toksai

I'd had the x1650 pro AGP card for several months when all of a sudden my games (battlefield 2142, unreal tournament 3, half-life 2) would crash to a black screen and computer would freeze after anywhere from 1 to 45 minutes of playing. It would usually happen when there was a loud explosion or sound event and the sound would loop, the screen would go black, and the computer would become unresponsive. At that point I would have to reset the computer.

Since then I've tried installing every driver imaginable, tried every bios setting known to man and got so frustrated I wiped the hard drive and re-installed XP SP3 only to be met with the same issue. I had the video card memory tested and it perfect. System RAM and PSU tested and all fine. I'd spent 10+ hours on forums searching and even sent in a ticket to ATI thinking I might have a bad video card.
The only thing that helped a bit was using the Omega drivers based on the 7.12 Catalyst drivers. But they only delayed the crashing from happening.
FINALLY I FOUND THE SOLUTION!

So I thought I'd share it with you. It turned out to have nothing to do with drivers or hardware. It was my PSU connection to the video card. I had it running through both of my hard drives and then into the x1650. So every time the video card and hard drives had lots of activity it would tank the card because it would have a dip in the current it was drawing.

So I made an adapter to go from my dedicated video card power line. I didn't use it previously because it was the larger molex connector and I didn't have a converter to go to the smaller one the x1650 uses. Hooked it up and everything runs smooth as butter. After hours and hours of non stop gaming, benchmarks, etc it has never crashed again or had any problems whatsoever.

I'm so relieved it works now!
Can't believe nobody has mentioned this as a solution before. Just make sure that whatever power you have plugged into the video card has nothing else on it (hard drives, fans, dvd-rom, etc.) Hopes this helps some of you other ATI sufferers out there.

archngel

hi, i also have the same problem and i've tried all the other solutions including yours. i've tried playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance and after 5-10 mins my PC goes into a lockup / crashes! HELP!

I've tried the following:
* Give the X1650 a dedicated power supply (no other connections from HD, drives, etc etc
* Replaced the ATI catalyst drivers with the Omega ones
* Checked temps - they all check out fine
* Cleaned the cooling fans and all

BUT STILL THE PROBLEM PERSISTS! I need help!

These are my specs:
ASROCK Mobo 775I65G
Intel Pentium D 2.66Ghz
1Gig DDR-400
2 units HD @ 80Gigs each (took apart my old PC's and transferred the HD's, hehehe)
2 units Drives - 1 Combo Drive and 1 DVD Writer Radeon X1650 PRO AGP 512MB

Hope someone can help me!

Dyre Straits

Welcome to DriverHeaven.

Seeing as this is your only post, so far, you're quite mistaken that no one has made the point of having dedicated power to the video card. We here at DH make this comment and advise consistently. It's one of the main points we make when troubleshooting lockups, system freezes, etc.

We also make a point of suggesting that the PSU be of a substantial quality and AMP rating -- not just WATT rating -- so that the video card gets enough power of and by itself.

Your comment, then, is in error and it needs to be pointed out that you may not have gotten this lack of advice from DH. I know that, among others, I've clearly made this point time and time again.

Cheers!

__________________
Please Read My Reviews:

ThermoHAWK200 Touchless Thermometer<~>ULTRA 800W Pro AST<~>ULTRA 800W X-FINITY AST<~>CoolerMaster Mystique 632 PC Case<~>CoolerMaster GeminII CPU Cooler<~>CoolIT RAM Fan<~>Hour of Victory Interview<~>Oblivion:Shivering Isles<~>ULTRA GRID PC Case w/700W PSU<~>Saitek-Obsidian Mouse
<~>Interview: The Witcher PC Game<~>CoolerMaster CM Media 281 PC Case<~>ZEROTherm NV120 CPU Cooler

Important Message:

How You Can Help DriverHeaven!

toksai

Yes you are quite right Dyre Straits. Sorry to have re-posted about dedicated power supply line. I was just very excited at the time. Well I still have occasional crashes but not nearly as often and can go for several hours now without a crash.
So the dedicated power helped but didn't fix the problem entirely. Personally I'm convinced its a hardware issue on the video card itself. I had a couple of episodes where I suffered complete screen corruption during POST and Windows. Drivers would have nothing to do with that. I contacted ATI and after going through rigorous testing they also believe it to be a hardware issue on the video card. Unfortunately my warranty just expired so I doubt they'll give me a reaplacement. Next time I'm going with Nvidia.

Dyre Straits

Apology accepted.

And, since the X1650 series is quite out-dated at this point, it's really about time to upgrade anyway.

Good luck on your next choice of video cards.

__________________
Please Read My Reviews:

ThermoHAWK200 Touchless Thermometer<~>ULTRA 800W Pro AST<~>ULTRA 800W X-FINITY AST<~>CoolerMaster Mystique 632 PC Case<~>CoolerMaster GeminII CPU Cooler<~>CoolIT RAM Fan<~>Hour of Victory Interview<~>Oblivion:Shivering Isles<~>ULTRA GRID PC Case w/700W PSU<~>Saitek-Obsidian Mouse
<~>Interview: The Witcher PC Game<~>CoolerMaster CM Media 281 PC Case<~>ZEROTherm NV120 CPU Cooler

Important Message:

How You Can Help DriverHeaven!

GigaWatt

well, nVidia have proven to be more stable than ATI cards, depends which manufacturer though... but still, in most cases they are more stable and reliable...

ATI (AMD) cards on the other hand have a very good performance/price ratio... i guess the card that you are going to buy depends on what you have planned to do with it...

anyway, this was the first time i've read that dedicated power can solve crashes of a GFX card... it's nice to know, could come in handy...

