Help!! Problem with Radeon 64mb DDR - Win XP shut down / Monitor turns off for no apparent reason!

[ETan]

I just got a used Radeon 64 mb ddr vivo from a member here.

Upgraded my TNT2 ultra to this. I installed the latest official drivers from ATI for Win XP. I have: Epox 8KHA, Win XP, SB Live running.

Installed the drivers without much hassle. However, every once in a while, ranging from a few minutes to a few hours, (never made it past 2 hours), the PC will restart itself, and Win XP will tell me after it restarts that I have problem with the video card driver. I'm using the official Win XP driver from ATI though!

Other times, which is equally annoying, my monitor will lose its signal, I won't be able to see anything... it is just as if my pc was shut down, however, WinAmp, etc, will still be running! I know this because the music is still playing even though the monitor is turned off. I checked the cable, everything is secure.

In fact, anytime now the pc could shut down, restart, or monitor will shut down... I'm getting paranoid by the moment.

Please help!

 

[ETan]

AHHH!!!! 12 times already!!!! AND COUNTING!!! Someone please help a man running out of options!

I even downloaded the beta drivers from rage3d, and installed, and still the same problem.

Could this be a bad card? I'm confused. I played a couple of games of Test drive 5 on it, no problems. It occurs almost like whenever it wants. Like when I access my "Favorites" and the list is displaying.. it would hang, and then restart. I've sent like 10 reports to Microsoft already through the error report thingy.

My computer is holding my neck and squeezing and twisting slowly... please help me before I die from frustration...

 

[rbV5]

Probably have old driver remnants, Save yourself some trouble and reinstall your OS. Radeon's don't play well with old drivers, and while you could prune your registry and system folders, its probably faster/less frustrating to do a fresh install. Easier to troubleshoot as well. I doubt the card is bad.

 

[Wolfsraider]

another suggestion is make sure that it is listed as standard video adapter before installing a ati card.

if another card is/was in there as you stated =problems if you don't set it to a standard video adapter before installing ati.

hope this helps

 

[ETan]

how can i set it to be a standard video adapter?

thanks for the responses, I'm still trying to make it work.

I reinstalled WinXP... that did not help.

 

[ETan]

i finally had to take out my radeon, and put back my tnt2 for now.

Can anyone please advise me what to do next?

I'm even willing to go through the whole process of reinstalling everything if needed, if that would work. I just want to do this once, and do it right, and not have to worry about it shutting down constantly. It shut down on my while I was finishing up a memo, and that just pushed me over the edge and i pulled the card out.

thanks for any help.

 

[ETan]

any more suggestions from anyone? I still have not reinstalled the card yet as I don't have a confident game plan now.

 

[rbV5]

When you reinstalled your OS, you did a clean install correct? I know for a fact that the XP native Radeon driver(on the CD) works very good with the 64DDR VIVO except for the lack of OpenGL support. My only suggestion would be to start with a fresh partition/format installation with the bare minimum hardware installed(no soundcard, just the basics 1 stick of ram ect.) With no updated drivers at all, just the XP native drivers, you should have a fully functioning Radeon card except OpenGL support. If this results in the same behavior, check Event Viewer for any odd messages, and start thinking RMA for that card (it still could be a bad ram stick, but if the TNT works?)

 

[ETan]

What will I lose if I don't have open GL?

And I don't get this... if the card supports open GL, and there are Win XP drivers out there, then why can't I just have all the features of this card? It does not make sense at all.

 

[tallest1]

OMG!!! Same thing happens to me on my Radeon 7000!!

Epox 8Kta3 mobo & W2k

I think ATI has some major issues with Win2k and Epox boards together. I comfortably had a Radeon 32MB SDR but the mobo & card conflict caused the computer to freeze OFTEN. Now with my 7000, all of a sudden, I get a blank screen for 15 minutes when I turn the monitor on to Windows. If the monitor goes to sleep mode and wakes up again - another 15 minute wait. I did a clean install very recently so I'm not going to hesitate on putting the blame on ATI again. The crazy thing is that it works just fine in safe mode! I'm sick and tired of ATI and I'm considering returning it very soon

 

[BFG10K]

You guys are still lucky compared to me though. I can't even install the drivers under Windows XP because it craps out with a "hardware not compatible with drivers" error message. I must say that my faith in ATi is quickly fading because other people have reported this issue too.

 

[ETan]

The only way I can use my radeon 64mb ddr is by doing a clean install of Xp. Booted up using CD, then installed over the existing partition. (Couldn't delete the partition / format, don't know why.)

After the first time I did, the card worked, but without open GL or updated drivers. So I went ahead and installed latest ATI's OFFICIAL drivers, and guess what... it crashed my system... same situation as given above in my thread.

I couldn't even do a system restore, because by the time I click on "Start" and Programs and Accesories... Windows would hang already. At the end I just reinstalled XP like I did earlier.

Now I'm running it with the default XP drivers and it works ok. 3dmarks 2001 around 3100. No open GL, and can't even finish the test.

I am getting either a geforce2 or another card... downgrading because of ATI's problematic drivers... :disgust::|:frown::disgust:

Anyone has any other idea for me?

tallest1 and BFG, did you guys try putting in the card, boot up using CD, then do a clean install of OS (XP or 2k) ?