Strange Radeon 9800 Problem

Browsing many forums I've only come across one other person with this problem and their problem was solved by a power issue, however mine was not

Playing any games be they direct 3d or openGL with my Gecube Radeon 9800 Pro 128 meg graphics card produces one of the four below results every time:

• System automatically reboots with no warning
• Screen goes black but system still functioning (Can hear game being played)
• System hangs completely and requires a manual reboot
• All open programs exit and I get an ATI VPU report

I've tried endlessly to solve this problem. I've already tried the below:

• Formatting the windows drive
• Installing the most up-to-date motherboard drivers
• Installing graphics card drivers directly from ATI
• Installing graphics drivers from the chipset maker ( http://www.gecube.com.tw/ )
• Buying a 300watt power supply as recommended in the product manual
• changing AGP settings in the ATI control pannel
• Sending back the card and getting a replacement to eliminate the possibility of a faulty card
• installed xp serivce pack 1
• Checked with another AGP based card to check it wasnt a faulty AGP slot

And I'm still at a loss. I'm completely stumped and would greatly appreciate any input anyone can offer.

My system specs can be found in my profile

Thanks again

Ben

Sometimes, bad RAM will cause your rig to do some very creative things....If you have (2) sticks, try them one at a time, and see if the problem continues...

Also, the "VPU Recover" option in the CAT control panel...I'd disable "VPU Recover"- it might be adding to your issue.....

I'm assuming case temps and CPU temps are ok?

You might've made a mistake with your CPU as you list it as a 1.15GHZ AthlonXP.

Such an AthlonXP does not exist. It sounds to me like it's a 2600+ which is supposed to run at ~1920mhz ( 11.5 * 166 ) & you've left the FSB at 100mhz.

http://staghosting.com/(Upstairs).html

Is a specification of my PC generated by Belarc Advisor.

Do you think changing the FSB speed will help then?

I will give both of those suggestions a go and then get back to you. Thanks.

EDIT1: I can't seem to find the place to change VPU report settings anymore. Can someone point me in the right direction please?

EDIT2: I think I'm going to need to upgrade my Bios as i can't find an option in it to change the FSB speed like my old motherboard had. I'm not sure about this so if anyone knows of a decent bios that will be supported by my motherboard please point it out to me. I found one on the Gigabyte website but it was released before I bought my motherboard so presumably its the one i already have.

Thanks

It's in your ATI control panel. Control panel-->Display-->Settings-->Advanced
There, you will have many tabs, one of which is "VPU Recover" Click that TAB, and then you may uncheck the "Enable VPU Recover" option....Uncheck it, hit "Apply", then hit "OK"

That's it.

As far as not having any FSB settings in your BIOS- not sure what to tell you...Gigabyte usually has plenty of option on their mobo's, and is a pretty freindly mobo to tweak.....

PuzZah, you have your CPU underclocked - that is, running slower then its ment to. Its not bad, but you bought a good cpu and your getting half the performance that you paid for. I doubt this will fix your problem, but you may want to get what you paid for

Would i do this by changing the FSB setting? If yes, to what?

A shop recommended me some 4in1 drivers which weren't the ones i previously had and it seems to have fixed my rebooting/loss of functionality of my graphics card, but now even on the lowest settings it runs games like C&C Generals and UT2K3 at a very low framerate and is generally very 'chuggy'. I've tried a couple of different versions of catalyst drivers to fix this with no success. Any recommendations?

Regards,
Ben

Guess what guys, mine does the same. Tried all of what PuzZah did and still no joy.

My Spec is:-

Pentuim 4 3.0Ghz FSB 800 (Hyperthreading Enabled)
512 Mbs PC2100 CL2.5
Abit VT 7 Motherboard
Gigabyte Radeon 9800 Pro (128mB Memory)

I even stripped out all the hardware and just have this spec in and it still crashes to a black screen after a period of time, usually 10 mins max. Sometimes the programs don't even start. Tried running 3DMark03 and it will get to the 3rd test and fail.

Everything is ok in 2D though...lol


Mav.

Maybe reinstalling 4in1 drivers or installing them will solve your problem like it did mine. Try http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/drivers.php?categories=1&model=162 for your motherboard.

Puz

Heya Lads,

PuZZah, mate, I am having the exact same problem. My GeCube 9800 pro has to be it though, I've checked everything else.

My Memory (Kingston Dual DDR) I ran Memtest86+ all night (27 passes) and 0 errors, so I reckon it's fine.
My cpu is running cool, never get's over 40 degrees Celcius. Case sits at a nice 19..
My PSU is a 380w Antec, and I gave the graphics card it's own line so that it wont have any drain from a drive or something.
I've updated Motherboard Bios to the latest, no effect.
I've tried underclocking, both Ram and CPU to no effect.
Windows XP SP1a and other updates..

