Thought it was video card, maybe not?

[hackman2007]

Hey everyone, long time no post.

Lately, I've been having serious issues with my Sapphire X1950GT. It plays games just fine (well except Madden NFL 08, it crashes at the splash screen on this one).

I ran ATI Tool on the graphics card (the artifact scanner) and it crashed within 30 seconds. I ran again and it crashed within 5 seconds. I promptly RMA'd the graphics card back to Sapphire, which was a big PITA.

I finally got the card back today and ran ATI Tool. It ran fine for several hours, and then a few hours later I ran the ATI Tool artifact scanner again and it crashed within 45 seconds. This is a different card, Sapphire just replaced the card.

So what the hell is going on here? Is this my graphics card? Am I just really paranoid and should not be running this program?

Specs
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 stock clocked
OCZ 700w GamerXstream power supply
Sapphire Radeon X1950GT PCI Express
Gigabyte P35-DS3R LGA775 motherboard
3GB DDR2 667 Corsair XMS2 RAM

Any help/suggestions/comments would be greatly appreciated. I really don't want to spend another month waiting for an RMA.

[Boy'nBlack]

Howdy hack!

I think it's ATI tool. I've had issues with it from the 1950, 2900, and on up. I bet I can run it now and crash. It just hasn't been updated since December 2006.

I'm still on the 8.4 driver still though since that's the latest that can fold with V6. Have you tried the 8.6 set?

[edit]
Ya, I just re-installed it, and I can't even get it to open from the taskbar

[screwballl]

I have had a few issues with the official ATI drivers on this exact card... I would suggest using the Omega drivers latest version which has worked perfectly for me, zero issues.