Newskier's Full Review: ATI ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO, (128 MB) AGP Video Car...
NEW UPDATED POSITIVE REVIEW AUGUST 20, 2003
Well, it turns out I owe old ATI a HUGE apology. It appears that my Vantec Copper Heatsink & Fan were the cause of all my problems (don't I feel like a tool now)
For some reason the fan shorted out the connector on my motherboard. This meant the fan would not spin to keep the cpu cool. Eventually it would reach 60-70 degrees Celsius and that's when my system began to experience all its problems.
I attributed this to the graphics card because I just assumed that the fan was working fine (since everything had been installed by a local OEM shop). I had read about others having these problems with the ATI card, so I just figured that was the case.
I now have a new heatsink/fan combo in my system and the ATI card is holding up just fine.
I still have yet to get around to doing any video capture (although I've done it before on an older 32MB Radeon AIW card) so I'll be sure to update this with more info as I test it.
OLD NEGATIVE REVIEW
I build computer systems. I recently built a new system and my ATI card has caused nothing but trouble.
Anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 minutes into a game it will do one of the following:
1. Hang/Freeze the system (sometimes allowing me to ctrl-alt-del and sometimes forcing me to press the reset button)
2. Drop me to the desktop
3. Reboot my system
I had stupidly just read all the glowing praise from tech review sites about this product. What I should have done is read the user complaints on this item, which it seems most everyone is having the same problem as I am.
Of course, ATI tries to blame other things, they'll say:
1. Your AGP port is sharing an IRQ with other devices, you need to have the card on it's own IRQ.
2. Your Power Supply isn't giving the card enough juice. Go into your BIOS and up the voltage from 1.5 to 1.6, 1.7 or 1.8
3. You need to update to the latest drivers and DirectX9 (which of course I had already done)
4. Use their Smart GART feature to drop from 8x AGP to 4x AGP
5. Underclock your card
6. The stars aren't in the proper alignment.
7. Your Power Supply isn't able to give enough power on a specific rail, buy a different power supply with a better rating (i.e. not all 350Watt PSU's are the same)
8. Your RAM is poor quality and is causing the problem
9. The heatsink/fan on the card is not sufficient, and you should remove it and replace it with a better one and some thermal compound instead of the measly thermal tape they used.
10. You may have an older revision of the board that ATI is RMA'ing for a 1.3 version of the board that is supposedely more stable.
Of course, ATI doesn't have a toll free number for you to call for tech support (despite paying anywhere from 300-400 bucks on such a card). They instead have a nifty Canadian number that you can call and wait on hold for tech support, while paying through the roof in long distance charges! And they only offer support for 30 days after you register!
I just don't understand how all the tech sites can give this card glowing reviews and then everyone and their brother has an issue with it?
Now, my system was all new components for me, so I popped in my measly MSI GeForce2 MX 64MB card and viola, zero problems, worked on all my games, didn't slow down or crash my system, etc.
I really wanted to love this card. I wanted to do some video editing, capture, exporting, etc. I wanted to have awesome game performance with those features, and every tech review I read promised just that. But unfortunately that has not been the case, and I'm left with a 300 dollar piece of junk.
Emails to ATI tech support result in a canned response and them referring you to frequently asked questions and their knowledge base, none of which has solved my problems.
I believe I may just switch camps to Nvidia, which I didn't want to do. :(
UPDATE AUGUST 17, 2003
As per the comment posted, I am going to list the system I am using:
Gigabyte GA81G1000 Pro Motherboard
Intel P4 2.4B Ghz w/533mhz FSB
(2) 256MB PC2700 DDR @ 333mhz (in Dual Channel Configuration)
Seagate 120GB ATA100 w/8MB Cache, 7,200rpm Hard Drive
Plextor Plexwriter 48x24x48 CD-RW Drive
350Watt Generic Power Supply (checked the voltage on each rail and they are quite sufficient)
Windows 2000 (with all the latest Service Pack and other updates)
I've tried the drivers that came with the card, as well as the latest Catalyst drivers from ATI's website, and some "tweaked" drivers called the "Omega" drivers and also tried the "Rage3d" tweaking utility that I found online.
I've read the horror stories about people reinstalling everything in their system 3 or 4 times, including their Operating System, to try and get this card to work. People have tried using a completely seperate power supply just for the graphics card, with no success.
I have the latest BIOS for my card and the latest DirectX version.
I used to have a Radeon All-In-Wonder AGP 32MB many years ago and never had any problems with it, but this card is killing me, I'm so frustrated.
Here's what I've tried doing to resolve the issue:
1. Upped voltage on AGP port from 1.5 to 1.6, 1.7 and 1.8
2. Dropped AGP from 8x to 4x
3. Unplugged extra items in case so that it was to bare minimum to see if card wasn't getting enough power
4. Opened side panel and setup a huge fan to blow directly onto the card
5. Disabled Fast Writes
6. Read through various forums with people having THIS EXACT SAME PROBLEM. They all had a variety of hardware, different motherboards, different memory, different operating system, different RADEON cards (such as the 7200, the 9000, the 9500 pro, the new 9800 card, etc.)
As far as I can tell, I either got a version of the board that is older and maybe needs to be replaced by ATI, or maybe even if I do that I'll still get a card that is no good. Yes, I've read about some lucky people who have no trouble with their cards, but I've read plenty of horror stories from those who do.
I did purchase this on Ebay, from a reputable buyer with good feedback, but perhaps it's not the latest retail version and that's why I'm having trouble. But do I really feel like dropping another 300-400 bucks to try my luck with the retail version? Not particularly.
Redefine the word Ultimate. The ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO is the ultimate visual and home entertainment experience for your PC. It combines the fastest 3...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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