ATI video card conflict with Nvidia motherboard?

[ChaplainXavier]

Hey there! I'm new to these boards and I'm sure you folks are more tech-savvy than me. Perhaps you could help me solve this problem: I've been having an issue with a new video card (Radeon 9600 128MB) that I installed on my HP desktop computer. The motherboard has an on-board Nvidia GeForce 4 MX, so I took the necessary steps for installing a new card: uninstalling the drivers, turning it off, putting in the new card, installing the new drivers, etc.
Anyway, everything's running fine - I'm playing Rome: Total War, and after a while, the screen freezes and the game locks up. After a few moments the VPU recover window pops up and tells me the video card was reset or something. So I tried some other games: FarCry, Doom 3 and Morrowind - and I encountered the same problem every time. The games run smooth as butter, until the freeze - sometimes after a few minutes, sometimes after an hour. I've made sure I have the latest ATI video drivers, updated system BIOS, latest DirectX - am I missing something? Is there a conflict with the ATI video card and the Nvidia motherboard?
Here are my system specs:
AMD Athlon XP 2600
512MB Ram
120 GB HD

Please let me know if you need any more information. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[SynthDude2001]

If you've disabled the onboard video, one possibility is that the VPU Recover itself may be causing problems. I used to have a 9700 Pro, and I believe I used to get more crashes with VPU Recover on than with it off...

 

[Lonyo]

I had a similar issue, in a way, once.
Had a pre-built rig (Pentium 2 350MHz) with integrated graphics, upgraded it with a TNT2 M64.
Kept on locking up/freezing. It was a heat issue, as the case was poor, and the TNT2 was fanless, and it worked OK with the side off.

Also, most other time's I've had lock ups it's been due to overclocking too hard (and then, I assume, overheating).
I've had locks when overclocking a Geforce 4 and 9800Pro with stock coolers.


Try running with the side of the case off, and if possible with some kind of fan pointing at the card (maybe a big desk fan).
Since it's a 9600 I can only guess that it might be passively cooled, hence the heat possibility. (Many 9600's seem to be passive)

 

[Lonyo]

Oops, hit quote not edit

 

[ChaplainXavier]

Thanks for the suggestions

I thought it might be a heat issue also, so I took off the side cover and cleaned most of the dust out (how does so much get inside there??), but that damn VPU window interrupted my game again. The video card might still be overheating though - would an error message follow such an incident?

Here's a question: what exactly are chipset drivers? My motherboard chipset is an nForce2, so I would assume nVidia drivers would be the obvious choice. I downloaded an nForce Unified Driver, but that didn't seem to solve the problem either.