GeForce 4 ti4200 freezes games after 15 min.

Tekchip

Member
Jun 6, 2001
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I've got a Gigabyte GA-7VTXE with 512mb Crucial DDR 2600 ram. I have an SB Live! 5.1 Platinum, Netgear FA311 and a VIA chipset Firewire card. My machine is cooled decently enough. It's a larger style Antec case with 2 front 80mm fans for intake and two for out. Theres also an in fan in the hard drive cage and the out take fan on the power supply. Processor is an Athlon XP 1800+ cooled by a Thermaltake Valcano 7+.

I picked up a Powercolor geforce 4 TI4200 128mb from a local vendor. I'm upgrading from an Asus Geforce 2 MX200 32mb. I put the card in and all was well. I load up any of my video games; Battlefield 1942, Americas Army, Quake 3, UT, UT2k3 demo and any of them lock after about 15 minutes of game play.

I hadn't updated any drivers on the board since I got it(about 2 months ago). Yeah bad I know. So first thing I do is go after the most up to date bios and drivers. These have been updated to the newest versions available from the Gigabyte web site. Still having the problem after that. I've tried the Nvidia 30.82 drivers and I also tried the PowerColor drivers. I then double check to make sure all fans are running properly and they do appear to be. There is good noticable air flow from the front to the back and out of the case so I'm very doubtful it's cooling. I then wonder if it might be a lack of power or something. I attempted to unplug one of the intake and one of the out take fans. This had no effect. Processor temp is good as is ambient case temp.

I then started wondering if it might be an issue with the video card its self. I took it back and got another one from my vendor. This one gave beep code which I believe was just a chance happening. I took this one back and they didn't have any other PowerColor cards but they did have the 64mb version MSI card. I decided for the sake of testing, and to save my self a few bucks as I'm sure Radeon 9700's will drop in price soon here, to take the card home and give it a shot. I get it home. Uninstall old drivers and then shut the machine down. Install the new card. Boot, install with out issue. Games continue to freeze.

I then try swapping ram and removing all cards except video and none of these things work. I throw the Geforce 2 back in the machine and everything is solid again. Based on the Geforce 2 working properly every time it makes me think it must be an issue between the systemboard and the video card. Does any one happen to know anything about this? Does any one else have any ideas? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Tekchip
 

WyteWatt

Banned
Jun 8, 2001
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Tekchip could you try taking your SB Live! 5.1 Platinum sound card out of your computer and see if it freezes in games at all after 15 mins and after 30 mins or more if it doesn't freeze in 15 mins ok ?

 

AnAndAustin

Platinum Member
Apr 15, 2002
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:eek: I'd def point my finger at the SB Live card, do try removing it to see if it is the cause. It could also be the PSU, Antec or Enermax are tops although ToPower and Sparkle are also good, 350W is what you should be aiming for and if it is an unknown brand be even more dubious as then some 400W can be inadequate. Also rem even a good PSU can begin to fail.

;) Do be sure to set any o/c's back to defaults while trouble-shooting. It may be worth reseating your cards inc RAM and checking all wires are properly connected too.

:) I would imagine it could very seriously be a prob with old drivers and reg entries sitting around, even a driver uninstall is rarely enough. Detonator Destroyer is useful but only really works with the older OS'. Perhaps you need to try a fresh OS install? Anyway do check obvious BIOS settings like AGP/VGA IRQ enabled and check for resource conflicts in Windows. Also try the chipset rather than manu drivers for your mobo, gfx card etc, if you use a VIA driven mobo also install the PCI Latency Patch ... and finally try the card in another PC too.
 

Tekchip

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Jun 6, 2001
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Hmm... good ideas. I have all ready tried an OS install. I knew some of you would catch little things I havn't tried yet. I don't recall if I've tried removing the sound card. Most of this is done at 3am so I can barely remember some of it. Any way I'll try yanking the SB out. As for trying it in another machine. I dont have another machine around at the moment, but later this week I will, so I'll give that a try if the SB isn't the issue.

