F
Fish
Hello all.
I installed my new ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Hercules 3D Prophet) graphics
card recently and I've been having a few problems with it. AFAIK
everything is fine when using normal apps, but when I play 3D games my
system will freeze after about 30 minutes. I thought this might be an
overheating problem, but I'm not sure now. I don't know whether I need
a new graphics card, motherboard, power supply or what? Here's my
system spec and what I've tried so far...
CPU: Athlon 2400XP @ 2GHz
MB: PC Chips M848A (Rev: 2.1) (SIS chipset)
RAM: 512 Mb (2100)
OS: XP with SP1
450 W PSU QTEC
Other Stuff:
1 DVD Writer
1 CD-ROM
60 Gb HD
80 Gb HD
3 Case Fans
ATI Drivers:
Catalyst 4.5
When my system freezes I usually need to reset my PC. Sometimes I get
an error message and I can get back to the desktop, in which case my
screen updates become very slow. According to the error message my
graphics card has stopped responding, and the graphics is handled in
software.
The first thing I tried was updating my drivers. I got the latest 9800
Pro drivers (Catalyst 4.5) and the latest chipset drivers for my
motherboard (from SIS). This made no difference, after about 30
minutes of gaming my system froze again.
Because of the 30 minutes before the crash, I though I might have an
overheating problem. To check this I removed one side of my PC case
and moved a case fan to help circulate the air near the 9800 Pro. If
overheating was the problem, I'd expect this to solve it, or at least
provide me with more than 30 minutes of use. But this time the system
froze after 7 minutes! That was from a cold start, so I guess
temperature isn't the problem?
The next thing I thought about was my power supply. My PSU is a 450W
QTEC, and it had been running my old system for a few months. My
previous graphics card was a GF4 Ti (AGP 8x), and I never had any
problems with it. I was hoping my upgrade to the 9800 Pro would just
be simple swap, but it's not turing out like that. I know the 9800 Pro
cards are power hungry, but I think 450W should be enough to handle
it? To check this I installed Motherboard Monitor 5, and the results
were, erm, odd. Here they are:
Line Voltage/V
=======================
CPU 1.65
+2.5 2.54
+3.3 2.49 to 2.59
+5.00 3.31 to 4.45
+12.00 4.65 to 10.21
-12.00 -2.58 to -8.71
-5.00 0
These readings show the range over a 30 minute interval. The readings
are so bad that I dismissed them as being nonsense. In case the load
of the 9800 Pro was somehow causing these fluctuations, I reinstalled
my old GF4 and repeated the measurements - they were the same (more or
less). Since Motherboard Monitor 5 is supposed to be compatible with
my motherboard (well, it appears in the list) I reckon that my
motherboard is probably just lying about the voltages. I checked my
PSU in a friend's PC (MSI motherboard) and the voltages are all right;
the only deviations were the +5.00 V line which read about 5.11 V, and
the +12.00 V line which read about 11.60 V.
So does this mean that my motherboard is faulty? I haven't updated my
BIOS yet because I don't like changing that unless I really have to.
Could updating my BIOS solve my problem? Or at least solve the strange
(and presumably wrong) readings from Motherboard Monitor 5?
More recently I tried reducing my AGP speed from 8x to 4x, and I
played a game for nearly 2 hours without any problems. I concluded
that it might be a problem that affects only AGP 8x. That said, my
previous graphics card used AGP 8x and that was fine - so that'd
suggest a problem with the 9800 Pro, or a compatibility problem
between the 9800 Pro and my SIS chipset? Anyway, I then switched back
to AGP 8x expecting my PC to crash after 30 minutes, but it didn't. It
crashed after 1 hour and 15 minutes! I concluded that my previous
conclusion was premature. Although I haven't had a system freeze while
in AGP 4x mode, I'm not convinced it won't happen (yet). I will stay
in AGP 4x mode for now to see what happens.
BTW, has anyone got a 9800 Pro working with a PC Chips M848A (rev
2.1)?
Now, I know the obvious conclusion is that my 9800 Pro card is faulty!
But is there a way I can be sure? The fact that the games work for 30
minutes or so shows that something must be OK.
I'm not sure what to try next. I'd begrudgingly buy another
motherboard to get things working, but I don't want to do it unless I
know it will fix things!
Does anyone have any insight or suggestions they could offer? I could
do with some expert advice!
