Display and computer problems with fear Plz help

[jneilly]

i have the exact recommended specs for fear but when i play i get red dots all over the place and after a while the sound gos funny and eventually the computer restarts. (is it any possibility is it because my graphics card thinks its the secondary graphics card(radeon 9800) even though my onboard is switched off but my computer thinks i have a primary 9800 aswell even though i cant do anything with it if so how do i fix that and maybe i turned my onboard of incorectly as my computer did it by itself) plz help.

[Cravenraptor]

have you tried the latest catalyst drivers for your video card? What ATI drivers you currenty have installed?

Craven

[jneilly]

i was using 6.8 catalyst origanly at the time of the post but since then i have tried changing to 6.11 but i am still having this problem it seems to be in certain light shaded areas it happens in games like doom3,prey,fear and i saw it once for a breif moment in call of duty 2 its starting to become an anoyance i have also managed to get rid of the shodow card 9800pro(pci)-secondry by disabling it and now it agrees with the fact that theres one card ,could the red dots be a problem with the card?

P.S thanks for replying to this thread ive had it up for ages and was starting to loose hope

[UNDIESRULES]

I would try some older drivers too, the 9800 pro had very few additions to drivers once the x800 series were launched and older drivers sometimes work much better than newer ones.
How are your card temperatures? It sounds as though it could be a heat related issue, particularly if the computer eventually restarts?

[jneilly]

i love computers but id know more about hardware than software so after failing to find an old 9800 pro driver (if you come across one send me a link by thread or email it would be greatly appreciated(joshuaneilly@hotmail.com)i tried downloading a modified catalyst called mad cat this makes the red dots less dense but theres stil quite a few there. wich im hoping it means theres nothing wrong with the card and it is the driver. i also noticed that when i went into mage hardware devices the ghost radeon 9800 is still there which i disabled wich does help the red dots go away but it is an agp card and it says its in pci bus 1.(if that would cause a problem) also my computer also as an shared graphics card wich id guess isnt on seeing it takes no ram but i didnt turn it off myself it did it automaticly or so id asume but its still there when i go to add or remove programs and when i try to uninstall it "it says no hw key"

[jneilly]

oh and i installed mother board moniter and it says that the case tem is 40c and my cpu is 26-27c and the 9800 as a fan on it and luckily it is situated beside the main fan and i cant feel much heat of it but of course i cant touch the card while the comps on.

[jneilly]

forgot again could dust cause this problem as i have just relized that my comp is quite dusty

[Shadow391]

A few things.
(1) The Radeon 9800 (Secondary) you see is actually just the other head of the card. Like all video cards produced since at least 2001, your card has the ability to output to two monitors; hence the two connectors on it. To do this, the drivers run a secondary software version of your card which Windows detects as a secondary card. Pay no attention to it, and reenable it, as it will cause no problems at all and is normal.
(2) Windows is probably confused, as you probably did not uninstall the onboard video drivers before installing the 9800. Make sure you uninstall them, and update your motherboard chipset drivers as well (www.viaarena.com for VIA chips, www.sis.com for SIS, www.nvidia.com for NForce 1,2,3,4 & 5). Go to your motherboard manufacturer's site to determine your exact chipset. Drop by www.omegadrivers.net for reliable and effective custom Radeon drivers, I use them for my 9600 XT, 9800 PRO AIW, X850 Pro, X850 XT, and X1900 GT, and they've never once let me down. And yes, all those cards are in running computers, I host a lot of LAN parties :P.

I've seen problems like yours, and maybe 70% of the time, it is driver related. The other 30% of the time it is attributed to insufficient power supply output (or too much), overheating (although normally it just locks up and dies within seconds when it overheats, which doesn't give you much time to diagnose, unless you're superman) and a faulty card, usually a damaged RAM chip.

Good luck, and don't give up on your 9800 just yet, they are still a powerful card in their own right.

[Videoslave]

You're 9800 is dying I'd suggest you replace it with a 6800 or 7800 AGP.