ATI Radeon 9200SE Video Card Problems... Acting weird...

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dustin7up

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I bought a brand new Radeon9200SE AGP 8x 64MB DDR w/ TV out video card about a month ago, and I just decided to get some games. The problem is, whenever I try to play a game, it just freezes up after like a couple minutes of playing. I have downloaded the newest video card drivers, the newest directx, and all the windows updates. I have tested my ram with Memtest 86+ v1.65 and found no errors. I have tried changing almost every setting in the display properties in the control panel, and it always freezes up. I tried it in 32bit and in 16bit, no difference. Now this is where the weird part comes in, lol ... These following games have froze when I tried to play them, they are all 3d games:

World Championship Pool 2004
GTA San Andreas
GTA Vice City
The Simpson's Hit and Run



Now here are the following games/other software that DOESNT freeze:

Any movie (mpg, avi, wmv, etc)
Visualations in WMP and Winamp
World Series of Poker Game




Now I'm wondering and confused on how the poker game works perfectly and doesnt freeze at all and the other games freeze. All these games are in 3d, even the poker game.




Does ANYONE know how I can fix this, and why this is doing this? I really want to use this video card. It's really good and the games are surprisingly fast, before it freezes. I have tried everything I can think of. The video card is a 8x and the motherboard is a 4x, does that have anything to do with it? I don't know how to change it to 4x, the only thing in the bios is an option to choose either "pci video/agp video". Also, since I have onboard video, theres 2 video cards in the device manager, could the other one be conflicting with it or something. If I uninstall it, it will just install back the next time i reboot windows. I have already disabled the onboard video. The video card and the cpu are not overclocking, and there not overheating. Theres 4 fans inside the computer, (in front, in back, on cpu, and on power supply).




I don't really know what else to say, I just really hope theres someone out there reading this right now that can help me...






My Comp Specs:
Windows XP Pro SP2/Directx 9.0c
AMD Duron 1Ghz socket 462xp
256mb ram pc133 (128x2)
Radeon9200SE AGP 8x 64MB DDR/400mhz internal DAC
(direct draw acc./direct3d acceleration/agp texture acc. are ALL ENABLED)
(I tested DirectDraw and Direct3d, no errors... and I benchmarked the video card using Fresh Diagnose, no errors and doesnt freeze.)
SiS 730 chipset
motherboard is a pc chips M810L
AGP port 4x and its got onboard video, i think its either 32mb or 64mb
80GB 7200rpm MaxTor + 10GB seagate + cdrw burner




...oh and i forgot, sometimes before the comp freezes, the picture on the screen will get all choppy and distorted(im not sure how to explain) and then go black, that happens sometimes, not always... and then when it freezes the other times, the picture on the screen will just freeze and if there were audio playing, it will start skipping and i cant move the mouse and keyboard doesnt work...
 
I think you're running out of RAM. Go into the BIOS and disable your onboard graphics. As long as it's enabled it is using RAM resources so you don't really have the full 256MB for your games. If you could add some RAM, that would help too.
 
Its not a ram problem, its an agp apature problem. The mobo is agp x4 and the gfx card is agp x8.
 
The mobo is a x2/x4 agp and the graphics card is a x4/x8 agp. Both systems run at different voltages.

Cant remember what the voltages are but ive seen the results of 3 mobos with x2/x4 agp with x4/x8 cards and all 3 mobos were damaged beyond repair.
 
The whole system sucks, Duron...please.. get a processor from this decade!
Sorry I'm just being a *$#@. But honestly your system is getting a little old and thus I bet your PSU is old too. Upgrade your PSU for $30US and you'll be surprised.

Although rik just might be right ( I mean there are 3 different voltage levels when it comes to AGP) The only type you can't mix is AGPX2 mobos with AGPX8 videos. The X2 is 3.5V and the X8 is 0.8V. Each mobo and video card manufacture allowed a certain amount of tolerance for each voltage level one way or the other, but not across two generations of AGP. As in AGPX2 to AGPX8. (AGPX4 is the middle generation).

But I honestly think you just have a PSU problem.

What you think? Rik are you right?
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. :)

kirock- If i had the money, i would buy a brand new computer, this motherboard i have i bought on ebay which came with the cpu+128mb ram for only $26... i think its a good motherboard..

..yeah, i have the full 256mb ram since im not using the onboard video... but im really stupid and i finally found out what was the problem, the second video card in the device mananger ,that i thought was the onboard video, but actually its part of the radeon card, since theres 2 outputs (tv + monitor), theres 2 things in the device manager, so i enabled it, and updated the drivers, and wala! lol ..i played gta-san andreas for like 2 hours, no freezing.....

i just cant belive i never thought bout that, :(
 
the second video card in the device mananger ,that i thought was the onboard video, but actually its part of the radeon card, since theres 2 outputs (tv + monitor), theres 2 things in the device manager, so i enabled it, and updated the drivers, and wala!

Good to hear it, and I was really just giving you a little dig. Cheers.
 
I just found this.

http://www.directron.com/15agpguide.html

It should help further.

And as Kirock says, psu could also cause problems, newer cards use far more power that older ones. What wattage psu do u have dustin7up (it should say on the label on the side of it)? I usually recommend 300watts and above for most older pc's.
 