As for P/S I'm running a p/s that's on the AMD certified list. It's a 350W. I don't recall the manufacturer though its one of the odder ones. Thanks for the ideas. I'll let ya know what I turn up.
 

Tekchip

Member
Jun 6, 2001
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Ok so heres where I'm at. I tried yanking everything out of my machine including my SB Live. No dice. Still freezes. The timing is intermittent totally. Some times, like tonight, it will freeze after only a few minutes of play. Other times it can take 15 minutes or half an hour. Once or twice it has even taken upwards of an hour. I'm totally confused. I'm a Gateway tech(boy have I seen some weird crap) and I've been doing this stuff for a hobby for nearly 10 years now. I'm out of ideas. Only thing that comes to mind is some sort of conflict between the card and the mobo. My good old Asus Geforce 2 runs rock solid with out issue in this machine. The motherboard for the second machine that I'll eventually test this card in should be showing up some time this week. Till then I havn't nothing else to try. Any other suggestions? I did find a thread in my search for issues with another model of the gigabyte board that had some form of issue with Geforce 4's. I'm wondering if this might be related. Any more suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.
 

AnAndAustin

Platinum Member
Apr 15, 2002
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:eek: I'd be most inclined to point my finger at either the PSU or the case. 350W should be more than fine, check your 3 primary voltage rails, a free prog like SiSoft Sandra could help you there. Otherwise you'd want to check your case has sufficient airflow and ventilation. See if this other mobo solves the prob, maybe your AGP slot is sub-par and simply won't give the GF4 what it needs consistently. You could explore the Infinite Loop Bug ...

8) Try to ensure any probs are not down to faulty hw, sw, corruption, viruses etc. Having the latest OFFICIAL drivers and BIOS' is always a good idea (be sure to check manu and chipset websites) certainly the latest VIA 4in1 drivers if you use a VIA chipset, the VIA PCI Latency Patch is a very useful thing to download and install too.

:) Check your BIOS settings, disabling 'PCI Master Read Cache' is VERY wise as it kills your L2 cache to give the PCI like a 1% boost! Esp bad for Celerons and Durons. Other settings that may help but which will effect perf a little are RAM Latency settings (make them higher), Bank Interleave (try diff settings) or even lowering the clock speed of your RAM.

:-? Enabling IRQ for VGA/AGP and setting AGP Aperture to 64MB can also help. Setting AGP1x or AGP2x (ie disabling AGP4x in BIOS) will hit perf, but not as badly as it sounds. The gfx card will continue to run at full speed it just limits the speed out of the AGP slot to 66mhz / 133mhz instead of 266mhz, not too bad at all, esp in the short term.

:wink: Ensure you have reinstalled DX8.1, esp if you're running an older OS. You may need to run DXDIAG, go to Diplay Tab, DISABLE Direct3D Accel & CLOSE the app. RERUN DXDIAG & ENABLE Direct3D Accel. A click of the TEST button may show if this solves your partic quirk.

:roll: Leave the PCI slot next to the AGP empty, maybe try swapping your PCI devices through different slots, IMHO it's a good idea to have the PCI blanking plates at the back removed for ventilation anyway.

:-? You could try disabling 'PnP OS' from the BIOS if you're using WinXP, apparently WinXP likes to do things itself. If you use any OS then perhaps try setting PnP or reserving resources manually or resetting the PnP may also help. If you do change any BIOS settings, do keep a note so they can be changed back if it doesn't help.

:D Try downloading NVMax. It has the infinite loop fix and other things for nvidia cards.
http://www.nvmax.com/
http://www.charnleys.co.uk/NVmax4.exe
http://www.softnews.ro/public/cat/12/1/12-1-8.shtml (WORKING 09-2002)

:wink: Finally try different driver versions, with some nVidia cards older drivers like 21.83, 23.11, 27.xx, 29.xx can help.