Hit a Wall finding solution for GeForce 6600 crashing computer

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chendrixson

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I’m a newcomer to this board so hello to all.
A little background on my problem: I put together a new box and am having some problems playing 3d games especially Battlefield 2 with this computer. The new parts included:
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ socket 754 OEM
Soyo K8USA Dragon Ultra (ALi M1687/M1563 chipset)
PNY GeForce 6600 256mb AGP
1 gig DDR 333
C-Media 6.1
Maxtor 250 gig EIDE, Seagate 300 gig EIDE
HP DVD Writer, Light-ON DVD Writer
Ultra 500 watt power supply
Ultra Wizard case
Added one fan in front, one in rear in push-pull configuration

After a clean install of Windows XP Pro SP2 and other basic software I have been having a heck of a time achieving stabile performance. When I click to join a game in Battlefield 2 I see the opening graphics picture with high pitched beeping sounds then the computer restarts. Upon windows booting I get the recovery message and the usual driver causing the crash explanation. I am able to play some games, Doom 3, Call of Duty, but not others. I have tried everything that I can think of, upgrading and downgrading every driver I can find for all hardware and chipset. Tried to upgrade bios, but the system became unusable until I rolled it back from 8usa2aa5 to 8usa2aa3. When trying to do a DirectX 3D Benchmark in PC Wizard 2005 I get an error “pcwizard.dll has encountered a problem and needs to close.” I have checked the RAM with Memtest86+ 1.65, and it found no problems after 5 passes. I will let it run tonight while I sleep to see if that does anything. I tried everything else I could find in other related posts, so now I’m stuck.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Gettting a new power supply

I think I will buy an Antec True Power II 550 Watt power supply and see if it does the trick. I'll post back with results.

Thanks for the reply.
 
you may also want to try prime95 for the cpu, memtest86 for the ram, and then 3dmark for the overall system to see if any of your components are bad. but yeah ultra haven't released very good psu's. so you may want a better brand!
 
Still having trouble.

Ran Prime95 for two hours without the CPU so much as flinching from heat.
Let Memtest run while I slept, after 16 passes there were no errors.
Pulled the CPU, cleaned and carefully reapplied thermal paste, and reinstalled with no better performance.
I installed a new Antec True Power II 550 Watt power supply and my Fluke 87 says that it has identical readings on the 12,5 and 3.3 bus as the Ultra, all of which are in normal range while fully loaded.

Same problems persist.

Anyone have some other ideas

I will download 3dmark and run it to see if it shed some light on the problem.

Thanks again for any help.
 
More information, still not working

Not to be too wordy, I still have the problem. This is what I have tried:

Video Card: Changed settings like turning off fast writes, slowing down the AGP from 8X to 4X, AGP aperture size, tried different drivers, Used driver cleaner between driver installs, Using Riva Turner to check settings, Coolbits for same reason. Tried the PNY preferred BIOS settings from the PNY FAQ.

Motherboard: Tried all chipset drivers that I could find. Found newer versions on Ali/ULi site than on Soyo site. Also found that the chipset is reported as an AMD chipset in hardware reporting software, so I tried the latest driver pack from AMD as well.

Symptoms: I can play some games like Doom 3, Call of Duty, and Hitman Contracts. I can’t play other games like Battlefield 2, or even install Starwars battlefront. I can get through the Battlefield 2 menus, and choose a level and load the mission. When I click to join the level, the first graphic “screenshot” is loaded and freezes. There is an audible screeching sound followed by a system reboot. I have tried disabling the sound in the device manager, and there is no change. I'm not seeing any temperatures that are high, but then again each utility paints a different picture.

3DMark 05: I originally though that there might be a problem with the game, but I installed my friends copy of 3DMark 05 and it crashes in much the same way. After clicking run tests and watching loading screen it starts to go to the testing screen but crashes and restarts the computer. One thing to note in 3DMark in the system pane, when I get the system details it lists the VGA Memory clock as 501.2MHz and the VGA Core Clock as 9.7MHz. When Riva Tuned did the auto-detect it found the base frequencies of 300/500. I can run the CPU tests with no crash, but not the game tests or some of the batch tests.

I am still not finding an answer. Is there anything that someone could recommend as a next course of action? Please help.

Thanks again for the help.
 
Chen-
Are you running the Nvidia 81.85 driver? If so, that could be your problem. 81.85 causes my system to crash to desktop when I play BF2. I had to go back to 78.01 which is the driver I'd recommend you run.

Make sure you run Drivercleaner Pro after removing the driver with the windows add/remove program function. It's available at http;//www.drivercleaner.net
 
I am currently using ForceWare 81.85.
I will try the Omega 1.6693 and also try an older 78.01 NVidia driver and let you know if it helps.

Thanks for the reply and the idea.
 
Chen-
Make sure you use drivercleaner. It really is a great little FREE utility that helps you avoid all kinds of driver conflicts.
 
Back to ATI

First I would like to thank everyone that replied to this thread trying to help with my problem.
As of last evening I returned the NVIDIA 6600 card to the store. I bought the card on 10/18/05 and wasn’t able to play some games since then. I have wrapped over 20 hours of my life in troubleshooting a piece of hardware that was priced $170. I decided to exchange and upgrade to an ATI X850 Pro AGP card. I was able to unlock the four extra pipelines, so now I have an X850 XT for the price of a pro.
Since I decided to try a switch back to NVIDIA from ATI back in April of this year, I have had two DOA cards (6200, 6600) and one that died after three months with no over-clocking or modifications (6200). I am sure that I am just “lucky” to have such a high failure rate, but that was enough to turn me away for a while. I’ll be back with ATI enjoying their resource hogging, bully, built in applications, and crappy drivers for a while. By looking at my 3DMark scores with this “Unlocked” card I am quite happy. I’m now able to play FEAR and BF2 with a modded card in a little over an hours work. Time is money.

Thanks again to everyone, this board is a priceless piece of information for anyone who seeks it.
 
OH!
I have the same problem, but my computer shuts down during the play :dead:
After 10-45 minutes it shuts down, depends on the game....(Unreal 2004, GTA vice CITy...)

I have
WIN xp SP2
AMD ATHLON 3000+
GeForce 6600 GT 256
Maxtor Sata 160gb

...i downloaded the newest drivers for my grafic card.....
I dot know what to do anymore...

I have run P95 and it crashed down after 30 min....
PLEASE HELP
 
Chen, it almost sounds as if you had a damaged directX api or something... Anyways dont blame Nvidia for the crapping out. Its most likely the fault of the manufacturer that you went with.

Xeneize, that sounds like overheating. Maybe try playing with the side panel off your case and see if that helps. If so, then get some more fans in that sucker so you can close it back up.
 
yes definatley

i agree it can be nothing other that over heating

take the side of your case of

and then see what happens !!! i agree :angel:
 
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