Probable Video Card Failure...

[BC_Programmer]

I realize it's old, but around a year ago I bought a Radeon 7000. Before you make comments about THAT, how about what it replaced? A ATI 3d Rage Pro Turbo 8MB!

I originally had a giant story here, but nobody would care about that so I'll try to make it short. First the card refused to run for more than 30 minutes with the native XP driver on the CD. replacing the faulting DLL with the same file from the W2k folder on the CD fixed this.

In any case, the Card worked fine in this config. OpenGL and Direct3d worked AWESOME (compared especially to the Turbo AGP I had, which could hardly manage 640x480 3d modes). But from the get go certain DirectDraw games refused to work properly. AOE2 crashed quickly, into a yellow garbled screen. Not having any cash at this point, I simply don't run those particular apps. The problem slowly spreads however, to all Direct3d and All OpenGL, leaving only the GDI to entertain me (It is probably obvious that it would no longer play DVD's at this point). So I eventually get some disposable income, and finally replace the video card, and all my problems dissapear.

The question is, is the Radeon 7000 defective? The replacement was a PCI bus card. Could my Mobo's AGP be the problem? I had tried various drivers. All of the ones I tried gave me BSOD's when I tried to start a Direct3d game.

Any ideas?(It would be nice if I could fix it, but don't be too soft on any explanation. Remember, it is simply a part of my old Video card collection)

[Calum]

Did the 7000 ever work properly?
And do you have another AGP card you could try, to rule out the possibility of a bad AGP port?
However, I do suspect that the card is simply failing.

[BC_Programmer]

Well I cannot actually be sure it worked properly. I suspect that it could be the fact that I had to replace the XP drivers with the w2k version, but then again, that was ati2dvag.dll not ati3duag.dll (which BSOD's with the XP drivers). Also, my original ATI rage Pro Turbo was AGP, and worked fine at it's 2x speed, which is what the Radeon 7000 works at too.

I have a All-In-Wonder 9000 that works in the AGP port, but once again I get a BSOD starting any 3d app.  I had the same problem with a NVidia 5600 FX. I'd say that was AGP related, but if I install the stock drivers from the XP CD for my current Radeon 9250, I still get that BSOD.

Also, I recall the incident where the Radeon 7000 REALLY started going downhill. The Control panel property page has the oneto turn on/off the different outputs (VGA 1,VGA-2,TV-OUT), and I was fiddling and for some reason or another pushed the TV-out. it depressed (Expectedly), so I pressed it again to rectify my mistake and the computer simply rebooted. Strange thing is that the picture was shifted to the left and MAJORLY skinny. So much so I couldn't use my current crappy(but reliable, I have definitely ruled out the monitor as the problem) monitors analog controls to get the picture set right. Thankfully then machine booted fine, and I fixed it by using the adjustment features in control panel. But this was when the 3d games and so forth started going wonky.