__________________
It's not schisophrenia... it's just a voice in my head...

toksai

Just an Update on this.
ATI gave me one last RMA, those nice guys, even though my original warranty was out by 3 months. They rushed me out a brand new x1650 PRO AGP and guess what?
No more problems whatsoever. It was definitely a hardware issue on the card itself. One thing I notice on this card is that the fan speed is set to 100% all the time. So its noisy but its works great!
I think what happened on the old card is that it overheated because of the automatic fan speed thing which was implemented on the older versions of the card and damaged one of the components so that is why all these cards now have the fans set to full speed all the time. So if there are other sufferers out there who have tried everything to fix their x1650 issues I'm betting your card is fried and needs replacing. If your lucky like me they'll replace it for free

Ice-Wolph

I am having the same problem with my ATI Radeon x1650 Pro IceQ 512mb 128bit AGP Video Card. I play games for 1-45 minutes and then my computer screen either A) goes black and my monitor goes into sleep mode, B) my game freezes and then 20 seconds later I get vertical lines on my screen and I get the looped sounds, or C) My Monitor says "No Signal".

I have played around with CCC and turned off the PCI settings, and that actually fixed it for about 3 days, and then it started again. I found a setting on my Power Supply that changes the Volts from 115v to 230v (Zumex 600w). I already had a dedicated line from my Power Supply to my Gfx Card. I just installed the latest Catalyst Driver, and it still freezes after 1-45 mins of play (I actually play Combat Arms, which I noticed sponsors the skin for DH.).

I am only 16 and bought my Video Card and Powersupply about 3-4 months ago, and about a week into having them this started happening...I used-up a whole months pay just to be able to buy them ($180.00), so I was pretty ticked off.

I have a better job right now and am working on about $100-$140/week. I love video-games, I have a PS3, but prefer computer games online. I have COD4, Battlefield 2, I play Combat-Arms, I also have Oblivion aswell but since my video card always crashes I don't play that much anymore.

If anyone has any information that could help me out or fix my problem, and make it so that a 16 year-old could understand it, I would pretty much love you, Lol JK.

Thanks, and I was going to make a new Topic, but seeing as I have found about 10 different topics about x1650's I pretty much didn't want to post anymore.

GigaWatt

just please don't change that switch from it's default setting... unless you want the rig to go up in smoke...

__________________
It's not schisophrenia... it's just a voice in my head...

toksai

Since you have only had it a couple of months I'd go online and request Warranty service (RMA). All ATI cards have at least a 1 year warranty. Trust me I tried everything to get mine to work and nothing worked except getting a new card. The only thing I'd try before sending it in for service is to download "ATI Tray Tools" and crank the Fan speed up to 100% all the time and then play your games and see if it still crashes on you. Good luck!

Ice-Wolph

Toksai, I downloaded the ATT and I tried to change the fan speed, and when I click on Hardware/Overclocking Settings.../Fan/ I see a page that says "No Supported Hardware found." Does that mean it's not reading my fan as actually being there? I tried before to change the fan speed by going into the actual files, and I couldn't find it there either. So I'm thinking maybe my fan is busted or something. I will contact ATI and see if I can get another card.

xProg

Install the latest beta of this program

Judas

just out of curiosity..

what is the 12v rail ratings on that psu....

if there is more then 1 12v rail..... post each rating..

no rail should be below 15amp... and thier combined rating shouldn't be below that of 30amp if possible.....36amp would be preferred.

__________________

toksai

Hmm interesting. Did you install the Omega drivers as well? Thats what I am using.

Kaplan

Exactly... don't just go by your PSU's watts, go by the 12v rails. That doesn't mean forget about the watts completely though, many companies advertise a PSU as being many watts higher than it actually is (I have even heard of cases where it's down to half of what it is advertised).

When you start your PC, you can go to your bios to check your fan speeds, temps, rails etc. Just spam delete or whichever key your default is (it usually states it at the bottom of the screen) and go to PC Health Status. It will list your rails and their specs, and what they are actually operating at. This has helped me a lot in the past. I find if the +12v rail is rated as 11.70 or lower, it can have instability. (to each is own)

One last thing, there is a good site for giving a greater than rough estimate on what to look for in a PSU in terms of watts in general, someone linked me to this not so long ago. eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Lite v2.5

I would heavilly consider the capacitor aging and CPU utilization. Personally I set the CPU to 100% and capacitor aging to 20%, even for buying a new one just to leave room in the future. As for system load, it's probably best to set that to 100% if you are a gamer, best to be safe.

This turned into a longer post than I intended, but I hope it helps. There is a lot of controversy about NVIDIA vs ATI in terms of power usage, stability, etc. etc. My personal opinion from experience is that in general, both brands will be stable if the subjected card is respected, meaning do not offend its specifications with high overclocking. A card has factory settings for a reason.

Conclusion, make sure your PSU is adequate for all of your hardware. Like Judas said, 30-36 amps would be nice. If you have problems with random crashes, and you overclock your hardware, try bringing the clock speeds back down.

This reply isn't just for the original poster, but for anyone who stumbles across this thread looking for info and troubleshooting.

P.S.
Don't let someone make you feel down if you can't afford all of the greatest hardware. Buy what you need, at a price you can afford. This is computer technology, not a Ducati works machine.


-Kaplan

TheMafia

I have this issue too. I have now tried the dedicated line to the card.

my issues happen soon into launching:
Any game on the BattleField Engines.
Any game on the Source Engines.
GTA4, havent had a chance to test san andreas

my issue does not happend on:
Any game on the ID Tech Engines (Quake1-4, Quake Wars)
Random older engines

What changed between these engines? Open GL vs DirectX(DX3D)?
Or Certain styles of using DX?

Im about to test if the spare cable that came with the card to see if it will make a difference.