Cheers.
I installed my new ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Hercules 3D Prophet) graphics
card recently and I've been having a few problems with it. AFAIK
everything is fine when using normal apps, but when I play 3D games my
system will freeze after about 30 minutes. I thought this might be an
overheating problem, but I'm not sure now. I don't know whether I need
a new graphics card, motherboard, power supply or what? Here's my
system spec and what I've tried so far...
CPU: Athlon 2400XP @ 2GHz
MB: PC Chips M848A (Rev: 2.1) (SIS chipset)
RAM: 512 Mb (2100)
OS: XP with SP1
450 W PSU QTEC
Other Stuff:
1 DVD Writer
1 CD-ROM
60 Gb HD
80 Gb HD
3 Case Fans
ATI Drivers:
Catalyst 4.5
When my system freezes I usually need to reset my PC. Sometimes I get
an error message and I can get back to the desktop, in which case my
screen updates become very slow. According to the error message my
graphics card has stopped responding, and the graphics is handled in
software.
The first thing I tried was updating my drivers. I got the latest 9800
Pro drivers (Catalyst 4.5) and the latest chipset drivers for my
motherboard (from SIS). This made no difference, after about 30
minutes of gaming my system froze again.
Because of the 30 minutes before the crash, I though I might have an
overheating problem. To check this I removed one side of my PC case
and moved a case fan to help circulate the air near the 9800 Pro. If
overheating was the problem, I'd expect this to solve it, or at least
provide me with more than 30 minutes of use. But this time the system
froze after 7 minutes! That was from a cold start, so I guess
temperature isn't the problem?
The next thing I thought about was my power supply. My PSU is a 450W
QTEC, and it had been running my old system for a few months. My
previous graphics card was a GF4 Ti (AGP 8x), and I never had any
problems with it. I was hoping my upgrade to the 9800 Pro would just
be simple swap, but it's not turing out like that. I know the 9800 Pro
cards are power hungry, but I think 450W should be enough to handle
it? To check this I installed Motherboard Monitor 5, and the results
were, erm, odd. Here they are:
Line Voltage/V
=======================
CPU 1.65
+2.5 2.54
+3.3 2.49 to 2.59
+5.00 3.31 to 4.45
+12.00 4.65 to 10.21
-12.00 -2.58 to -8.71
-5.00 0
These readings show the range over a 30 minute interval. The readings
are so bad that I dismissed them as being nonsense. In case the load
of the 9800 Pro was somehow causing these fluctuations, I reinstalled
my old GF4 and repeated the measurements - they were the same (more or
less). Since Motherboard Monitor 5 is supposed to be compatible with
my motherboard (well, it appears in the list) I reckon that my
motherboard is probably just lying about the voltages. I checked my
PSU in a friend's PC (MSI motherboard) and the voltages are all right;
the only deviations were the +5.00 V line which read about 5.11 V, and
the +12.00 V line which read about 11.60 V.
So does this mean that my motherboard is faulty? I haven't updated my
BIOS yet because I don't like changing that unless I really have to.
Could updating my BIOS solve my problem? Or at least solve the strange
(and presumably wrong) readings from Motherboard Monitor 5?
More recently I tried reducing my AGP speed from 8x to 4x, and I
played a game for nearly 2 hours without any problems. I concluded
that it might be a problem that affects only AGP 8x. That said, my
previous graphics card used AGP 8x and that was fine - so that'd
suggest a problem with the 9800 Pro, or a compatibility problem
between the 9800 Pro and my SIS chipset? Anyway, I then switched back
to AGP 8x expecting my PC to crash after 30 minutes, but it didn't. It
crashed after 1 hour and 15 minutes! I concluded that my previous
conclusion was premature. Although I haven't had a system freeze while
in AGP 4x mode, I'm not convinced it won't happen (yet). I will stay
in AGP 4x mode for now to see what happens.
BTW, has anyone got a 9800 Pro working with a PC Chips M848A (rev
2.1)?
Now, I know the obvious conclusion is that my 9800 Pro card is faulty!
But is there a way I can be sure? The fact that the games work for 30
minutes or so shows that something must be OK.
I'm not sure what to try next. I'd begrudgingly buy another
motherboard to get things working, but I don't want to do it unless I
know it will fix things!
Does anyone have any insight or suggestions they could offer? I could
do with some expert advice!
Cheers.