[Kalian]

keep the drivers uninstalled. you probably installed the wrong ones. use the original cd or rather go to ure device maanger. to do this (assuming you have windows xp)
1 click on the start panel
2 right click on my computer and select properties
3. click on the hardware tab
4. click on device manager

look for the hardware that have a conflict and have windows find the drivers via the web.
shouldnt be too hard to figure out.

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Well i still have the problems with my 9800 pro

fresh format and install of XP and 3dmark03 freezes after a few seconds

ive tried switching this and that to no avail, and have had enough..

All thses freezing problems seem to have been after we had a powercut and my system said windows\system32\config\system is corrupt

I seriously think my motherboard (leadtek k7ncr18d-pro) has been damaged in some way as it was not doing this before, it's 2.5 years old

i have even tried the old 9500 card and get the same

looks like a new mobo for me

[blobsta]

Well i still have the problems with my 9800 pro

fresh format and install of XP and 3dmark03 freezes after a few seconds

ive tried switching this and that to no avail, and have had enough..

All thses freezing problems seem to have been after we had a powercut and my system said windows\system32\config\system is corrupt

I seriously think my motherboard (leadtek k7ncr18d-pro) has been damaged in some way as it was not doing this before, it's 2.5 years old

i have even tried the old 9500 card and get the same

looks like a new mobo for me

[Kalian]

have you tried updating your bios?

if so then i agree.
it may be time to lay that board to rest ^_^

try testing the video card on another system before you go out do heart surgery on your computer. it may be a gfx card defect after all.

if it doesnt work out, then dont be sad be happy. upgrade to an athlon64 to meet your gaming needs ^_^

[blobsta]

yup bios update to latest (leadtek 08/03/2004) + latest chipset (nvidia nforce2) drivers

bah !!

i want a mobo that is 100% compatable with my 9800 pro


Thinking about it this PC freezes as and when it wants to sometimes nothing to do with 3D stuff


i give up

Edited by blobsta, 09 May 2005 - 05:42 AM.

[Mr.Rainbow]

Ok I am back after testing bunch of the suggestions, I got some luck with some of them but the problem is still there. First I tried to set the AGP/PCI bus to a fixed value 33.3/66.6 it was at auto (I was thinking auto will set it to correct value) and causing some problems. Now I can clock my cpu higher with out letting the ATI crash. However I still have the refresh rate problem, once the card drops to 60 Hz (which almost makes me blind after 100 Hz) it works ok with out lock. Finally I gave up and drop the OC for the GPU set everything to default now it does not lock up but after 30 min of game instead of changing the refresh rate or locking up it drops the frame rate a lot that the game start shuttering ( 5-10 fps I think) . So I can decrease the desktop refresh rate to 85 Hz or something lower and try again but I still don’t know what is wrong. It looks like heating problem but I don’t know what to do to fix it I bought that copper GPU cooler just to fix this problem, and to be sure I took it of and installed it again but did not have any luck. Fan on the GPU cooler is at ~3000 rpm and that is the max it goes. I might try a bios update for the VGA card but I am not sure if that can fix this problem. Soo sad I think it is time to upgrade ( well if only I had the money)

[Kalian]

mr rainbow

3000rpm for ure gpu cooler? eh....? maybe you should try an ati silencer if you have an open pci slot. they tend to be the next best type cooling next to radiator cooling (or at least thats what ive heard).

also have you tried turning off vertical sync?
make sure your card is set on performance rather than on quality (my bar is always set to the far left) as well as have vertical sync off.
if you can, set your games to open GL mode because FPS sux [bleep] when you play 3D mode with this card.

also the default refresh rate for the card is somewhere between 60-75 (i cant remember at the top of my head right now), why do you set the refresh rate so much higher (im asking out of curiosity, i have never tried to set a higher refresh rate before)? with the default settings i was able to fps a solid 99.9/100 with a minor tweaking in the console in cs 1.6 without much of a problem.