...well i know that my motherboard agp slot is 4x and i know that my agp video card is 8x.. and from that website it says... "and a motherboard that supports 1.5V (AGP 4x) video cards should work ok with a .8V video card (AGP 8x)" ...so that means my motherboard can handle that 8x card... my video card also has 3 notches *like the second picture on that site*....


i dont know what that psu thing is, and i dont know where im supossed to be looking for it, is it on my motherboard? my video card? in the bios?.. theres nothing on my card that says anything about psu, and i couldnt find anything on the motherboard, so im not sure what "label" your talking about
 
Your psu is your power supply unit and should look something like this. http://www.dansdata.com/images/eg651p/psu440.jpg

It is usually but not always at the top of your case and its where the power lead plugs in. You will probably need to remove the side panel to see the label but i assume from the graphics card update that you have already done it at least once before.
 
ohhhhhh, power supply unit (psu), im not good with initials, lol.... well at the back of it, where you plug it in, theres a red switch, and says 115, and when you switch it, its 230....its on 115 right now...


ok i see the label, it says "input - 100-127V ~~ 200-240V" "output - 140W max" and also a bunch of other numbers... i also have another power supply that has a max power of 145W and the inputs the same as the other one....

so thats kinda weird how mine is only a small 140w mAX and your saying to have atleast 300watts
 
Hi dustin7up,

Your PSU is dangerously under powering your PC. Honestly 145W is laughable these days. Go here to calculate the power requirements for your system:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp

You can buy a 400-450W PSU for $20-30 US these days. You can buy a generic crappy and still be ok. I mean you don't need to go to top of the line Antec, OCZ, or ThermalTake.

When you changed(enabled) what you u did in Device Manager it may have helped because it by default turned off the other output (I assume TV) and this prob reduced the power consumption of the vid card. Like I said from my 1st post you have a PSU prob. Upgrade that and you're good to go!

Cheers.
PS thanks rik for the article. It doesn't state the voltage of X2AGP but I suspect I qouted it a little high, I think it is 3V not 3.5V.
 
Couldn't agree more, 145 watt is waaaaaay to low. Kirock is spot on, its DANGEROUS to your motherboard, memory, processor, graphics card, and even to your hard drive.

Its extremely rare, but it could also be dangerous to you and your house if it goes up in flames.

Replace it asap with an absolute minimum of 300watts, the higher the better.

To be sure go here http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp and see how much power your system actually needs.

For an expensive psu multiply the result by 1.25.
For a mid priced one multiply by 1.5.
For a cheap psu multiply by 2.
And use the answer as a minimum for your new psu.
 
well i went to that website and filled it out to the best of what i know bout my computer, i dont think my cpu was in there, so i just chose duron1400mhz and it said my reccomended psu wattage is 203w.... so 145w isnt that much lower...

i dont really think i have a psu problem, the problem was that i disabled half of my video card, because at first i thought it might of been onboard, but then i forgot that my video card has 2 outputs, and it never even detects my onboard since im not even using it, so therefore it couldnt work right....

i dont really have the money right now, but when i get some, ill get a 300watt power supply...
 
hey man, The Radeon 9200SE is dx 8.1 all the games you stated are dx 9. You should invest in an older athlon socket A ($60) ram 256MB ($20) a PSU ($40) and maybe a video card along the lines of Radeon 9600 pro/xt or a Geforce 5700Le ($70) you comp will be a whole new system. This is just my advice. :)
 
Happened to me a few days ago

I had this same issue a few days ago. I downed new drivers, directx, format, tested power, heat, etc. Nothing worked, this only happens in Direct X games, not Windows apps explorer, word anything. I formatted my drive thinking it may be a virus, then I found this.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315614/en-us

Try this before doing anythign else.
 
..- i went to that link, and it sounds like everything ive tried and none of that fixed it.....

i dont know if anyone knows this, but i have already fixed my problem, and now my video card/comp is running gta-san andreas at full speed and in full 3d, viewing it from my tv, and then using my xbox controller, theres really no difference then if i had an xbox :)
 
mailpup- well my video card, Radeon9200se, has two outputs, tv and monitor.. so in the device manager, theres two video cards.. i didnt get a manual with my card, so my first impression was that it was the onboard, but once i took the video card out and ran it with onboard video, i noticed that it was a completly different name in the device manager then the other card, so i knew that the second video card was part of the first one.. so i updated the drivers for the first and second video card in the device manager... i got a video benchmark program, and i got a score of 150, and thats really low, so i then went in the display properties, adjusted some settings to high performance, and now my score is 250-300... id say thats about the highest im going to get and theres very little quailty difference that i can see from when i got 150... then after i did that, i rebooted the system, fired up a game, and played it for like two hours with no freezing, and no skipping, thats when i had finally knew that i had fixed it... :)
 
Are those games even playable with that computer? I'm not saying it's crappy because mine is only Intel Pentium III 800MHz, 256MB RAM, ATi All-in-wonder Rage128 PRO 32mb video card.
 
the program is called "Video Card Stability Test" ... of course their playable with my computer, i was also playing "Halo: Combat Evolved" today, thats an awesome game...
 
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