6600 GT AGP Freezing in DirectX games

[Clive]

I have the XFX 6600 GT AGP

My computer freezes after 5-10 mins. of playing any DirectX games (ie. CS Source, NBA Live 05 and Farcry)

I have a SIS 648 chipset on my motherboard.

I am using Nvidia's 67.03 beta drivers as advised on the XFX website.

-I have plugged into the power connector on the video card (unshared)
-updated Sis chipset drivers.
-Doom 3 (opengl) DOESN'T freeze overclocking or not.
-not overclocking for directx games.
-tried 66.93, 67.02 and 70.90 (all gave graphical errors / black triangular spikes all over directx games)
-tried uninstalled dx9 c using a tool that I found on astalavista.com and it reverted back to the default XP dx 8.1. Then I re-installed dx 9 c. Didn't fix the problem.

Any help would be appreciated.

My System:

P4 2.4 Ghz.
MSI 648 Max Motherboard (Sis 648 Chipset)
768 MB 333 Mhz. DDR SDRAM
Windows XP SP1

 

[yodaut]

I had a similar problem when I first got my 6600 GT AGP.

Long story short, its most likely an Nvidia driver problem. The 67.03's were SUPPOSED to resolve such issues, but I replaced by SiS based motherboard before those came out to confirm that.

The only things I can really suggest to you are:

a.) try the WHQL'd 66.97 that are floating around ... if those don't work:
b.) Wait for Nvidia to fix the problem with a new driver release
c.) replace your motherboard with a non-SiS chipset based one (I got an Nforce2 board for about $70)
d.) get a non 6600 GT Card. I think there are vanilla 6800s floating around for roughly the same price.

I know none of these suggestions are totally great, but I almost ended up building an entirely new machine when my 6600GT didn't work with my PC. Try to avoid that.

 

[Clive]

I'm thinking about buying a new motherboard if this issue doesn't get resolved within a month. Probably the Asus P4P800-MX with the Intel 865GV chipset.

Which Nforce2 motherboard do you have?

 

[YabbyU]

Before you buy a new mobo call XFX and see if there is a newer BIOS for the card.

I have an EVGA 6800 ultra that kept locking up during every gaming session. Screen would freeze and I'd get repeating sound loop, or I'd get freezes or wired slowdowns at load screens. I had the problems in Call of duty, RTCW, H&D2...only newer games.

Anyways after trying everything from fastwrites to VIA 4in1's to 3 different forceware drivers I dl'd the newest BIOS for the card and haven't had a single problem.

 

[Clive]

I solved my problem by selling the card to my cousin. It works well in his computer.
He has an Asus A7V8X with a VIA chipset.

I'm going to buy a new system built around either Gigabyte Dual GPU 6600 GT or ATI X800XL.