Common ATI/VIA Chipset Problem

mystik_G · Dec 29, 2004, 11:32 PM

Hey Guys,

I've got a Radeon 9600xt and an ASUS P4V800-X with a VIA PT800/VT8237 chipset.

Ever since I bought this computer (nearly a year ago), I've had problems with it crashing in games. If my memory serves me right, my computer was more stable when I first bought it compared to how stable it is now. The older drivers for my hardware probably caused less problems. I gathered this information, mainly from playing one game, Commandos 3.

When I bought Commandos 3 a few months ago it used to crash/freeze within a few minutes, and the sound that I heard just before it froze would keep repeating itself (ie a gun shot, or music playing looping over and over again). I would then have to use the reset button on my computer to be able to get back to windows. But if I turned my agp speed down from 8x to 4x in the smartgart settings, it usually prevented the crashing from happening.

These days, the problem is worse. The exact same thing occurs except that it takes less time to crash. On 8x agp speed the game crashes within a few seconds, and on 4x it crashes within about 15 minutes. So I guess agp speed only slows down the time it takes for my computer to crash in this game. 0x agp speed would probably slow it down even more, but I don't want to be playing games in 0x so I haven't bothered trying it.

Games such as HL2 also crash in the same way, but they usually take about 2-3 hours to crash.

I've searched several forums to try and resolve my issue, but nothing has worked so far. The most common solution that people have recommended is to turn agp speed down to 4x, turn fast write off and turn vpu recover off. This solution worked for me when I first got Commandos 3, but now it doesn't. Recently, I downloaded the latest ati omega drivers, but this didn't seem to resolve the issue. Any other possible solutions would be much appreciated.

Dyre Straits · Dec 30, 2004, 04:57 AM

I had a really bad time of this when I first installed my new ABIT VT7 a couple months ago. It's VIA-based, too.

The one suggestion that helped more than any.....but still not a 100% success.....is this:

1. Change your Pagefile settings to the same MAX/MIN. (If you have more than one hard drive, I'd put it on the non-system drive.)

2. Change your AGP Aperture setting to One Half the amount of system RAM you have installed. (I had to select 512 MB for my system.)

A few others said that NOT installing any Hyperion drivers and/or using OLDER 4-in-1 drivers eliminated or helped the problem.

Good luck! If you do find a Cure All, let us know!

clewis4u91 · Dec 30, 2004, 04:01 PM

Can you explain how to do this?

riles9262 · Dec 30, 2004, 05:50 PM

the pagefile tip is done through the system option in control panel (also called virtual memory). Agp aperture is changed in your motherboard bios. And for me with a via board, my system has run the best with the 4.49 version of via's drivers, or the windows xp defaults. Any newer and I get funny crashing.

Dyre Straits · Dec 30, 2004, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clewis4u91

Can you explain how to do this?

1. Pagefile (Virtual Memory) Settings: Right click on the My Computer icon and select Properties OR double click on System icon in Control Panel; Select the Advanced tab; at the Performance option select Settings button; Next click on the Advanced tab. At the bottom of the options is the Pagefile/Virtual Memory settings.

2. AGP Aperture, as stated above, is set through the system BIOS.

mystik_G · Dec 30, 2004, 09:40 PM

Thx for the help. I changed my agp aperture size to the maximum my bios would allow it to go (256mb). Commandos 3 still crashes after only changing this one setting.

I wasn't sure what to change my virtual memory settings too. I've got 1gb of ram like you straits, so what value have you made your min/max settings? Is it 1536mb or 3072mb? I'll probably put the values onto 1 of my other partitions D: or E:

If this doesn't work, I'll try installing older hyperion 4-in-1 drivers.

gawf2004 · Dec 30, 2004, 10:10 PM

I don't know if it's right, but my virtual memory is set at 800

mystik_G · Dec 31, 2004, 08:55 AM

After a long process of trial and elimination I finally resolved my issue

. Ths issue I had is definitely a problem with Via's later range of 4-in-1 Hyperion drivers. All I know is that I played Commandos 3 on agp speed 4x with the via hyperion 4-in-1 4.49 drivers (rather than the latest 4.55 drivers) and the original microsoft agp drivers. The game ran perfect with no crashes for an hour and a half

. A huge improvement on the original 15 minutes it took my computer to crash in this game with the 4.55 drivers.

Thanks a lot Dyre Straits and riles9262. If it wasn't for you guys I either would have never fixed this problem, or it would've have taken me an extremely long time to find out how to fix it by myself. You guys saved me a lot of time and frustration. You guys are great.