Epox 8KHA+ Radeon 8500 Incompatable?

[Nessism]

This is a repost of sorts since I posted in the Video forum but came up empty.

My system is unstable in 3D applications. For example, when trying to run 3D Mark 2000/2001, the system hard locks beforing completing the test. The system is dual booted with Win 98 and 2000 and both OS are similarly affected.

System configuration:

Epox 8KHA+ mb - latest bios - using "Optimized Defaults", non-overclocked and "SPD" memory settings
1400 thunderbird w/Alpha 8045 heatsink
512 MB Crucial 2100
Radeon 8500
Santa Cruz sound card
modem
Antec 400 W power supply - +3.3 V = 3.2 V, +5 V = 4.84 V

Using the latest video drivers and 4 in 1 drivers for both OS's. Before installing the video drivers, I uninstalled the old drivers first. 4 in 1's were installed over the top of the old version.

Any ideas?


UPDATE:

Just reformated and dumped the dual boot. Win 2000 only now. Same problem.
Installed a Radeon 32 MB DDR card and the system runs fine.
Installed the Radeon 8500 card on an old BX board system running a 566@850 and the 8500 card ran fine.

Now what?

Ed

 

[Boonesmi]

what are your temps showing?

can you run prime95 in torture mode with out crashing?

i would also try running memtest86 (download at www.memtest86.com) to make sure your not getting any memory related errors

by the way what video card are you using? and are you using the newest reference drivers... if yes, then have you tried some of the older drivers for it?

 

[wasnlos]

Also worth a try:
Load BIOS-DEFAULTS, reboot, enter BIOS again and disable SHADOW-functions.
Lowering the AGP-APERTURE-SIZE in BIOS could help, too.

Boonesmi's points make sense, too. Run those programms to ensure system-stability.

 

[Nessism]

Ok, just downloaded and ran Memtest86 and ran the standard test with no problems. Prime 95 is running as I speak and also no problems. MBM reports max CPU temp of 46 C while running Prime.

As mentioned in the origional post, video card is Radeon 8500 retail board (64 MB version). Drivers are newest "recommended" Catalyst drivers: Win2k - w2k-radeon-5-13-01-6094-efg ; can't check Win98 since I'm typing this in Win2K

I'll try the default bios settings and disabling the shadowing feature.

Will report back. Thanks for the help.

Ed

 

[Nessism]

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[dazza2002]

Gday,
Try www.rage3d.com forums, there are some clues to this problem there, and you will find that some people on that forum are calling this lockup an infinite loop problem. One way around it is to underclock your vid card. I know thats not what you wanted to hear. Don't ask me what causes it, as I am not a tech, but just go to the site mentioned.
Catcha
Dazza

 

[jamie2833]

hey nessism, i had the same problem when i got my radeon 8500, i also have an epox 8KHA+ motherboard and i got the same problems you described, it seem with this hadware combination you get the 'infinite loop' bug, i couldn't see any way around it apart from to just sell it on and i am now looking for a geforce 4 card.

i know you also didn't wanna hear it as when the card is working it's fantastic, i loved the image quality, until it crashed.

unfortunately i didn't test it in my asus motherboard, but i would imagine it would have worked fine if i did as i have heard a lot of people get this problem with the epox 8KHA+ and radeon8500 together

 

[Nessism]

Checked out Rage3D per dazza2002's suggestion and understand the issue more clearly now. Some people are able to work around the problem by flashing the 8500 with a bios that disables the TV out feature. Some others are resolving the problem by clocking down the card. I tried this and it works, running 250/250 at the moment and the card works fine.

Kind of pisses me off to have to underclock the card to get it to work. I'm not an expert on matters such as this but it seems to me that the card is at fault if it runs fine underclocked. Or maybe, the AGP power supply is too low comming from the board? Wish I know more about the AGP drive strength settings in the bios. Not sure but several people have reported resolution by RMA'ing the card. I think I'm going to go this way. Don't have much to loose other than the shipping charge and a little downtime.

Ed

 

[CroTeam]

I have a 8KHA+ and a ATI Radeon 8500 128MB and it works great, no problems yet (well, ok sometimes it gets a little hot @ 300/300(x2)).

 

[Mem]

You tried setting your video card to AGP 2X in BIOS does that improve it at all?