Radeon 8500 won't work any more.

[DigitAlex]

Hi guys

You may remember that I got myself a pretty 9800 Pro a couple of weeks ago. I then decided to replace the GF2 MX in the PC of my girlfriend by the one I had before in my PC, a Radeon 8500.

In my PC it worked absolutely without any trouble. The GF2 MX worked fine in her PC also.

Now that I have pu the 8500 in her PC, it won't work any more.
She has a *cough*Packard Bell*cough* computer which is not that bad ( Athlon XP 1600+ ).

If I use the 4.7 or 4.6 catalyst drivers, I can't even go past the XP loading screen. After it switches to the resolution I have set (1280x1024 on a 19" monitor), it goes black with some color pixels scattered there and everywhere.

What I don't understand is that I also have the same monitor and was using the same resolution on my PC without any trouble, but I had 2000, not XP.

I tried to install the 4.5 cats also. With those I can boot up, but eventually after like 20 minutes the VPU recover thing says the GPU has crashed and the display is switching to software and 16 bits.

I also tried to do a clean XP install (new HDD) and it's absolutely the same.

I have no clue of what I can do with that stuff .... Try alternate drivers ? (DNA, others ?) Some other ideas ?

 

[poertner_1274]

I would suggest putting back in the GF2 and completely uninstalling the old drivers, then reboot, and put in the 8500 and go from there.
Although with a fresh install on a new HDD, that doesn't make sense. I'd try putting it back in your box to verify it still works.

 

[Didou]

A few things you might wanna try :

1. Disable AGP Fast-Writes
2. Disable Sideband Adressing
3. Lower the AGP speed tp 2x (or worst case 1x)
   [/list=1]
   If you can identify the chipset used on the board, try installing chipset drivers.
   
   Via 4in1s (4.51 if you have a Via based board, nForce forceware (4.24 if it's a nForce 1/2 chipset & SiS drivers if it's a SiS chipset.

 

[DigitAlex]

Hey, don't joke Didou ... packard bell with an nforce board ? hehe

ok i'll try all that guys. anyway, lowering AGP to 1x shouldnt affect performance because I saw benchmrks on Tom's Hardware and there was absolutely no difference between 4x and 8x

 

[Didou]

Well there were AMD systems from Compaq with nForce boards so you never know. OEM are quite fond of chipsets with lots of integrated devices & for AMD chips, the nForce is the best "integrated" chipset you can get.

 

[Rick]

Wow. I thought Hewlett Packard went out of business. I haven't seen one of those since the days of Pentium II.

Taking a look at their website, looks like they only cater outside the U.S though. So that may explain it.

Probably still the same old s@#$.

 

[DigitAlex]

Ok guys.

I tried disabling AGP, disabling FastWrites. Even rtied very old (3.1) CATs. None of them work. Underclocking the core / ram screws the display totally.

I got here a screenshot of the CPUID and of the chipset information.
Apart from that, I checked and the PSU is a 215W one, maybe not enough power ?

What do you think ?

 

[Didou]

Did you install the Via Hyperion drivers then ?

 

[DigitAlex]

No, I don't even know what that is.
I didnt have any problems with the GF2 MX card though, without those drivers

 

[Didou]

Yes maybe, but you have nothing to lose by installing them.

 

[DigitAlex]

Installed Via drivers, no change
Installed a 300W PSU, no change

Any other ideas ?