The machine will run for hours upon end in a windows but as soon as you start a game it will die after a certain period of time..
eg. Farcry lasts around 5-10 minutes,
UT2003 lasts around 20,
Elite Force 2 lasts 30-40 minutes,
and like Puzzah, it will restart or lock up either by going blank or messing the game image over the screen and looping the sound.

Other curiousities..
Sometimes after it reboots, the screen will power up but no data will be send from the graphics card and windows fails to load properly.
I've got a number of BCCode errors, and have Googled to no avail, most pages in Italian or Russian.
I got my first BSOD last night, inciating a problem with the ATI driver.

I've tried a number of different drivers, the cd provided 3.x Catalysts, later Catalyst including the one released last week, all do the same..

Any ideas? I'm thinking I can't be bothered and am going to return the card for a different manufacturer of 9800 pro.. XT's and X800's still cost way to much here downunder.

Cheers..

Go into your BIOS, and look for the section about hardware/cpu/etc, and find the place where it has the clock speed (mhz) of your cpu, and then it'll also have the fsb, which will be set at 100MHz. Also on that page will be the vcore (voltage) for your cpu.

Just highlight 100MHz, and press enter to select 166MHz. Your bios may do the +/- keys, but just set it to 166 and it'll be a chunk faster.

Had this problem from day one with my 9600. Eactly the same issues.

-Crash and hang with a sound loop (manual resart)
-Crash and Hang eventually returning to desktop with "device was stuck in an infanant loop error message"
-Crash to Desktop no error reported
-Monitor goes to standby - sound loop
-Crash to BSOD

Every version of the ATI Catalyst drivers I have installed seemed to fix it for a day or so, but driver set 4.6 give a error message (after crashing the game) saying the device was stuck in an infanant loop.

previous errors included: "VPC recover has reset your graphics accelerator as it was no longer responding to graphics driver commands".

I disabled that from the ATI panel.

Check this thread to see everything else I have tried http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=8390

I'm getting this exact problem on my brand new system.

AMD Athlon 3200+
ASUS K8V Deluxe Motherboard
ATI Radeon X800 Pro
1 gig Kingston Ram
Windows 2000 Pro
4.7 ATI Catalyst Drivers
19" CRT Flatscreen Samsung monitor (brand new)

It seems every game i play my monitor seems to shut down and the power light flashes. This happens at random, sometimes i can go all day and not have it happen and other times its every 15 minutes. I've tried everything, installing older drivers, playing with card settings, refresh rates, resolutions, you name it. I used to get the VPU recovery message but i fixed that by updating my board drivers.

EDIT: Problem solved! This link should fix your problems. Especially if you're using Windows 2000 with an AMD processor:
http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/3719.html

I have an NForce2 Chipset, and I am running the latest GART driver in that.. I got the driver reccommded by GeCube, 4.3, but that made no difference.

I've taken it back and they are sending to the Manufacturer for a RA check.

In the meantime, I have a GeForece FX 5700 in there and it is running fine, smooth even.

When you buy an item brand new, it should work perfectly.

I think you did the right thing by getting another card. There's no reason to pay for an item that's just going to cause your grief.

"This issue affects RADEON products in Windows 2000 on some Athlon systems using motherboards based on the VIA KX/KT-133 chipset."

thanks for replying with the fix link. Glad its all working for you.

However, I am on a nforce2 chip set, so dont think that will help me out I do think it has to be a board compatibility issue though.

Ok, guys.. Some serious problems. The new card (Gefore 5700) which I put in last week is now crashing in the exact same way, bringing up the exact same BCCode..

So it's not my 9800 card! Dammit.

Only thing I can think of now is maybe my Sound Card (audigy 2 Plat EX) as I am hearing pops and clicks in games. I am seriously going to have enough parts for a complete other computer when I am finished with this thing.

Is there anything anyone can suggest updating.. I've done XP SP1 plus others, DirectX 9.0b, Mobo Bios, Nforce2 Chipset drivers, Latest Graphics Drivers, Latest Audigy drivers... going insane..

Hey I have the same problems with my ati radeon 9800 pro 256mb as everyone else mentioned here, and unfortunately I do not have an athlon system using a motherboard based on something or another in windows 2000, yet I still get the symptoms described at the beginning of the thread and I still have the same problems as mentioned in the beginning of the thread.

But here's the catch, my computer has two partitions one which is windows xp and the other which is windows me and when I switch over to windows me everything works fine, but dammit it should work on windows xp as well. I sent an email to ati tech support about my issue like three weeks ago but they haven't responded since, has anyone tried contacting ati via email or phone?

As a matter of fact now that I think about it I think that everyone who has a problem with this crap today should email and phone toll free Ati so that they can see in one day that this is a major problem and that they should do something about it. Maybe it is just me but I don't think that it is acceptable for a 300 dollar video card to crash and lock up whenever you want to just play a 3d game for which that card is supposedly built.

I don't know if this is going to work, but looking through my settings last night I noticed that my sound card and video card are running off the same IRQ.. I'm going to have a play with my bios and see if I can shift em to different ones.

Anyone think this may have something to do with it?