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[Biff Hardbody]

1) I'm using a Radeon 9800 until I get my 6800 GT this Thurs. I installed the newest driver on ATI's site. Everything seemed fine, and then my PC rebooted. It did this severak times. Each time it said "Windows XP has encountered a serious error caused by Radeon display driver". So, I uninstalled and deleted the driver. Everything is fine now. Can anyone recommend a stable driver?

 

[Biff Hardbody]

Fixed the second problem. The first still persists.

 

[Mejilan]

What was the sound related problem? Just out of curiosity.

Edit - Why not avoid the newest ATI drivers, and settle for the newest MS certified ATI drivers?

 

[Biff Hardbody]

Where can I find the MS certified drivers? I don't mean to impose, I'm just unsure of where I would find them.

The problem with the sound was that the speaker settings was set on "digital output only". Once I disabled that I got my sound.

 

[Mejilan]

Windows Update should show you the newest MS certified drivers. ATI's site should probably have them somewhere too.

Edit - http://www.ati.com/support/products/radeonwinxppreviousdrivers.html

That might be of use to you. I believe these are some older Radeon Catalyst drivers.

 

[Supasso]

You need the latest Nvidia Forceware driver, not ATI's.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

You need the latest Nvidia Forceware driver, not ATI's.

Can you please explain why would I need that? Is that a motherboard driver? I'm using a via chip. I installed the drivers off my motherboard.

Mejilan, thank you.

I used the 4.8's, and the original catalyst drivers that came with my card. The 4.8's are completely unstable with the system rebooting every few minutes. The original drivers afre a little better, I don't reboot if I'm browing the internet (so far), but whenever I play a game the system crashes and reboots. Doom doesn't even get to the menu screen.

Hopefully it gets better soon, or maybe my 6800 Gt will make everything better.

 

[Mejilan]

It's strange that it's still a bit wonky, but I'm happy I could help, even somewhat. However, I'm out of ideas now.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

Nothings working. I've downloaded the hyperion 4 in 1 drivers, they didn't do anything. I downloaded all of my windows updates, nothing. I've tried a variety of drivers, no good.

I'm running an Athlon 64 3800, Asus MB with socket 939 Motherboard, 1024 MB of Crucial Ballistix RAM, Radeon 9800, Windows XP with service pack 1A (plus all critical updates).

If anyone has any idea how to fix this please let me know. At this point, I can't even get past the loading screen in Doom and Battlefield Vietnam reboots my pc immediately as I spawn.

 

[Supasso]

Sorry I thought you've already upgraded to the 6800GT.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

I just tried Omega drivers, no difference.

I opened up my case to see how the airflow was. It was as good as I could make it. I decided to give the graphics card its own cable to the PSU.

I booted back up, and it said "overclocking has failed, set values in boot". I thought this was very strange, because I have not set it to overclock and I had selected the default values. I checked the speed of the processor it was where it should be 3800 2.4 Ghz

I booted up Doom. It began to run, then my monitor went black and I got a new message.

"ATTENTION!
Frequency 18/Ohz
is out of range"

Then the computer rebooted. I'm not sure if that was the exact message, I think it was. Anyone know what this means?

 

[teh_pwn]

My bro's computer has the same problem.

He has a 9100 Pro IGP (integrated) and it reboots, but more often during games and pretty quickly. He gets similar messages that you do with the windows reporting problems with the video card. No driver revisions seem to fix it. Put in my PSU. No results.

We put in a 9800 Pro and everything worked.

I just didn't understand it.

If you're getting the 6800 GT, I advise to wait for it. If the same thing occurs, then it is not the video card.

 

[rc213]

Are fast writes/sideband addressing off in the bios? Try disabling VPU Recover in the advanced display properties. Also check the Event Viewer under Administrative tools for system errors that might be causing the reboots.

 

[Bregor]

Why not just stick with the generic VGA PNP drivers until you get your 6800? You won't be able to play 3d games, but it is only a couple of days.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

Well, I've been at this since 10 or so. I'm going to sleep. I'll look over your guys suggestions tomorrow, thanks. This is extremely frustrating, but I hope it will be worth it in the end. I just hope its not my PSU, I don't want to have send that back to newegg and wait for another week or two. Thanks fellahs.

 

[Supasso]

By the way, all the ATI drivers on the ATI's site, including the latest 4.8, are all WHQL'd.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

OK, someone told me to check out my voltages and tempatures. I did, but have no idea if they are good or not. Here they are-

Cpu Temp: 52.5 C/126.5 F
MB Temp: 23 C/73 F
Cpu Fan 3040 RPM
Power Fan: 2177 RPM

V Core Voltage 1.536 V
3.3V Voltage: 3.216 V
5V Voltage: 4.945V
12V Voltage: 11.712V

Are those ok?

