Additional photos

Forgot to write, the card has vga and dvi outputs. Tried both of them, same result. Tried different monitors. Same.

Assuming totally different memory layouts in POST screen and windows desktop (btw, was it 800x600?), the noisy lines would be consistent with GPU degraded or being underpowered (bad caps). Can you try to significantly underclock the core and see if it makes any difference?

vstrakh wrote on 2024-10-30, 16:45:

Assuming totally different memory layouts in POST screen and windows desktop (btw, was it 800x600?), the noisy lines would be consistent with GPU degraded or being underpowered (bad caps). Can you try to significantly underclock the core and see if it makes any difference?

I tried different resolutions in Windows, with 256 colors, 16 bit, 32 bit. Different resolutions didn't change the artifacts, but changing color depth to 16bit and 32bit removed them.

I see a bulging capacitor on the card (I think it can also be seen on photo), maybe it is the culprit.

I remember trying to underclock by 50%, but i am not sure exactly what happened. Will try it and write what happened.

I have similar Sapphire 9600XT 128MB 2.8ns card, just different memory size - memory corners similar lenght. I plan to change VGA cooler if S754 PC stays with that VGA card.Socket 754 DOS/Win9x/XP Machine

If it has these stripes already in bios, then nothing very good it cant be. My card shows good picture with every resolution and color depth. These cards have small fan and max power consumption is not much, xt 22w, pro is 18w. Still i have wider cooler plans with bigger heatsink. Underclock may help if it cant hold the clocks, seems its not overclocked at the moment, some damage or anomaly its has.

These kind of the lines, and patterns is usually bad memory chips. I saved a Voodoo 3 3000 this way by replacing all memory chips.

Cheers,

marxveix wrote on 2024-10-30, 19:08:

I have similar Sapphire 9600XT 128MB 2.8ns card, just different memory size - memory corners similar lenght. I plan to change VGA cooler if S754 PC stays with that VGA card.Socket 754 DOS/Win9x/XP Machine

If it has these stripes already in bios, then nothing very good it cant be. My card shows good picture with every resolution and color depth. These cards have small fan and max power consumption is not much, xt 22w, pro is 18w. Still i have wider cooler plans with bigger heatsink. Underclock may help if it cant hold the clocks, seems its not overclocked at the moment, some damage or anomaly its has.

I hope it can be salvaged somehow. I am trying to determine if I can turn this card into a restoration project. I love that they use low power and still have decent performance.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2024-10-30, 23:39:

These kind of the lines, and patterns is usually bad memory chips. I saved a Voodoo 3 3000 this way by replacing all memory chips.

Cheers,

I have no idea how that can be done, but your reply gives hope. After closer inspection I noticed 2 bulging capacitors in total. Do you think fixing them would be enough? Or I would need to replace the memory chips anyway?

ATi Radeon 9500 has 12W consumption on the paper, but in reality it has extra power connector (fdd power cable fits). Radeon 9600 Pro and XT AGP cards do not need external power, all juice is coming from AGP. They are cool cards, some Radeon 9600 cards are even cooler @ 110nm, but i have not seen one of them with RV351, its usually RV350/RV360.

Sapphire makes good ATi cards mostly. ATi 9600 Pro/XT cards i like, i have both with 2.8ns fast ram.
I hope you can fix yours or you can find good replacement for your ATi Radeon 9600XT DirectX9 card.

If this video card can't do any 3D capabilities, even with glitches, that's most likely a severely cooked GPU, which was also common for early FCPGA with anemic coolers. TSOP packaged memory rarely goes bad.

Most likely will require full GPU chip replacement.

nimruil wrote on 2024-10-30, 15:26:

Hello everyone. I got a sapphire 9600xt today. Beautiful little card. I had a lot of hopes about it, but from the moment of boot […]
Show full quote

Hello everyone. I got a sapphire 9600xt today. Beautiful little card. I had a lot of hopes about it, but from the moment of booting I got heaps of problems.

What happens:

- BIOS menu shows a lot vertical lines.
- WIN98 also shows a lot of lines. Interestingly, when i change to 32 bit, they disappear.
- Directx features agp, directdraw, direct3d are all greyed out&disabled. All directx versions I tried have same result.
- 3dmark says it needs a graphics adapter with 3d capabilities.
- ati2s9ag crashes at the beginning. But smartgart tab works in advanced video menu.

What I tried, in no particular order:
- Re-applied thermal paste, did some cleaning
- Changing dx versions between DX7, DX8.1, DX9.0c
- Reinstalling chipset drivers
- Catalyst 6.2 and omega catalyst 4.2 drivers
- Checking GPU bios with rabit and flashrom. Compared with an original bios i found on internet. They look identical.
- Disabling overdrive
- Reducing AGP speed to 4X, disabling Fast Write. All possible combinations of AGP speed and Fast write.
- Changing aperture sizes in BIOS (4MB, 8MB, 16MB).
- Cleaned the insert of card, thinking maybe it was dirty.

Additional Info:
- I am regularly using this PC with a MX440, FX5500, radeon 9250SE with no issues at all. My current cards probably explain why i had a lot of excitement about this card 😀
- Onboard stuff like sound card and LAN disabled at BIOS

The box:
Mobo : ASUS P4P800-X
CPU: Intel SL6Z3
MEM: 512 MB DDR400
PSU: 420W
HDD: 80 GB MAXTOR IDE
PS/2 keyboard and mouse

I thought XP install could help, but lines at BIOS makes me think this is hardware related. To me it seems like a dead card. However, I would like to save it if possible. Any opinions/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Note : I don't have the skill or hardware to tinker with soldering etc. At least for the moment.

It is tipical issue of memory chips. I gues, It will be some chip close to AGP port, but could be different one. You can try make a press on chips and see, if something change on monitor. This card type I repaired at least 4, same issue. If is memory chip connection, needs to a reball. Reheatin not helping so much due to corrosion ocf the soldering pad. Second option, check around memory knocked off components. Every single memory line has own resistor, if is no connection due to missing or damage resistor, you will see on monitor like this artefacts. !!! Do not put card into owen, it is bulshit.

Non-working 3D acceleration features is a very strong indicator of a cooked GPU. If a card can complete all tests, but with heavy artefacting then it's probably memory.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-08-26, 18:56:

Non-working 3D acceleration features is a very strong indicator of a cooked GPU. If a card complete all tests, but with heavy artefacting then it's probably memory.

I've had cases were wrong/defect memory ICs/configuration caused restarts of the system, while the GPU was in perfect shape.
But this thread is nearly a year old, I assume the opener has long decided the faith of this card.

I had an ATI 9600SE with the exact same problem... One of the electrolytic capacitor was bad. Speaking of which, doesn't the one at the end of the card kind of bulged a little?

Got an update on the case after 1 year (yep I don't give up so easily). We replaced the capacitors. Still no dice, problems persist. Guess the vrams are gone. I think it's time to let it retire 😀

You can run R3MEMID and figure out which of the memory ICs is defective, then you could replace it if necessary. It's not gone for good imho.