I think my Radeon 9250 is broken. However, since I'm in the middle of the jungle I can't easily just pick up another compatible card to see that it's actually the Radeon. So I thought maybe someone has a similar experience.

Sometimes the Pegasos 2 refuses to start, eg the keyboard LEDs don't even blink when the reset button is pushed. Sometimes it starts and even boots. But the display is all weird, with vertical coloured stripes, maybe a little jittery. They have some relation to the screen as the pattern changes when going from OF to the MOS boot screen, and again when the Ambient screen is displayed.

The machine seems to switch between the state of non-booting and messed up display depending on some unknown parameter such as messing about with the card or something else in the Peg, phase of the moon, or whatever. But it stays 'stable' in the same condition for a while. Doesn't really seem to be heat related. The machine was working fine until suddenly the display got a bit garbled (but still continued updating) while input froze. Since then I can't get it working.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? I do hope it's the card and not the AGP slot or something on the motherboard. But I guess since the system boots, it's a good sign. Any suggestions welcome.

Tried re-seating the card? Beware though, some radeons don't actually like being pushed all the way in, but left a mm or two out of the slot...


- CISC

I had a similar behaviour once (corrupted graphics after boot, but not always, strange freezes, and sometimes non booting machine...). I opened the case and found the gfx card to be loosely connected, pushed it tightly into the AGP slot, and never experienced any problem anymore. From the outside it seemed to be just right in place, but in fact it wasn't.
I have no clue if it's the same stupid problem (probably it isn't and you have already tried this solution), but that's the help I can give.

Kind regards,
Andrea

I've tried cleaning the connector, pushing it back and forth, pressing it down, leaving it not fully pushed in (to the point where it doesn't boot anymore), bending it very slightly in various directions.. this doesn't seem to affect the outcome at all though.

I'll experiment a bit more with it tonight, but the obvious didn't strike me.. of course I could try the card in a normal PC (these exist even here in the jungle ). If it works there then I'll be sorry.

Tried testing the gfx memory with "memtest vmem"? (iirc)

No. I guess I could try it and redirect output to my USB stick. If someone could verify that "memtest vmem" is the exact command line I'd be grateful, as I'll obviously be entering this blindly (good thing that command-n brings up a shell)..

When your peg doesnt boot, the hd led its on?

I think that we have the same problem :(

When it doesn't boot, the HD is never activated (not even spinning up). In fact, the earliest sign that something is wrong (nothing is right) is that the keyboard led does not even blink.

But when it does boot, everything is probably fine except for the display. Of course I can't be quite sure, but it sure seems so. Since my understanding is that the graphics driver wouldn't let MOS boot unless it can communicate with the gfx card, I guess this means the card must be working partially.

Merko

I would NOT recommend purposefully letting the Radeon drift in the socket or sit just touching it at various degrees. If you get unlucky and get an eletrical arc you can kill the Peg, the card, or both!

magnetic

Well.. obviously it makes no sense to put the card such that it doesn't even make contact. But I see your point.

Anyway, I now tried using memtest and though the output is just fine when testing main memory, the system appears to be freezing when trying to test vmem. And I also tried the card in a PC, which showed exactly the same symptoms. To me this is good news, as I much prefer the fault to be in the graphics card.