I also noticed rgere was an option called "AI OC" and it was set to auto. I'm thinking of disabling it and running the drivers again. I'll also try those tricks you guys mentioned. Thanks guys.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

(when I set AI OC to manual)

Cpu FSB 200 MHZ
AGP Voltage: 1.5 V

 

[Firest0rm]

Actually, did you make sure you got the 64 bit hyperion drivers? VIA sucks imo, I'm never getting anothe PC with a VIA chipset.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

Yes, I dled and used the hyperion 4 in 1 drivers lat night. No difference.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

I get a new graphics card tomorrow, the 6800 GT. I'm going to install that. If it doesn't work, I'm going to reformat my HD (just in case drivercleaner didn't get all the old drivers), install and try again. If that doesn't work, I'll get a new PSU.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

I put the video card back into my older computer. ran games fine. I also noticed that the icons on my monitor looked more vibrant in color...I actually thought the monitor was burning out on the left side when I used my new pc.

Its not the video card, I'm pretty sure of it.

I'm thinking its the PSU. I may have to return it. However, the voltages seem fine from what little I know.

I'll try my new card tomorrow.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

Today was exhausting.

I went out and bought a new PSU, Antec 430 watts. I had noticed my other psu smelled really weird...and was very hot. This one definitely smelled better and felt cooler, but the performance was the same. Game crashed when I tried to play it.

Someone said to me my temps were fine, but my processor was much higher then my motherboard. So, I must have installed it poorly and that could be the reason for my problem. So, I took out the processor out, removed the pre applied thermal paste, and put on Artic Silver 5. That was fun.

Changed nothing for me temp wise. I thought it was ten degress cooler until the temp climbed all the way up to its original tempature. Tried a game again, crashed.

At this point I'm completely unsure of what to do. My graphics card comes tomorrow, so I hope that changes things.

 

[dem]

I'd ask for help over at amdmb.com forums

 

[kikonawa]

this sounds more like a memory problem to me
try to leave one stick out and run it in 512mb

 

[teh_pwn]

I wouldn't buy anything else until you get your video card and test it.

If the problem keeps up, I'd seek better hardware forums. Look into your mobo's manufacturer's site for forums.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

I checked those forums, they have't told me anything.

Someone suggested I reinstall the hyperion 4 in 1s because they were supposed to fix this problem. Apparently, the via drivers have a conflict with the ATI Radeon cards. I did...

Well it ran Battlefield Vietnam!!!!

For about 2 minutes. Then I went into options and the system crashed.

I'm seriously convinced that this is all a bad dream of some sort.

Tomorrow I get my GT. I'm seriously considering reformatting my HD tonight and starting the install with a completely clean HD tomorrow. I can reinstall OEM windows software, right?

This has to be a driver issue. It has to be. I've tried so many different drivers. No way these two PSU's are bad. Maybe the first, because I did notice a weird smell. My memory is fine. Miraculously, I didn't destroy my processor when I took apart the heatsink/fan combo and reassembled it (complete with cleaning the old grease and putting Artic Silver 5 on it). My 1st time doing any of that, nervous as hell that I'd destroy a near $700 cpu.

But man, for those two minutes Battlefield looked beautiful and ran fast as hell. :usa

I don't know if I'll reformat. So tired. Maybe I'll wait and see how the card does tomorrow. If it doesn't perform right, then I'll reformat.

Thanks for all your help fellahs. Something will work.

 

[Limedust]

ATTENTION!
Frequency 18/Ohz
is out of range

Tell us what your monitor refresh rate is set to. It may be set too high. My initial response was going to be that maybe the graphics card is faulty, but you said it ran fine in your older computer. I've never seen the error you posted, is that exactly how it read?

 

[teh_pwn]

See what the 6800 GT does and keep us posted.

You're running into some problems but in the end it'll be worth it by far. You're going to have a killer machine.

I've bought hardware and had problems before with a mobo. I bought another and I'm still very glad I built myself.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

I think my monitor is at 75 HZ. I'm not sure if that's exactly how the error read.

Anyhow, I've been busting my ass on building this PC since Monday. Its allot harder then I originally thought it would be. This problem just compounds my frustration.

However, I agree with you, Pwn. I think it will be worth it. For one, the case is just incredible compared to my dell case. Its a LIan Li PC-65B...just beautiful and so easy for a beginner like me to work with. Also, if I look at this from a posative angle I've learned a hell of allot about the pc the past three days, and discovered that I could deal with basically any problem that came up. Even the really scary shit like installing and reinstallinga cpu and its thermal compound. Ohhh hell, I was so nervous.

I have a good feeling the GT will make everything alright. I read a small article on how the VIA drivers had conflicts with the Radeon and the Hyperion drivers supposedly fixed that. It didn't in my case (unless you count the minute romp through battlefield Vietnam). Fortunately, I've heard of no such problems from people who have the GT.

I think the problem is a driver conflict. Its not a PSU conflict. Its not a memory conflict. Its not the video card. It has to be the drivers. I just reformatted my HD and installed XP to get ready for the GT tomorrow. We'll see what happens.

 

[Tekky]

Try running something compute intensive that doesn't do any video.

