UBER complicated problem with ATI 9600 Pro, heres a brain bender...=((

[skyzar]

Ok....so about a month ago i had a p4p800eduluxe..played ok for a while...cs : s running on it...so one day i turn cs s beta on and the game loads the map and boom..map loads...plays for 1/2 second, hangs for 1 second then restarts. Does this continually....eventually doesn't recognise ram..had ram tested..was fine..returned mobo....got new one month later..with new 3.2 GHZ p4.

Ok alls well in gaming ville, and i now play hl2 (----pld it for a whole week NO PROBLEMS what so ever). I discovered that i may be overdoing my pc with only a 320 watt psu..so i go buy a q-tec 450w dual fan. runs fine;my work was done;go to sleep. I wake up...NOOOOOOO Deja-vu! one month ago same ****! Loads hl2, 1 second runs and boom restart....so i tested EVERYTHING..found the source to be the gfx. i Ran hl2/cs:s with my nvidia 32 mb gfx from 5 years back..but it ran fine and with no new drivers (only xp default) and it lasted perm....19 fps mind you. So i uninstall drivers ..reinstall. Nope. Install omega drivers nope. Lower agp 8x->4x..then to 0x...and then disable fast write...NUDDA! Open mb bios tweak here and there in accordance to ati faq....nudda...same thing...WHY OH WHY! please someone help me out?

ok here goes specs:

3.2 Ghz p4 HT
1024 ram - 2x512 (corsair xms,..and ocz)
Serial ata hdd 120..blahblah..
450WATT psu
ASUS p4p800-e deluxe (wifi edition)
---____-- 9600 pro 128 ati

Windows XP SP2 all the drivers and what not....

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated

 

[skyzar]

=((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

--could it be gfx cooling problem? fan is extremley loud, with a noise resembling the startup of a faulty motor vehicle...then stabilizes....(although not as loud as a motor vehicle)...although the thing is...it was making this noise for months before... O_o;

any helP?

 

[skyzar]

is there no one who knows what it could be or has experienced a similar problem?

 

[xscomputer]

My first guess would be that when you got your new power supply it sent more power to your videocard which was already going out, which only cuased to go out faster. If the GeForce still works but the ATI doesnt work, I would try baroowing a friend's ATI card to see if it works, if not you could just have a windows glitch with ATI cards but if the new ATI card works then I would guess your videocrad just died.

 

[HoopaJoop]

Your first problem was probably caused by CS beta, or something, intruding on window's memory space. By default when windows encounters an error that requires a restart it will do so continually and automatically until windows can load properly. You can turn off automatic restarts from the settings button on the advanced tab of system properties. You can get to system properties quickly by hitting windows key + pause/break. This will allow you to see any system errors that show up if any.

I would have to think that something with the new power supply, and the continual reboots are causing your current problem. I would think that your card, or bus got a bit of a jolt causing instability.

The first thing I would do though is format, and re install windows. This, strangely enough, often fixes many problems. You should start clean, update all the drivers, get direct x up to 9c, and only reinstall Half Life 2. Make sure to get the most updated chipset drivers for your board as well. This will all but limit your problems to hardware as you have a clean install with only one software package installed.

 

[skyzar]

ok will do ty =)....but is it worth reformating...since it works fine with nvidia card? even hl2 etc

 

[HoopaJoop]

It really depends. If you have quite a bit of data on your machine that you don't want to lose, or you can't really want to back it up then maybe not.

Troubleshooting is a game of elimination. To truly troubleshoot your problem you should probably not format until all options are exhausted. What I was suggesting is the lazy way to eliminate all software problems in one fell swoop. The only possible software issue after format is driver related, and as I suggest you should get the newest released (not beta) drivers upon reinstall.

It's up to you, and your tolerance for not being able to properly play Half-Life 2.

Good luck!

 

[skyzar]

UH OH! its what i feared...my pc restarted again..this time warcraft III and it was my nvidia card this time .... any ideas? Please help if you can

 

[FireDawg]

You have 2 dif types of ram? Make sure they have the same settings (cas)

Also, Remove all other cards, floppies, cdroms and try that. That eliminates any of those immedialtely. Next use 1 ram stick at a time. Next: download 3dmark2003 and run this prog in a loop overnight. If it fails try to get another card from a friend to test.

 

[sealevel]

Stop wasting time on a 9600

My 9600pro started to act up when i upgraded my XP to sp2. Before i never had any problems. Now, my screen freezes after a few seconds in any 3D game, sometimes even when just playing a DVD. Forum visits learned this a common 9600 problem. Tried all voltage, driver, underclocking and cooling tweaks suggested web wide, nothing works. Yeah, underclocking to 250/250 allows me an extended play of over 2 minutes in CMR4!
My suggestion: forget the 9600. Ram it in the next e-mail-only leftover rig you build for the oldtimer next door and stick to nvidia from now on.

 

[skyzar]

or can i just uninstall sp2? i think it could be that ya know, because it was very recent when i installed sp2..ill try it thanks

 

[sealevel]

Did uninstall sp2, still the same problem. Read somewhere that sp2 indeed has a new approach to AGP cards, but it wasn't clear how this reflects on the current problem, why it only seems to whip the early series of 9600/9800 card, and why uninstalling doesn't fix things. Up till now i tried anything but formatting my disk and revert to sp1. Currently is prefer swallowing my pride, order a solid 5800 and forget it ever happened. Stuff like this gets me too cynical for my age.

 

[skyzar]

thats EXACTLY the same with me, except im going to reformat soon - however i can amazing play for an extra 30 seconds now before it restarts, so im thinking its to do with cooling and i too will go for 5800, its such a **** fan

 

[Liquidman]

I really don't know what I'm talking about here, but I had a restarting issue a while back and it turned out that all I had to do was switch the slots I had my memory in. When I was cruising the forums looking to fix my own problem with hl2; I found that some people fixed their crashing issues in hl2 by switching their memory slots. Might be worth a try, as it is a quick switch to make...

 

[skyzar]

guys....PERFECT! resinstalled my pc (formatted) -- btw 5 mins xp prof install with 3.2 ghz p4! , anyhow, installed xp steam blah blah, took great care not to update to sp2, and it works PUUUURRRRRRRFECT! no problem whatsoever..except when i formatted i didn't think it would work..so i didn't save my hl2 save --___-- more gaming i guess...so if u have 9000 series restarting problems don't install sp2, even when i uninstalled it, it did NOT work, so i HAD to format, and created a system restore point, thanks for all your help guys :giddy:

 

[satchmo]

Similar problem without SP2

I have a similar problem, but I've never installed SP2. From what I've heard, it's simply a bad idea to install SP2. It can cause all sorts of problems.

I still have the freezing/rebooting problem, and nothing seems to be able to solve the problem.

https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic22675.html