Sapphire 9600 on Via KT 333 chipset board

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jim
  • Start date Start date
J

Jim

I've run out of ideas with this combination. The card works fine for 2D
but most 3d stuff has problems including crashes, vertical blue and black
bars or the display looking like sand with onlt a few recognizable features.
The 3Dmark 2001 tests up to high polygon count run fine but most of the rest
crash leaving a fragmented display. The system benches fine in non 3D
stuff. The video card works fine on my A7n8X board. Power supply looks
good, heat is fine. System is Win98SE, have tried may versions of the Cat
drivers upto 4.1. Via drivers have been updated to 4.52 (or maybe 4.51).

I have tried many bios setting including fast writes on and off, AGP 2x and
4X. and some of the PCI timings. Nothing makes any difference.


All ideas welcome.

A Frustrated Man

Jim
 
Thanks for the reply. I checked for a newer bios and there is one newer
version. The notes only show added CPU support but I'll give it a try
anyway.

Do you know if I can get a bios update for a Sapphire video card ?

Thanks Again
Jim
 
I've run out of ideas with this combination. The card works fine for 2D
but most 3d stuff has problems including crashes, vertical blue and black
bars or the display looking like sand with onlt a few recognizable features.
The 3Dmark 2001 tests up to high polygon count run fine but most of the rest
crash leaving a fragmented display. The system benches fine in non 3D
stuff.
Click to expand...
The video card works fine on my A7n8X board.
Click to expand...

Different Box? Probably has larger P.S.?
Power supply looks good,
Click to expand...

What does this mean? My guess is that the P.S. isn't powerful enough.
What you're seeing can be caused by too weak of P.S.
Only you know what size/brand you have. You'll only know if that's
the problem if you take the time to swap it out for a more powerful
one. Go for a name brand one too. They are not all created equal. :)

heat is fine. System is Win98SE, have tried may versions of the Cat
drivers upto 4.1. Via drivers have been updated to 4.52 (or maybe 4.51).

I have tried many bios setting including fast writes on and off, AGP 2x and
4X. and some of the PCI timings. Nothing makes any difference.


All ideas welcome.

A Frustrated Man

Jim
Click to expand...
Rags
 
I have already swapped the supply for a more powerful one. I use MBM 5 to
log the power supply voltages and they appear to be within spec and very
steady. I will try yanking another one from a different box and see if that
helps.

Thanks
 
Tried a 3rd larger supply with the same results. Maybe the motherboard is
not getting enough power to the AGP slot ???

I think ill dig up another drive and try again from scratch or maybe an XP
load.
 
Jim said:
I've run out of ideas with this combination. The card works fine
for 2D but most 3d stuff has problems including crashes, vertical
blue and black bars or the display looking like sand with onlt a few
recognizable features. The 3Dmark 2001 tests up to high polygon
count run fine but most of the rest crash leaving a fragmented
display. The system benches fine in non 3D stuff. The video card
works fine on my A7n8X board. Power supply looks good, heat is
fine. System is Win98SE, have tried may versions of the Cat drivers
upto 4.1. Via drivers have been updated to 4.52 (or maybe 4.51).

I have tried many bios setting including fast writes on and off, AGP
2x and 4X. and some of the PCI timings. Nothing makes any
difference.


All ideas welcome.

A Frustrated Man

Jim
Click to expand...

Using Motherboard Monitor what does the voltage show on your AGP ...
should be 1.5 volts ... is it fluctuating or steady?

regards

@ndrew
 
@ndrew said:
Using Motherboard Monitor what does the voltage show on your AGP ...
should be 1.5 volts ... is it fluctuating or steady?

regards

@ndrew
Click to expand...

Not knowing anything about this particular board could be 1.55 volts o)

regards

@ndrew
 
MBM 5 doesnt show AGP voltages. But the 1.5v for AGP is only for signalling
and I would not think the problem would be there.
The card pobably draws a lot on the 5 and 12v rails though and the board may
nor be delivering enough.

Since my last post I have formatted the drive and reinstalled Win98 and all
of the drivers etc. 3dMark2001SE still crashes the Nature test
and the High polygon test but now instead of a hard lock and corrupted
display it exits to the desktop. I guess that better. I did note that
the demo portion of the program runs fine even at 1024x768 and 4x anti
alasing enabled. Its odd that the Nature part of the demo runs fine
but the Nature Test crashes. My son is in reinstalling some games to see
if they run any better.
 
MBM 5 doesnt show AGP voltages. But the 1.5v for AGP is only for signalling
and I would not think the problem would be there.
The card pobably draws a lot on the 5 and 12v rails though and the board may
nor be delivering enough.