If that crashes the system, then you'll know it's not the video card.

 

[gohepcat]

Try running something compute intensive that doesn't do any video.

If that crashes the system, then you'll know it's not the video card.

Oh man. I just was going to post that. Try running Prime 95 http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

or Sisoft sandra burn in test.

Games tend to push things quite a bit. It might not be the video card, but the stress caused on the system by running a game.

 

[teh_pwn]

That's also a good idea.

My first guess is that it would be RAM if not the video card conflicting. Try using one stick at a time to test that. You could have a bad module on one stick and when games run, it's stressed more and it messes up.

 

[Firest0rm]

If the game ran and then crashed then try putting a large fan on the computer. Open the side of the case. I suffered the same thing until I did that. Every game would crash for me after the first few minutes. But now its perfectly fine.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

I'm using the retail AMD heatsink and fan combo, which actually seems pretty high quality. The thermal compound was high quality too. There's little to no difference between their stuff and artic silver 5. My cpu (Athlon 64 3800) runs around 45-55 when its idle. No clue how hot it runs when playing games. No one has told me if that temp is bad or not, so I'm taking it as though its fine.

I'm pretty sure my RAM is ok. I will do your recommendations for them (and everything else) if the video card seems to fail.

The video card comes anytime now, probably 3:30. I have a gut feeling it will work, and this whole problem was do to a clash between the VIA chipset drivers and the Radeon drivers. We'll see.

I've spoken to people who have near identical setups as the one I have (with the GT), and no problems have been reported.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

 

[DrEvil]

I had a similar problem with my 9700 pro for the longest time, it would just randomly freeze in game / direct3d / whatever used 3d. And it would make a bad hissing noise.

I finally got around to calling ATi, and after about an hour of troubleshooting, they put me through to the head tech guys and basically there are a few things you can do.

If you have an INTEL processor, download this tool and install it.
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/Product_Filter.asp?ProductID=816


Also, go into your device manager and check if ANY items are using the same IRQ as your card. The ONLY thing that should share is a USB bus, anything else will likely be the cause of your problems.

If that doesnt fix your problem (this is really the continuation of the first step, but sometimes it helps)

go into your BIOS when your system boots up, and look for the following values:

AGP APETURE. It will normally be set at 128 or lower, if it's at 128, set it to 256 (should be the next available option).

in your POWER MENU, you should be able to find an AGP VOLTS section, set currently at 1.5v -- try 1.6, ATi does NOT reccomend 1.7, as it could cause damage.


Now, the next step they told me, I didnt have on my bios settings, but, they said if there is an option called SHADOWING, disable it, same with FAST WRITES.

But, you dont have to do that, as the card works flawlessly now. -- I've always found that any card problem is likely a POWER issue. So do the AGP Apeture and 1.6v change, and all should be good.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

Thank you, DrEvil. I will try those later today when I get my new card.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

IT WORKS!

All I had to do was install the graphics card, 6800 GT. The problem was the VIA chipset did not like the Radeon driver.

Doom III runs like butter on 1600X1200 at stock settings. This is coming from when 1 demon could slow my old pc to 5-10 fps.

Thanks to everyone who tried to help me, I sincerely appreciate it.

I am going to install more games now.

Edit: My new specs

Lian Li PC PC-65B
Asus A8V 939 MB
Athlon 64 3800+
eVGA GeForce 6800 GT
1 gig Crucial Ballistix Ram
Audigy 2 ZS
Klipsch 2.1 Promedia's
200 GB Seagate HD
19 inch CRT

woohoo.

 

[dem]

Your computer makes me weep...


I want a new computer dammit

 

[teh_pwn]

Congrats man.

Your system whips mine. I can only run Doom 3 on 1024x768 medium settings at about 40 fps average.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

Thanks guys...

I'm kinda afraid to enjoy it after the horror of the past week. Afraid I'll be in the middle of some great gaming moment and it'll shut down. Only 1 way to fix that shit though...play as many games as possible right now.

 

[Biff Hardbody]

You're running into some problems but in the end it'll be worth it by far. You're going to have a killer machine.

Yep, it was worth it. I've been playing Battlefield Vietnam and Doom maxxed all day on 1600X1200 without a hint of slowdown. Fucking awesome...this is the computer I've imagined having since well...ever. I installed Doom, Vietnam, UT2K4, and Hitman Contracts. I want to install Soldiers: Hero's of WWII (awesome game btw, check it out) and FarCry...but neither of them install. I don't know if the discs are damaged or what. Far Cry stops installation on the 2nd disc, claiming it can't find a file, and Soldiers won't even let me try and install it, giving me the error "only part of read process memory was completed".

Ah well, no worries. I'll figure it out. Worst I have to exchange the copies. Right now I'm sitting pretty. Tempatures are fine...things run so fast I don't need to OC the video card. Its just awesome to play Doom fast with that setting of graphics after playing it on such a shitty computer that choked every time a corner turned. I'm loving Vietnam as well.

Upgrading kicks major arse.