Help please

[nolson1]

I need some opinions before I go and spend more money.

I keep seeing black shape type things in games but never on the desktop. I traded graphics cards to test it, and that is not the problem. I also replaced my ram with kingston hyperx ram, i have 1 gig of it. I don't think that is the problem either. I have tried a fresh install of windows without any luck.

I just rma'd my motherboard, but the problem still persists.

Do I:
1. buy another motherboard brand? (abit, asus, etc)
2. what else could be wrong? cpu?

Specs:
Soyo SY-P4i865PE DRAGON 2 Plus v1.0
P4 Prescott 3.0Ghz with hyperthreading
2-512MB Kingston Hyperx PC3200 in dual channel
ATI Radeon 9800 pro 128MB
Western Digital 120Gb Hard drive
Windows XP SP2

Thank you

**************UPDATE************
so i switch the ram to slots 2 and 4 and it seems to be working now. So apparently the first mother board both sets were bad, and this second rma board, set 1 and 3 are bad.. So in my opinion Soyo = the suck.
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[Fardringle]

If I understand correctly, you said that you are getting video artifacts with multiple video cards. Are the video cards you tried identical? (Same manufacturer, model, etc.) Or are they completely different?

When you swapped cards, did you uninstall and reinstall the display drivers? If not, download and run Driver Cleaner to remove all traces of previous video card drivers and install the newest drivers for your card.

Try running your RAM in single channel (just one 512MB stick, or both sticks on the same channel on the motherboard).

Also, disable Spread Spectrum and AGP Fast Writes in your PC's BIOS and let us know what happens.

 

[nolson1]

i swapped my 9800 pro with a 9700, the artifacts were still on my computer with the 9700 and not on the other computer with my 9800. I tried messing with FastWrites already, I haven't looked at spread spectrum, I'll do that and the single channel next.

 

[funkapimpalicious]

not to ask a stupid question, but are you doing any overclocking of any kind? I once had some pretty nifty artifact problems because I was overclocking.

 

[funkapimpalicious]

I'd also check out the actual connection to your mobo. take out the cards(with ESD precations of course) and give the connector a wipe and blow out the slot. That *might* fix the problem

 

[nolson1]

Okay
1. Nothing is overclocked
2. Spread spectrum was already disabled and enabling it makes it worse
3. I've tried taking the card out and putting it back in to no help
4. Removing 1 stick of ram seems to help. It didn't happen right away like it normally does. I'll play more to make sure but that is kinda funny. This motherboard should be able to handle over a gig and dual channel.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Disable the following in BIOS if enabled: Video Shadow RAM, Video RAM Caching (never use these on a modern video card) and disable AGP Fastwrites (this can cause all kinds of problems in games and adds practically no performance). Also make sure your AGP Aperature is set to the default value of 64Mb. Anything else (depending on your mobo/vid card combo can cause stability issues).

Since you've swapped cards with the same manufacturer just a different model, all I can suggest is uninstalling and re-installing the video driver. Use only the latest OFFICIAL ATI Catalyst drivers from ATI's website. Don't use whatever driver came with the card (it'll be outdated for gaming) and don't use hacked drivers.

I have a hard time believing it's an AGP issue enless there's something wrong with the AGP bus.

QUESTION: Has this system worked properly in the past, or is this a new system that's never worked right? If the latter, did you install the motherboard drivers from the mobo manufacturer? You can't rely on the generic mobo drivers that come with Windows - you'll have issues with the AGP bridge.

Hope this helps...

 

[nolson1]

I looked in bios and those options of Video Shadow RAM and Video RAM caching are not there. But I did disable fast write without any help. I have the latest drivers from ati's website also. The only thing that seems to help is taking out one of my rams but they're both good cause i used memtest on it.

I also tried reinstalling chipset drivers. no help
Also ran Nasty File Remover and made sure no nvidia drives on comp. Still no help.
Also the apature size is 64Mb, also tried 128 but no help.

This comp worked with games like hl and only 1 stick of ram. I upgrades to 2 sticks and got games like hl2 and bf2 and am now seeing the problems. I would not be suprised if its the motherboard cause the onboard lan doesn't even work with the dlink switch, won't find an ip, had to put in a $5 dollar one.

Hey if I have to replace the motherboard, what do you guys think of the abit AI7? I was gonna go with the 865 chipset since that's what I got now so I don't have to reformat.

 

[nolson1]

bumpity bmp

 

[mountcarlmore]

if you have stability issues with more than one video card on demanding games, and removing ram helps, are you running on a cheap power supply?

 

[nolson1]

I'm running on a power supply that came with my case. It's a 480Watt power supply. As for the specific brand, I'll check on Thur when i get back home.

 

[nolson1]

Yeah even though it may be a cheaper power supply disconnecting everything but 1 hard drive and my graphics card dosn't help so I doubt its the power supply.

And motherboard monitor says
1.33V core 0
1.54V core 1
3.02V for +3.3
5.03V for +5
11.31V for +12

so i think everything is within 10%.