as for overclocking and voltage settings i cant help you too much there because im not too big on OC. i usually just pay for the performance instead of risking the chance of frying my hardware. was your card working okay before you messed with the default bios settings?

also ive said this to at least 4 people that have commented on this post. TEST YOUR CARD ON ANOTHER PC. a pc that has a fairly newer processor, such as a p4, or at least an athlon xp/sempron. well, judging by the symptoms that you've described to me, it sounds like undoubtedly, your gfx card is defective.

but still its a very expensive piece of hardware so you dont want to automatically rule it out as being damaged. try inserting the card into another pc at the default bios settings, installing the drivers and running it using 3dmark or any other gfx accelerator tester.

if ure card cant get thru the test without passing its symptoms to the second computer then i say you upgrade your card to a fx5950 or better ^_^

but also be sure to check into other possibilities for what can be wrong with ure card; a friend of mine thought his gfx card went bad (he has a 5900 ultra) but it turned out to be a faulty networking adapter. during his online gaming (CS) he would get major gfx distortion and then eventually a gaming freeze (the game would freeze but the system was still running; normally if the card was at error the computer itself would freeze and lock up and you'd have to reboot). he tested the card (cs) on my computer and it worked fine. we troubleshooted for days thinking that it was a driver or settings problem. but it turned out that his network adapter was messed up (it randomly chose when it decided to work). we were always aware of this problem but because he only has one pc connected to the internet at his house, we always thought he just had extremely choppy internet connection in his area. but yes. from my experience, i find this circumstance to be extremely rare, but on this website where ppl usually only come when they have problems, its not so rare after all.

so please thoroughly test your piece of hardware and test for all possibilities before you decide its junk and decide to waste it. it would be a waste if you discarded a piece of valuable equipment when it really had no problem after all.

anyways i hoped some of this helped you some.
good luck on ure ati
Kalian

[Kalian]

mr rainbow

3000rpm for ure gpu cooler? eh....? maybe you should try an ati silencer if you have an open pci slot. they tend to be the next best type cooling next to radiator cooling (or at least thats what ive heard).

also have you tried turning off vertical sync?
make sure your card is set on performance rather than on quality (my bar is always set to the far left) as well as have vertical sync off.
if you can, set your games to open GL mode because FPS sux [bleep] when you play 3D mode with this card.

also the default refresh rate for the card is somewhere between 60-75 (i cant remember at the top of my head right now), why do you set the refresh rate so much higher (im asking out of curiosity, i have never tried to set a higher refresh rate before)? with the default settings i was able to fps a solid 99.9/100 with a minor tweaking in the console in cs 1.6 without much of a problem.

as for overclocking and voltage settings i cant help you too much there because im not too big on OC. i usually just pay for the performance instead of risking the chance of frying my hardware. was your card working okay before you messed with the default bios settings?

also ive said this to at least 4 people that have commented on this post. TEST YOUR CARD ON ANOTHER PC. a pc that has a fairly newer processor, such as a p4, or at least an athlon xp/sempron. well, judging by the symptoms that you've described to me, it sounds like undoubtedly, your gfx card is defective.

but still its a very expensive piece of hardware so you dont want to automatically rule it out as being damaged. try inserting the card into another pc at the default bios settings, installing the drivers and running it using 3dmark or any other gfx accelerator tester.

if ure card cant get thru the test without passing its symptoms to the second computer then i say you upgrade your card to a fx5950 or better ^_^

but also be sure to check into other possibilities for what can be wrong with ure card; a friend of mine thought his gfx card went bad (he has a 5900 ultra) but it turned out to be a faulty networking adapter. during his online gaming (CS) he would get major gfx distortion and then eventually a gaming freeze (the game would freeze but the system was still running; normally if the card was at error the computer itself would freeze and lock up and you'd have to reboot). he tested the card (cs) on my computer and it worked fine. we troubleshooted for days thinking that it was a driver or settings problem. but it turned out that his network adapter was messed up (it randomly chose when it decided to work). we were always aware of this problem but because he only has one pc connected to the internet at his house, we always thought he just had extremely choppy internet connection in his area. but yes. from my experience, i find this circumstance to be extremely rare, but on this website where ppl usually only come when they have problems, its not so rare after all.

so please thoroughly test your piece of hardware and test for all possibilities before you decide its junk and decide to waste it. it would be a waste if you discarded a piece of valuable equipment when it really had no problem after all.

anyways i hoped some of this helped you some.
good luck on ure ati
Kalian

[uebelgesinnt]

anyone remember what was the last setting, program install, or any change you made to your computer before this problem started???????

