AIW 9800 Pro Questions

[Andrew MacLean]

Hello all,

I have a couple of questions with regards to my new ATI card. I am hoping
someone can help me.

1. I have a Dell Dimensions 8100 that has a 1.8MHz Pentium 4 processor and
768 MB of RAM. When I run the ATI Multimedia Center Configuration PC Check
Test, it tells me that MMX is not available and that I will be suffering for
it. Does the P4 not support the MMX extensions? I checked my BIOS, but
there doesn't appear to be anywhere to modify this setting.

2. I have been using the card for about a week now. Love it. I replaced
an old nVidia GeForce3 with it. However, I am seeing a problem that I have
experienced before, with every ATI card I have ever owned. Not just on this
system, but on every system I have ever used. After a while of running
Windows, it appears as though the video memory becomes full and the result
is that all my menus and popup menus turn black, with the exception of a
small white square in the upper left hand corner. If I move my mouse over
the menu, those items that are redrawn appear to correct themselves, but
those items that aren't redrawn remain. A reboot fixes this. The problem
appears after I have performed a large number of image redraws, such as
during slideshows, etc.

Does anyone have any idea as to why these two problems are occurring? Any
help is greatly appreciated. It's been a while since I've used ATI.

Thanks,

Andrew MacLean

 

[Cymbal Man Freq.]

What OS are you using? It could be a Windows Me POS glitch.

 

[Cymbal Man Freq.]

I have Windows 98SE myself, and I can't get through 75 slides without the
machine becoming vulnerable to needing a reboot. I think it is the System Heap
Memory (a function of Windows 95, 98, 98SE and Me at least: with no known cure),
those pointers in Windows that amount to say 64 kilobytes that gum up the works.
If I use Irfanview, the viewer will just stay black instead of bringing up a
picture when the machine has played enough photos and needs a reboot. Sometimes
running slideshows from a cd works better than from the hard drive, but not
always.

You describe that your screen goes black and objects get redrawn with your mouse
movement. A friend has a Windows Me computer and I've only seen that kind of
stuff on that machine, (he has an Nvidia card). I had a videogame on Windows
98SE that did that once, and I haven't played that game since. Definitely eeerie
though. Reboot! It's what I do a dozen times a day anyway at freakin' 5 to 10
minutes per reboot.

Maybe Windows XP has 2 to 4 times as much System Heap Memory as the previous
versions of Windows???

 

[Andrew MacLean]

Hi all.

Stupid me. I forgot to mention some of the more important details. I'm
running Windows XP Pro. At the time of my original post, I was using
Catalyst 3.9 drivers. On a lark, last night I uninstalled everything and
reinstalled 3.10 from a clean system. Not sure if this has fixed the
problem yet. It usually takes hundreds, if not thousands, of slides before
this problem occurs. Interestingly, the PC Check that comes with 3.10 no
longer tests for MMX, so I'm not sure what that means. The only things that
turn black are menus and popup menus. The desktop and application areas are
still visible.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[Andrew MacLean]

Okay, 3.10 didn't fix the problem.
It's still there. I'm still suffering with the black menu problem. As I
said, it seems to come after running low on system memory, or viewing large
numbers of images one after the other. It is either a leak in GDI memory,
or GPU memory. The thing is that until a week ago, I was running an old
nVidia GeForce3 which never exhibited this problem, so that's why I kind of
lean towards the video card as the problem.
I finally ran 3DMark '03, and my processor seems to be running just fine,
so I don't think the MMX problem was real. I suspect that since ATI removed
the test from the latest drivers that it was probably screwed up in the
first place.
Again, any help with the menu problem is greatly appreciated. Since I
have had this with every single ATI I have ever owned, I have to assume that
it is fairly widespread, though I am having problems finding other reports
of it.

Thanks,

Andrew MacLean

 

[Cymbal Man Freq.]

Look up GDI in google and find out what you can about it. I've had GDI problems
lately, but I'm ignoring them as best as I can. I think one article said to
reinstall Windows. I don't even want to contemplate that. If you're getting 750
pics seen before the machine crashes, I'd say you're doing well (pat Win XP on
the back for getting you that far). But yeah, if your other card didn't crash,
what gives?