Need some help here

T

Teasy

Veteran
I recently ordered a Radeon 8500LE duat monitor TV-Out from Eclipse Computers for £70, which I thought was a great deal at the time as everyone else who'd bought the same had received a good 250/240 (core/mem) board.

The problem is that now that mine has turned up it has "64mb 183mhz" written on the box. When I checked out the board its really very compact, half the size of the last 8500LE I owned (which was 250/250). Well I'm disapointed to say the least, 183mhz is allot less then 240mhz.

Anyway too the point, I was wondering if anyone here has come accross this board. Was it overclockable, because I heard over at the rage 3d forums that soneone clocked one of these from 183 to 275, but I just can't believe that so I want to hear from people I can trust on this board.

Also I'll just list what's written on the ram for this board and if anyone knows what it all means and can tell me what ns the ram is that'd be great:

SAMSUNG 208
K40263238M-QC40

Thanks
 
I believe, the SAMSUNG 208 K40263238M-QC40 means that it's 3.8ns. Which is in the neighbourhood of 260MHz if I"m not mistaken. I could be wron, but I don't think so. You might be able to find out from Samsung's site.
 
Thanks for the help, I knew I could count on Beyond3d. If I can really get this ram to 250mhz and maybe even beyond, which I suppose would depend on what voltage the manufacturer has given this ram, I'll be an extremely relieved and happy puppy :)
 
Hehe, I just realised something. There was no part change, it was just my mistake. I read the D as an 0 :)

So the ram chip doesn't read:

K40263238M-QC40

It reads: K4D263238M-QC40

Well that clears up any doubt then, the ram of this board really is 250mhz rated ram. I wonder why its set at 183mhz by defualt if its 250mhz ram? I mean I know that early LE boards had the same 275mhz ram as the ATI 8500's and they were volted down and clocked at only 250mhz by order of ATI to make ATI's 8500's seem a little better. But to be honest it seems like a massive waste of money for a company to use 250mhz rated ram and then clock it to 183mhz.. the lesser mhz doesn't make the card any cheaper for them to produce, it just makes it less attractive to people who don't realise the potential of the ram.

I'm genuinly interested to hear if anyone has any explanation of why a company would do such a silly thing?
 
Right, I have the card installed, but now I have another little problem I need help with.

Bascially mt problem is the card hates anything over 133mhz FSB. Infact it actually doesn't totally agree with 133mhz FSB (which is odd since the AGP should be set to default clock with a 133mhz FSB right?).

I first saw the problem when I was installing the board. I booted for the first time (this is before installing the 8500 drivers) and the bios writting was sort of gittering very slightly. As windows booted the windows logo was also sort of corrupted, there were really thin lines appearing and disapearing on the logo (just a few, it wasn't majorly corrupted or anything). When I got into windows icons on my dekstop were doing the same as the bios writting and windows logo. So I tried dropping my normal 150mhz FSB (I've been using that FSB for ages flawlessly with my Kyro II) to 140mhz. The problems were lessened but still there. So I though "aha, it must be that this card doesn't like anything over default AGP". So I dropped the FSB to 133mhz, now their is no bios corruption at all, no windows logo corruption and the only corruption I see on the desktop is a very tiny thin line that sometimes apears for a second on one or two icons and then disapears and never comes back for the rest of my use until I reboot. Now I could live with this appart from two things.

1: In GTA3 the GTA3 logo has the same corruption that the bios, win logo and icons had at a higher FSB (this is at 133mhz FSB BTW), not very severe, but noticable, although nothing else in GTA3 has any problem at all including the actual game.

2: I like my 150mhz FSB setting, or I at least want 145mhz or something.

So anyone have any idea of the problem, at first it showed all the signs of a card that doesn't like anything but default AGP clock. The only flaw in that logic is that there are still some problems (the one in GTA3 for instance) at 133mhz FSB.. and 133mhz FSB would surely correspond to a default AGP clock just like 100mhz FSB would.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Also I tried overclocking, if I clock the ram to anything higher then 205mhz I start to get mild corruption in games, so it looks like they might be undervolting the ram so it cannot go much over 200mhz even though its 250mhz rated ram. Again why in the world would they do this? There basically using expensive 250mhz DDR ram and forcing it to run at 205mhz max by using less voltage then should be given to the ram. So they get the same expensive as it would take to run at 250mhz but less performance, I don't understand there reasoning for this at all.
 
What board did you do the pencil trick on though?

I know how to pencil trick a normal 8500LE, but this is about half the size, its not the same design so I don't know where everything is. I can't even check the voltage as I don't know where the mem/core voltage pins are on the board.
 
it was the Supergrace, so normal board size. Hmm you are stuck arent you :( Send it back, claim motherboard incompatibility or something.
 
I phoned up ecclipse and told the guy that when I bought the board I was expecting the same board that everyone else had gotten from them when they ordered the same product (the Powercolor 250/240 board) and when I got a 183mhz board I was extremely disapointed with it and could I get my money back. He says that he see's no problem with that and I have to phone customer services on Monday, so hopefully I can return this board.

I have a replacement lined up, a Hercules 64mb 8500 LE 250/250 for £78 inc VAT and delivery.
 
Hmm.. Remind me not to order from Eclipse Computers. I generally thought they were pretty reliable. It is good that you got your refund but the hassle is definitely not worth it.

The FSB ay be related to PS issues.. this board you got seems different to others made by ATI basically and then re-packaged. When manufacturers began designing and making their own LE boards everything went to shit.

Stick with Hercules or other big manufacturers and you can't go wrong :)
 
Any other time I've bought something from Eclipse they have been reliable. Unfortunately this is a hazard of buying a no name card (and I really mean no name as no manufacturer is mentioned anywhere either on the site or on the box) from pretty much any store. Still Eclipse should have kept sending exactly the same product to everyone ordering this card rather then sending the good cards to the first few and then switching to the crappy cards. Next time I order from them I'll phone up first and make sure there sending me the card I expect.[/quote]
 
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