flashing. its like lines of red green etc that will flash back and forth. so far the computer is staying on but i have not put it through the paces yet.

does this sound like video corruption becase of overheating or lack of power. i have the case open so it should be plenty cool

dudeinaroom

could be a bad monitor cable.

thejck

yeah but i use the same cable with the other card. and it works

Bamadude

I wouldn't operate it with the case open. By design a case restricts the air flow to go over the components in a path kind of like a tunnel, but when the case is open the fan pulls air from the huge side opening (path of least resistance) and there's hardly any flow where it needs to be. With that said, it possibly could be heat related. I wouldn't bet so much on power now that you've removed some components, but wouldn't rule it out completely.

Another thought is making sure you have the refresh rate set to one that your tv can handle. Might want to double check your tv specs and try a few refresh rates and resolutions that are within range to see if that changes anything.

Is this your TV?
http://www.vizio.com/media/products/pdfs/GV47L_Spec_Sheet.pdf

If so it says PC formats supported are 1366 x 768, 1024 x 768, 800 x 600, 720 x 400, 640 x 480. I'd definitely look at your manual and try a few.

Hope this helps.

thejck

Bamadude wrote: »

I wouldn't operate it with the case open. By design a case restricts the air flow to go over the components in a path kind of like a tunnel, but when the case is open the fan pulls air from the huge side opening (path of least resistance) and there's hardly any flow where it needs to be. With that said, it possibly could be heat related. I wouldn't bet so much on power now that you've removed some components, but wouldn't rule it out completely.

Another thought is making sure you have the refresh rate set to one that your tv can handle. Might want to double check your tv specs and try a few refresh rates and resolutions that are within range to see if that changes anything.

Is this your TV?
http://www.vizio.com/media/products/pdfs/GV47L_Spec_Sheet.pdf

If so it says PC formats supported are 1366 x 768, 1024 x 768, 800 x 600, 720 x 400, 640 x 480. I'd definitely look at your manual and try a few.

Hope this helps.

yeah thats my tv..the pc formats supported are over VGA. i am using DVI. DVI can do full 1080p on that TV. researched it a lot before i bought it over at avsforum. plus the plain old dell ati x1300 pro card works fine in another PC at 1080p resolution. its the visiontek x1300 card thats giving me problems. incedently the visiontek card had a fan on it while the dell version doesnt.

dudeinaroom

Might need a bigger power supply for the visiontek cards, just a shot in the dark.

Bamadude

Do the VT cards have any issues plugged into a regular PC monitor? To help isolate the problem it would be nice to plug into a monitor and use the same resolution connected with DVI. I would be surprised if you have a monitor sitting around that will do 1920x1080, but just use the highest resolution available and run it hard with a game or something. If the PC monitor did show similar problems as the TV, then it would point back to power, heat etc... If no problems on the monitor then I would suspect the TV just doesn't like something with the VT cards especially since it works with the Dell. Maybe the DVI protocol is slightly different with the VT vs. the Dell cards. Running DVI to HDMI is supposed to be transparent, but I've seen an awful lot of finicky issues with computers running HDMI/DVI to TV's.

I would definitely suggest upgrading your power supply regardless though. You can move it along with your next PC upgrade and know that you have what you need.

I'm running out of ideas. Only way I know to tackle video issues is to isolate them the best you can then try a bunch of stuff to help eliminate causes. Maybe you'll stumble onto something. Good luck.