Since my last post I have formatted the drive and reinstalled Win98 and all
of the drivers etc. 3dMark2001SE still crashes the Nature test
and the High polygon test but now instead of a hard lock and corrupted
display it exits to the desktop. I guess that better. I did note that
the demo portion of the program runs fine even at 1024x768 and 4x anti
alasing enabled. Its odd that the Nature part of the demo runs fine
but the Nature Test crashes. My son is in reinstalling some games to see
if they run any better.
Click to expand...
Have you tried the Omega drivers? Couldn't hurt.
 
Jim said:
MBM 5 doesnt show AGP voltages. But the 1.5v for AGP is only for
signalling and I would not think the problem would be there.
The card pobably draws a lot on the 5 and 12v rails though and the
board may nor be delivering enough.

Since my last post I have formatted the drive and reinstalled Win98
and all of the drivers etc. 3dMark2001SE still crashes the Nature
test and the High polygon test but now instead of a hard lock and
corrupted display it exits to the desktop. I guess that better. I
did note that the demo portion of the program runs fine even at
1024x768 and 4x anti alasing enabled. Its odd that the Nature part of
the demo runs fine but the Nature Test crashes. My son is in
reinstalling some games to see if they run any better.
Click to expand...


If the signalling is not right you have problems anyway .. what power
supply are you running?

regards

@ndrew
 
The first one was a generic 300 w cheapo. The voltages were unstabal.
The second one was a PowerMan 300W model , The 12v was a little low but
within spec and all voltages were very stabal. The Third ond was a Sparkle
Power 350W model that is the most stabal supply I have ever seen, you would
think the monitoring software was broken the voltages dont change more than
about .1 volts.

The first supply was not of highe enough quality so I took it out. The 2nd
and 3rd both work great but the card still has problems. I put the 2nd one
back on.

The 1.5 volt for AGP must come from the motherboard and I dont know were to
check it. I did a bit of checking and the failing nature test draws the
most power of all the tests but the nature part of the demo (which draws
about the same power) runs fine.

The only real test is some real games. The Unreal engine games seemed to
cause the most problems before so I'll have my son try those out.


Thanks for your help.

Jim
 
Jim said:
The first one was a generic 300 w cheapo. The voltages were
unstabal. The second one was a PowerMan 300W model , The 12v was a
little low but within spec and all voltages were very stabal. The
Third ond was a Sparkle Power 350W model that is the most stabal
supply I have ever seen, you would think the monitoring software was
broken the voltages dont change more than about .1 volts.

The first supply was not of highe enough quality so I took it out.
The 2nd and 3rd both work great but the card still has problems. I
put the 2nd one back on.

The 1.5 volt for AGP must come from the motherboard and I dont know
were to check it. I did a bit of checking and the failing nature
test draws the most power of all the tests but the nature part of the
demo (which draws about the same power) runs fine.

The only real test is some real games. The Unreal engine games seemed
to cause the most problems before so I'll have my son try those out.


Thanks for your help.

Jim
Click to expand...


THe power supply is a vital link in the chain for modern video cards ..
they are real power hogs .. I use an Antec 400w for mine with no
problems .. dleivers heaps of power to the board .. can I suggest that
rather than go to the expense of buying a new power supply that you
stick your card in another computer to test it (find a friend with a
brand name large power supply and see how you go .. I still think this
is hardware related and not your card btw.

regards

@ndrew
 
Hi Andrew

Your right about the card. I know the card works, I have five machines at
home and have tried it in an A7N8x board and it works fine.
I think the card may have issues with the motherboard though rather than a
power supply issue. The system runs
non video benches fine and I have run burn in wizzards without problems, run
2d stuff all day and run the 3dmark2001
demo without problems. Certain 3dMark tests will crash it instantly every
time, to me it sounds like an AGP implementation issue
rather than power. If it were power related it would be more random unless
the supply was way under rated in which case I would be
having problems in the other stuff and it would be showing up in MBM 5's log
file.

I am a service tech and know that to get anything to work the power has to
be good but many people get caught up in the huge power
supply thing. Myself I usually will get a good brand in a reasonable size
for the box. This box is running a 1400 CPU with only 1 hard drive
a CDrom and a floppy. Its not a monster machine. The Sparkle supply that
I tested with had been running one of my main boxes with a
2400 CPU, 2 hard drives, a DVD burner, SCSI card, NIC, several USB devices
and my 9800Pro card. I only swapped it out to get a quite one.
Everyone would tell you that that was way too small but in the real world it
worked fine.

Best Regards

Jim
 
Back
Top