Help: New 8RDA+ and Radeon 7000 Problems???

[Superdoopercooper]

Just built a new 8RDA+ system:

Epox 8RDA+
Twinmos/Winbond PC3200
Athlon 2200+
WD 80GB special edition
ATI Radeon 7000 32MB DDR

Everything is BRAND NEW... except for the video card (i.e. fresh install of WinXP to NTFS partition). I installed WinXP Pro, and all went ok. Then, when I first click to log on (click on my user icon at the startup screen)... WinXP goes to the screen with the grassy background... I could move the mouse for about 5 seconds, and then it froze and rebooted.

Upon restart, it said "Windows recovered from a serious error.... " and said it was likely related to the ATI video card. I click ok... and about 10 seconds later... reboot. Again and again, it will just reboot somewhere around the log in screen, or just shortly after getting into WinXP.

IS there something about my video card that I don't know? Is it not compatible with this MB? Does it have soemthing to do with being an AGP 2x/4x card? Please point me in some direction!!!

BTW: I'm running at 133MHz memory bus. "Auto" for the AGP bus (so I assume 66MHz), "Auto" voltages... etc. So, I have not yet started any type of O/C'ing excercise and I'm already hosed. I have Video RAM Shadow enabled, and AGP snoop enabled.

I have not installed ANYTHING else in/on my system except for my ATI TV Wonder VE... which I threw into the PCI slot, but of course never got far enough to install any drivers for.

EDIT: I took out the Wonder VE... and lowered RAM freq down to 100MHz, and AGP bus down to 50MHz. Still no change in outcome. i can't get WinXP to boot in safe mode.... I thought it was "F8" or "F4", but neither are working.

Thanks in advance!! <B>

</B>

 

[Iron Woode]

I think there was an issue similar to this about win2k.

Not sure of XP. Did you try MS yet?

Their knowledge base could help you out.

 

[Iron Woode]

Ok, I just checked it out.

There is an issue.

Did you try booting in safe mode? If this works fine, then it is the drivers WinXP using for your card.

You can boot into safe mode (F8 I think) with networking. This should allow you to download and install the newest drivers.

 

[Superdoopercooper]

Yeah... I've determined it is the drivers for the video card... If i go into Safe Mode... I am ok. Actually, I must go into normal mode using "VGA" boot option, but anyway....

My DSL modem is PAINFULLY slow for some reason (I normally get 1.3Mbps - on the new 'puter I was getting 147kbps)... probably b/c I don't have all the NFORCE drivers and stuff installed. I tried using Windows Update to get the SP1, and it it kept timing out as far as I can tell. It d/l'd for an hour and only got 50%. I want to just download the SP, rather than let Win UPdate do it, but I ran out of time last night.

What is the AGP voltage supposed to be? default is 1.5? Is this too low for the Radeon 7000? Since it is such an old card, it wouldn't surprise me if it needed more juice... but I don't know and didn't have time to look it up, due to the computer issues.

 

[MARMADUKE]

I installed radeon 7000 ve i had in closet and xp loaded the drivers and it works fine? try the xp drivers until you get the xp updates and nforce2 drivers installed.

 

[Superdoopercooper]

Thanks for trying that! I was trying to use whatever XP decided to load at INSTALL, and it is just isn't working.

You know... my card always shows up as Radeon 7000, but I bought it before that name was fashioned upon it. I actually have the "ATI Radeon 32MB DDR". But, I assume it is the same thing.?!?!

 

[MARMADUKE]

format C

 

[AMDfreak]

Two things are standing out to me from your first post. Turn OFF the shadowing of the video RAM. This serves no useful purpose in a modern setup and can cause problems. Also turn off the VGA palette snooping as this also serves no useful purpose in a current system. One other setting to do just to make sure is in the 'Integrated Peripherals' BIOS screen, set the 'Init Display First' to 'AGP'.

Edit: Just saw that Marmaduke beat me to this advice in the 8RDA thread.

It's hard to say if this will help or not, but it's worth a try. If you continue to have trouble, you might want to post your problem over at the Rage3D Forums. There are tons of experienced Radeon users there that might be able to help, but I did not see a problem like yours currently posted. Good luck!

 

[Superdoopercooper]

Well... i'm using the new system to type this message, but I am still severely disappointed. My DSL modem is just dismal with the new motherboard... so I had to use my old system to download SP1, because my modem just couldn't hold the connection on the new system.

I think it is working better now that I have put in SP1, but what a hassle. I couldn't get ANYWHERE w/o installing some updated video drivers. So I had to do that first, even though it was out of order. Of course, now that I have a CD with the SP1, maybe I should just start all over and go in order? What do you think?

Thanks everyone for you help. Hopefully I be fully up an running soon.

P.S. The stock HSF with the retail Box 2200+ SUXORS. With arctic silver 3 (I know I've not waited 72 hours for settling) at default voltage and frequency (1.8GHz & 1.65V), I'm at 40C. :Q I got an A-stepping model, so maybe this is a little hotter runner, but according to the sticker it is a 2500+ downgrade, so hopefully I can get at least that high... esp. since I bought the good ram. Of course, I'll be buying the Thermalright SK-7 or SK-800 here shortly... and sticking the stock HSF on my digicam for cooling or something.

 

[mechBgon]

40C isn't bad.

 

[Superdoopercooper]

UPDATE!!!

Ok, finally was able to get all up to date video (CAT 3.1), Audio, NFORCE, USB, yada yada yada drivers installed. (for main stuff such as ATI TV WonderVE, Radeon, etc). Still have little silly stuff such as printers and stuff to add.

This thing now rules!!

Once everything seemed stable, I did a bit of O/C'ing:

166 x 11.5 = 1.909 GHz (not much OC, but just a start)
Bosted Core voltage a couple of clicks (1.725V)
Boosted Ram Voltage one click (2.77V)
Temp while surfing: 43C / Case Temp : 31C (reported by NFORCE USDM)

So, all in all, not bad. Case temp is a bit higher than I'd expect with 6 case fans, but they are lower CFM, so whatever.

Now if I could just figure out why my CD-RW won't burn at higher than 24x?!?!!?! Stupid garbage OM rebate Verbatim Special. Any ideas here would be helpful. Oh: it is a 48x16x48

Off to bed. Stayed up way to late on a school night last night, so I'm very tired.

THANKS TO ALL FOR YOUR GREAT HELP!!!!