Radeon 9600 pro - totally unstable

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dominik Jain
  • Start date Start date
D

Dominik Jain

Hello everyone,

I have recently acquired a Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9600pro (using driver
ver. 7.94 on Win2k).
Ever since, quite regularly, applications just freeze and the screen is
garbled. Then, the screen turns black and is shortly thereafter restored,
with graphics performace dropping drastically. I've also had several blue
screens and unrecoverable freezes that left me no choice but to reboot.
None of this ever happened before the graphics card was upgraded; my system
was totally stable.

Any ideas on how this can be fixed? It seems that the Radeon drivers are
hardly acceptable. Stability being my key concern, it is needless to say
that I am very disappointed with my first ATI card.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

cheers!
 
Dominik said:
Hello everyone,

I have recently acquired a Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9600pro (using driver
ver. 7.94 on Win2k).
Ever since, quite regularly, applications just freeze and the screen is
garbled. Then, the screen turns black and is shortly thereafter restored,
with graphics performace dropping drastically. I've also had several blue
screens and unrecoverable freezes that left me no choice but to reboot.
None of this ever happened before the graphics card was upgraded; my
system was totally stable.

Any ideas on how this can be fixed? It seems that the Radeon drivers are
hardly acceptable. Stability being my key concern, it is needless to say
that I am very disappointed with my first ATI card.
Click to expand...

Could be the extra draw on your PSU causing problems. What make and wattage
is it? More to the point, whats the current avaliable on the 12V rail?

What CPU/RAM/Motherboard/Chipset?

Did you use det destroyer to get rid of the old geforce drivers (if you came
from nVidia)?

Ben
 
Ben Pope said:
Could be the extra draw on your PSU causing problems. What make and
wattage is it? More to the point, whats the current avaliable on the
12V rail?

What CPU/RAM/Motherboard/Chipset?
Click to expand...

If those are common symptoms related to power, it most certainly is the
power supply... I only have 235W, which could be too little for the
following:
- duron 1200
- asus a7v (kt133)
- 2 hdd's, 7200rpm
- dvd-rw
- 512mb pc133
- hauppauge tv card
- network card
- soundcard
- and of course, the radeon
Did you use det destroyer to get rid of the old geforce drivers (if
you came from nVidia)?
Click to expand...

I came from 3dfx (voodoo3). :)

How much more power does the radeon draw compared to that voodoo3?
Well, I guess I won't get around spending some more money on a new power
supply...

cheers!
 
Dominik said:
If those are common symptoms related to power, it most certainly is the
power supply... I only have 235W, which could be too little for the
following:
Click to expand...

Arghhh!! Buy a new PSU now! I'll guarantee thats your problem :-)

I suggest either a good 350W or a cheapo (that doesn't mean crap :-) 450W
(or probably somewhere in between). If you're planning on going Athlon XP
and new mobo at some point, add a good 50W to 100W to that for a good safety
margin.
- duron 1200
- asus a7v (kt133)
- 2 hdd's, 7200rpm
- dvd-rw
- 512mb pc133
- hauppauge tv card
- network card
- soundcard
- and of course, the radeon


I came from 3dfx (voodoo3). :)
Click to expand...

Good man, me too :-)
How much more power does the radeon draw compared to that voodoo3?
Well, I guess I won't get around spending some more money on a new power
supply...
Click to expand...

More... enough to cause you problems. The 9800 (R350) is ~70W, IIRC. The
9600 (RV350) should be a little down on that as it's 0.13 not 0.15, but
wouldn't expect it to be less than 50W. No idea what the Voodoo would have
been.

Ben
 
Ben said:
More... enough to cause you problems. The 9800 (R350) is ~70W, IIRC.
The 9600 (RV350) should be a little down on that as it's 0.13 not
0.15, but wouldn't expect it to be less than 50W. No idea what the
Voodoo would have been.
Click to expand...

Well, i'd upgrade the PSU of course (indeed about 350 of a good brand, or
400 for a B-brand. DOnt go for a C-brand, if you get my drift ;-) ), but
also check if you have the lastest mainboard drivers installed
(http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2)
And if the BIOS for your mainboard is a bit prehistoric, that might be a
problem too.

Thomas.
 
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