Problems with ATI Radeon 9600xt

dr_flog · Jun 17, 2004, 03:10 AM

Hi,
I have a weird prob with my Sapphire Radeon 9600xt (Fireblade). Some games, like HALO or RETURN TO CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN, run just fine for hours. Most others however (e.g. MAX PAYNE, SERIOUS SAM) will crash sooner or later, giving me colorfull vertical stripes on the screen and then after a sec it looses the video signal completely leaving me in the dark. The crash will happen always at the same point for each game. When I lower the video options (e.g. lower resolution) the crash will happen a little later in the game. Here is what I have tried already:

-Different driver versions from ATI and OMEGA (including latest 2.5.44)
-latest MOBO drivers
-Fastwrite on/off
-Underclocking

Here is my system:

-WinXP Home
- AMD AthlonXP 1.4 GHz
-VIA KT266a chipset
-512 MB RAM

Anybody help

?

sk3 · Jun 17, 2004, 04:33 AM

i have a similiar problem and i think it's from my power supply. my specs:

Pentium 4 2.8 HT
1024 MB DDR 400
MSI Neo-675P
Windows XP SP1
GeCube Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB
Power Supply: 300W

i think my crashes on some games came from the power supply, since it's very low voltage for my system

sk3 · Jun 17, 2004, 04:35 AM

ouch i've made a mistake on my MOBO spec.

It is MSI 875P 875P Neo-LSR.

dr_flog · Jun 17, 2004, 04:49 AM

Yeah, I have a 300W PSU and thought about this, but if it was the PSU, I would think that I ought to see more randomness in the crashes. In any case, is there any way to double check this suggestion other than buying a new PSU and trying it out?

sk3 · Jun 17, 2004, 04:52 AM

i think changed the PSU yet. but one issue i've got is that i cannot use AGP 8x because it crashes my system randomly. But i still can play more or less with AGP 4x with fast writes OFF of course. can you play with AGP 8x ?

Gizmo[5h1t3] · Jun 17, 2004, 05:37 AM

dunno if it will help...but my 9800xt had similar problems.
i solved it by changing the power supply from the psu....from a branch off connector, to a direct feed from the power supply.
i had it shared with te hard drives molex.....so it was prolly draining power from the card.
now i have power coming direct from the psu....not shared...and it works fine.

sk3 · Jun 17, 2004, 06:07 AM

so... it seems that the problem is from the PSU after all... i'll need to buy one, but i'll buy a 500W PSU this time

dr_flog · Jun 17, 2004, 08:01 AM

I still doubt that it is the PSU. I can play some games (even DX 9) for hours and no prob. Is there any way to monitor power consumption levels via software?The AGP settings have nothing to do with it. My board only supports 4x anyways

dr_flog · Jun 17, 2004, 09:15 AM

A new suggestion from a friend is that this might be a memory issue. This could explain, why the games crash later when I lower the resolution. I will do some memory checking tomorrow and let this thread know. Thanks for all input so far.

dr_flog · Jun 22, 2004, 01:59 PM

Ok. I found the problem. It's an "infinite loop"-type of error. Not sure yet how to solve it, but at least I know it's not the graphics card. I am off now to search the net for more info.