ATI 9550 Problems

[InVitro]

My systems a bit old but here are the specs.

XP 2000
Asus A7V333
1GB DDR Ram (kingston)
40GB Maxtor Drive
ATI Stealth 9550

Anyway, my old GeForce 4 ti4400 stopped working so I went out and got a new replacement card, the 9550. I only really wanted a cheap replacement, nothing fancy.

I installed it and heres whats happening.

Often when the computer runs for 5 - 10minutes everything locks up and the computer restarts. When I try to enter a game, it will play for about 2 minutes then it will lockup (though the sound will still work). Sometimes the game will crash and I will get an ATI error saying that my Video Driver Stopped working and the system switched to software rendering oppose to hardware.

My card is not clocked, all factory settings with the latest ATI Cat. Drivers.

This is not an overheating issue, ive checked 20x and it is not possible for it to be an overheating issue. I also know this because I semi fixed the problem...

What I did was instead of my CPU to AGP VIA Drivers, in its place, I installed the PCI Standard PCI-to-PCI Bridge driver. Once I did this, I am having no stability issues. This however, is by no means a fix. When I run games the card performs worse then my GF4, for obvious reasons.

I have also tried installing an older version of the Cat Drivers from the manufacturers CD and it was stable for a longer period of time.

I can't find a fix on google anywhere, anyone have any ideas?

Thank you kindly

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

If you haven't already you should do a clean install. Also, try setting AGP to 4x, that fixes compatibility issues sometimes and doesn't hurt performance at all.

 

[Bateluer]

Last time I had this issue it turned out to be a faulty motherboard, I hope thats not the case with you.

Before you do a clean install, you can try turning the down the hardware acceleration under your Display properties applet in the Control Panel.

 

[InVitro]

Thank you for the responses.
I didn't actually do a clean install, right now I just don't have the time.

As for the motherboard, that might be the case. The reason why I had to replace it in the first place was because one day I came home and my GForce fan stopped running... all fans were on, but the computer did not respond. It didn't reset incase of a lockup like it usualy does either... so I figured it was the video card that was fried. Now I'm thinking the AGP port was damaged as well.

The thing is that a lot of people have been having the same complaint with the 9550 as I have, so perhaps its not the motherboard.

Anyhow, I returned the card to the store today. I will try for a ATI 9600 next week, wish me luck.

Again thanks for the responses.

--edit
1 other thing. My motherboard was always set on AGP X4, when I tried using the AGP x2 setting, it woulden't even boot into windows. IT would get stuck after the loading part... I would hear sound, but the video card would show no display. Wierd, huh?

 

[selfbuilt]

Also make sure you have fast writes disabled.