Crashing System.......NEED ADVICE

NicademuS

Member
Jan 6, 2003
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As of recently i have been unable to play any games due to system crashes and im not sure why. Within the first few minutes of gameplay on anything (UT2k3, hitman2 and W3) i will get an "out of scan range" appear on my monitor and the system will just reboot. I have run tests on both the memory and processor and both passed with ease. The only thing that i can think of left is the PSU and the video card. i still have a 300W PSU which could stand to be upgraded, but i hope that its more likely a problem with ATI"S DRIVERS!!!! The original installation drivers on the cd seem to perform better than the newest drivers available on ATI's website. However, with either driver, on graphically intensive programs like games "out of scan range" pops up and my system will restart. im not sure if these anonymous reboots are the cause of damage to my last hard drive which is in the mail to be repaired or not, but i dont want to damage my new drive. my sys specs are listed below in the signature so if anyone knows whats up and could help me out i would greatly appreciate it.

Video Card: AIW Radeon 8500 (128)
OS: winXP pro

THANKS

OH.....for those of you that noticed the overclocked 1800+ to 2000+........ive tried reseting the overclocking and get the same errors as well. Temperatures remain stable as well never exceeding about 47C - 49C.
 

lenknermj

Member
Jan 10, 2002
38
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Nic,

Try bringing your system speed down to it's designated operation range. Frequently, overclocking can cause the other parts of your system (PCI bus, AGP bus, etc) to run at higher speeds as well, causing certain boards to malfunction due to heat, insufficient voltage, or any other possible problems. Your video card is especially susceptible to this, since you have to worry about both the video cards engine speed and memory bus speed.

In short, run your 1800+ at 1.53GHz (or whatever AMD's bizarro number scheme equals out to in MHz) and see what happens.

Post more if it's still a problem.

- Mark
 

lenknermj

Member
Jan 10, 2002
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My bad....didn't notice the edit about the overclocking situation until I came back to the thread....I SWEAR it wasn't there when I was reading it... :)

Anyway, do you happen to have another video card handy? Hopefully, one that occupies the same expansion slot as the ATI (AGP or PCI).

Also, I don't think the "OUT OF SCAN RANGE" message has much to do with anything...sounds like your system is just rebooting, and your monitor (I'm guessing it's an LCD) displays that message when it has no incoming video signal.

I'm an nVidia user, and I know that in their reference drivers, they put options for controlling the refresh rate of the card when using D3D or OpenGL video at different resolutions...perhaps you could prod around the ADVANCED SETTINGS tab and see if there's anything like that in ATI's drivers.

Also, try running these games in SAFE mode (if available)...in most cases, this will be with software rendering. It will be hideously slow, but it may help you detect whether it's an unsupported refresh rate on the video card causing your system to go belly-up.

All right...I'm starting to ramble. I got my own problems to fix too. I'm gonna go now. =)

Good luck, and holler if you find a solution or need more assistance.

- Mark
 

Beandog

Senior member
Aug 24, 2001
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I just built a new system and I am getting crashes as well, random reboots, and the video out of sync. I have unplugged and switched as many items as I could since upgrading, but it looks like my old Enlight 300w just aint cuttin it...I am thinking since it does only 165watts on the 5v and 3.3v combined rails that this could be the culprit...either that or the 4in1 drivers, or possibly grounded MB or bad cables, I am still checking, but most likely I will need to upgrade the PS. I just built another one with same MSI KT3 Ultra2 MB and almost same other components and everything went smooth as butter...of course that build was in a New Antec 1080AMG case with Antec Tru 430 PS which is one of the best types out there and its wisper quiet. After hearing your problem tho and reading alot of other threads, Im thinking of stop wasting my time and just run out an get a new PS and try that first since that seems to solve most problems people have with random boots etc.
 

NicademuS

Member
Jan 6, 2003
146
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ah ha.........thanx man. i guess the overclocking is what was killing me. Ive been able to play well now without any significant problems (grrrrr....lower frames tho, heheh). its odd tho that when ive reset the fsb to the default 133 i was still unstable in gaming environments. however, i was having problems with the stock heatsink/ fan combo on the AIW radeon 8500 (128) now that i think of it, and i havent tried reseting the clock since i moded the card.........damnit, that was a HUGE brainfart. i guess i just overlooked that crucial fact. anyway, i seem to be running much smoother now (as i get more embarrased as i go here) so thanks for the advice.

 

lenknermj

Member
Jan 10, 2002
38
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No problem...glad ya figured out what the problem was. =)

To address the 'issue' of lower frame rates, have you tried overclocking JUST the video card? You can do this with certain utilities without increasing the speed of the AGP (or PCI) interface, which gives you better system stability and possibly even higher frame rates than overclocking the whole system.

The only stand-alone utility I know of is called PowerStrip. Here's a link. It's a pretty powerful proggie. It allows you to overclock the core clock speed and memory speeds seperately, plus it has some sort of 'safe recovery' modes, in case you over-overclock it, and crash the system.

There is a reg fee (somewhere around $30) but it's a good deal if you're into gaming. There's also some other things you can do with it, like flush your system memory and stuff...but I only really used it for OCing my video card.

They might still do some sort of trial download, but (as always) it's not as robust as the registered version. Give it a try and see what happens!

BTW, the page was actually down when I tried to access it at the time of writing this post, but I've gotten to it before.

LINK WAS DEAD! I put a copy of it up on my site...you still have to get the reg info from the folks at the original link to get full functionality. Click below to download the file....

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Good luck!
- Mark
 

lenknermj

Member
Jan 10, 2002
38
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-----------------------------------------------------
Athlon XP 1800+ (overclocked to 2000+)
Mobo: MSI KT3 ultra-ARU
Ram: 512 pc2700
VC: AIW Radeon 8500 (128)
HD: 120gig Western Digital special edition
Roms: TDK 48x burner, 8x pioneer DVD
Case: Lian-li pc65
-----------------------------------------------------

PS....guess ya better change your sig. :)
 

NicademuS

Member
Jan 6, 2003
146
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0
thanx again man........as far as the vid card overclocking, i was using rage3D tweak utility that let me overclock just the cards memory and clock seperately like you said. But, when my fan was first dying i quit it to keep the card safe. since then, ive just got my system stable and didnt wanna "jinx" it right away is all. but i will try out that prog you suggested.......however, if you wanna try sumthin too, rage3d works pretty well.......thanks again