Graphics card error?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ThorHound
  • Start date Start date
T

ThorHound

Hi! This is my first visit here and I hope you guys are able to hel
me. I REALLY need help with a problem i think might be related to m
graphics card

My music making PC
- AMD Athlon XP 3000
- 2 x 512 Mb DDR PC270
- ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe (MB) (latest drivers
- ASUS Radeon A9600 (latest drivers
- 2 x Maxtor 120 Gb S-AT

After having an unstable PC for a couple of years i decided to star
all over and install WinXP fresh. It now runs without any BODS but
had to disable L1 & L2 CPU cache to be able to install XP (o
else a NON_PAGE_DEFAULT came up). Service Pack 1 and updates (n
security updates) were downloaded on an other computer and installe
in order to avoid the internet, so no anti-virus either

Since I have suspected a graphics card error I am trying to instal
and run various games to see if I can pinpoint an error. I firs
tried Halo (shutdown after 10 secs - 2 min. + error message) but rea
alot about people having problems with it on PC so I decided to tr
something else. Then I tried Halflife and experienced that the gam
would shut down (after 2 - 5 min.) with the windows error message.
managed to save the appcompat.exe file containing the error detail
but I am not connected to the internet so there was nowhere to sen
it. I don't understand what it says, do any of you guys know how t
read this? I'll post it here if you want

I bought the components to the computer and put it together myself s
I don't want to send all the components back to the store because i
might cost me alot of money (which I don't have plenty of at th
moment). I would really appreciate any pointers in this situation

Thanks

JA

www.digicoustic.co
 
Are you overclocking?

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[email protected] said:
Hi! This is my first visit here and I hope you guys are able to help
me. I REALLY need help with a problem i think might be related to my
graphics card .

My music making PC:
- AMD Athlon XP 3000+
- 2 x 512 Mb  DDR PC2700
- ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe (MB) (latest drivers)
- ASUS Radeon A9600 (latest drivers)
- 2 x Maxtor 120 Gb S-ATA

After having an unstable PC for a couple of years i decided to start
all over and install WinXP fresh. It now runs without any BODS but I
had to disable L1 & L2 CPU cache to be able to install XP (or
else a NON_PAGE_DEFAULT came up). Service Pack 1 and updates (no
security updates) were downloaded on an other computer and installed
in order to avoid the internet, so no anti-virus either.

Since I have suspected a graphics card error I am trying to install
and run various games to see if I can pinpoint an error . I first
tried Halo (shutdown after 10 secs - 2 min. + error message) but read
alot about people having problems with it on PC so I decided to try
something else. Then I tried Halflife and experienced that the game
would shut down (after 2 - 5 min.) with the windows error message. I
managed to save the appcompat.exe file containing the error details
but I am not connected to the internet so there was nowhere to send
it. I don't understand what it says, do any of you guys know how to
read this? I'll post it here if you want.

I bought the components to the computer and put it together myself so
I don't want to send all the components back to the store because it
might cost me alot of money (which I don't have plenty of at the
moment). I would really appreciate any pointers in this situation!

Thanks!

JAB
Click to expand...

The first thing you should do with a new PC, is run memtest86+ from
memtest.org . (Run about two full passes, which takes maybe an
hour or two.) You do that before you install Windows.

If you don't feel like doing that, try running the computer with only
one stick of RAM. (Running with one stick is less stressful for the
Northbridge, and sometimes drops the error rate on the memory.)
Your Nforce2 chipset really shouldn't be having a problem running
the memory at 166MHz. On my machine, the problems started at 185MHz
memory clock (DDR370) in dual channel, and the fix for me, was some
nice CAS2 PC3200 memory. Now I can run full DDR400 in dual channel.

Your problem could be a graphics card one. But to isolate the
issues, try running the Prime95 (mersenne.org) torture test
option. That test works the CPU and memory very hard, and
doesn't do anything to the video card. If Prime95 is passing
for hours, without an error, then it suggests the video card
is the more likely culprit. (Let it run overnight. A really
bad computer will error out in 5 minutes.) I don't really know
of any test programs that test a video card in a methodical way,
so don't know how exactly you can prove you have an AGP slot or a
video card problem.

I've used both a 9800pro and a FX5200 on my board, and didn't
notice any problems with them, with respect to the chipset.
As long as you remove the drivers before changing cards of
course.

Since the A7N8X-E Deluxe powers the CPU from the +5V rail,
your power supply should be rated for 5V @ 20A minimum. If
you were using the 9800pro, I'd bump that up to 5V @ 25A.
There is much less consumption on the 12V rail on the board.

Paul
 
Hi guys, thanks for your replies.

Firstly, no overclocking.

I just tried my graphics card in another computer and it worked just
fine. I also tried another graphics card in my computer and it failed
in the same ways so i guess that rules out the graphics.

I have tried the memtest86+ overnight (with WINXP installed though)
without any problems. I actually sent back my previous chips some
time ago because i was getting errors through memtest but now they
seem fine. Any point in trying this without Win installed now?

Reading off my PSU (340W): 5V - 35A so that should be sufficient?

I'll try Prime95 now and see what happens.

Thanks again for your input.

JAB
 
I ran Prime95 and I got errors.

The results.txt file reads:

[Sat May 27 16:06:14 2006]
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.4999923706, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
[Sat May 27 16:13:56 2006]
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.4999923706, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.4999847412, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
[Sat May 27 16:24:58 2006]
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.4971916676, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.

These errors came very quickly during test 1: Lucas-Lehmer iterations
1024K and 8K FFT lengths.

They look like calculation errors, does this mean my CPU may be bad?
Cooling perhaps?
 
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