Old ATI 9500 Pro

[washu]

A few years back I took this 9500 pro out of a computer because it was crashing when running games or 3d apps. I recently remembered that I still had it and tried it out. Now all it does is give a garbled screen right at POST. I'm thinking that it might be bad video ram as the corruption looks the same every time. It does change a bit if I put it in a different computer with a different POST screen.

I've recapped many motherboards, power supplies and monitors, but never a video card. I don't recognize the brand of caps on the card. Are they a known bad type and would it be worthwhile trying to replace them. The caps just have labels of "HC Z", "NA", "A31E" etc, with a size. Most of them appear to be 470uF.

[370forlife]

Re: Old ATI 9500 Pro

The ones with the black bar on them are nichicon's, good. The other black ones look like jamicons, but also look like another type of nichicon solids, but are black not green.. The blue one is a UCC, good. The green one looks like a samwha, not sure.

[ratdude747]

Re: Old ATI 9500 Pro

thats not THAT old- i still use a radeon 7500 in my one unit.

[momaka]

Re: Old ATI 9500 Pro

The ones marked jFK are Panasonic FK, good brand/series. The HC are Nichicon, also good. The ones with the small blue square in the first line of text is United Chemicon, another good brand (not sure if they're even solid polymer too).
I'm not sure if it could be the capacitors that are causing this, but I doubt they are. Maybe it could be corrupt video ram like you said (especially if the video card overheated before). However, try these things before getting new caps: first, make sure the GPU has good contact with the heatsink and maybe remove the old thermal compount and add new one. Also check the power connector for cracked joints somewhere.

[washu]

Re: Old ATI 9500 Pro

Ok, thanks all. Was hoping it might be an easy fix so I could upgrade my daughter's 9550.

The heat sink and fan seem fine. I've never removed the heat sink before and it's on tight and even. I don't think it's overheating, at least not initially as it errors right away even when cold.

Power connector seems good and I checked with a MM that power was getting to various parts of the board.

Yes, it's not THAT old, I have older cards still in use too.

[Krankshaft]

Re: Old ATI 9500 Pro

If you're getting garbled color lines on the Windows startup screen the video ram is shot.

I had an old ATI X700 go that way recently. The VRAM wasn't heatsunk and I remembered once when I put my finger on it in about 4 seconds it was too hot to touch.

I figured the manufacturer knew what they were doing and the chips were deisgned to operate at those temps about 4 years later a few fried.

My new card ATI X3850 has the VRAM heatsunk with the GPU.

[Harvey]

Re: Old ATI 9500 Pro

ATI graphics chips of that age also suffer from desoldering due to heat, giving rise to the same symptoms as faulty ram, or complete failure depending on what disconnects first.
Reflowing them [with the proper kit, rather than a paint stripper] works about 90% of the time... but quite frankly its not worth the effort, as they'll fail again in time.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Old ATI 9500 Pro

Now all it does is give a garbled screen right at POST. I'm thinking that it might be bad video ram as the corruption looks the same every time. It does change a bit if I put it in a different computer with a different POST screen.

Sounds like a used Radeon 9800 Pro I gotten in April, 2007. (And that was when I was still with socket A and 478)

(Also, in April, 2007, I still had POTS internet, only 56k, LOL)

I'm now wondering if this is a common problem with Radeon video cards.