[uebelgesinnt]

thats what this guy in a gaming store told me. he said his gfx card wasn't the problem it was his network card

[uebelgesinnt]

i got my Day of Defeat to run rocksolid i updated/reinstalled my chipset and network drivers, but i'm still having an issue with CS:S.

on a sadder note any know what it means when your girlfriend just wants to be really good friends after dating her almost a year? bad day today i guess it would get better if i fixed my gfx card issue.

question to anyone does your game that locks up, is it an online game?? or is it a single player game??

[austin_o]

AMD systems need 18 amps or better on the +12v rail of the psu. What kind of psu and what are the output ratings (usually on a lable on the side of the psu)?

[Mr.Rainbow]

Thanks Kalian,

I will try the vsync think today, as I told before if I set the card to 4x it is ok so I guss if I set the performance instead of quality it might be ok. Well maybe even if I set my refresh rate to 75 it would be fine cause lately after one black screen and switch to lower refresh rate it did not lock up. The reason I have the refresh rate that high is my eyes got used to it, I made fun of my firend when he first told me this same reason because I could not see the difference then, but after using the refresh rate for a few weeks at 100 Hz you can tell the difference between 100 and 75 and belive me you will not want to go back.

I think my problem is definitly over heating as the problem occures after a heavy load for a long time, 3DMark does not cause the problem only if I play against 8 insane comp. in WCIII which is lots of units to compute. The other thing is that the arctic silver5 took some time to set the first day I did not got any lock up but then the second day it locked almost instantly so I think the paste melted and does not make a good contact any more. I will applay it again and gave it a week before I over heat the GPU.

For the comment on ati silencer I research the coolers a little bit before I bought the one I had ati silencer was my second choose in the list but the one I bought had better ratings and is silent, oh well if you run it in the silent mode which is 1200 rpm. You can get the specs. in the internet if you look for the model I wrote before. Thanks for the suggestion though.

An other question I am using omega drivers can you still disable the smartgear I can try these I will also check if I can run WCIII as openGL I don't know.

Thanks for the help I hope I will solve the problem soon, it is getting better any way.

as a note the lock up occures both during a online game and single player but for the single player to lock up I need to play against tons of comp. (8 in the last try) so it is some how related to the load on the GPU or even CPU who knows.

[Kalian]

well if ure running xp, the excess load on the cpu would just cause a bsod or a pc restart so i dont think a load on the cpu is really the problem unless u tried to oc that too. but then again i have no experience in that field so you'd have to ask someone else.

back to ure gfx card, you're having the same problem i was having. it would crap out after a heavy load. coincidentally on WCIII too. ^_^

i turned smart gear off, and upgraded the fan to a rev3 arctic cooling fan and that did the trick. i regretted my decision thinking i should have gotten a ATI silencer though but decided not to because there was a 5 dollar difference in price. im sure that 5 bucks in the end though is well worth it.

good luck and feel free to ask any questions if you have any
Kalian

[uebelgesinnt]

i have a 550 watt psu

[blobsta]

**update**

Well i have binned the K7NCR18 Leadtek motherboard and installed an ABIT NF7 v2.0 (£45 delivered ebuyer)

ALL my problems have gone

My CPU temp has dropped from 53 to 44
Motherboard temp has dropped from 39 to 29
3dmark03 has just ran through with 5491 result
So that means the ATI 9800 pro is operating 100% through AGP

Everything looks and feels solid

Thanks to all those on this thread for their suggestions and help

will pop back now and again to see if i can help anyone else

Very happy bunny now