I Really, Really Need Help With This 9700 Pro!

[filmore crashcart]

Today has been a very bad hardware day for me. I got my new PowerColor Evil Commando ll 9700 Pro card (what a stupid name) and installed it in place of my trusty MSI Geforce4 ti4400. I had installed dx9 while I still had the ti4400 in the box so I completely purged all Nividia stuff and installed the 9700 pro with the 3.0 catalyst. What I got after that was total instability and no games that would work. I viewed the pretty demos and then proceeded to do a complete reformat of my hd with a reinstall of xp home to get rid of dx9. I then loaded the 2.5 cats with the dx8.1. Desktop is stable and pretty but so far, the two games I've installed; Quake3 and MOHAA don't work. Q3 with the latest 1.32 point release runs but is too dark to play and the gamma slider refuses to work in the game system setup. MOHAA is even worse. IT refuses to play period - even in safe mode, and all I get is that stupid, "do you want to send an error report to microsoft?" thing. I have not set anything aggressively in the control pannel and everything is still at default. Please see my rig page for a description of my rig.
I have never, never had such a hard time with a piece of hardware. It works great in desktop but it will not work in both games that I've so far loaded. I've been to Rage 3d but trying to find specific answers on their forum is like a needle in a haystack with this problem.
Can anyone please tell me how to get this card to work? I will be greatly appreciative.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Did you connect the extra power connector into the end of the card? Without it, the card is very unstable in any 3d application. I checked your rig and your antec truepower 380W should most definately be enough.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Okay, one problem solved.... MOHAA works now that I removed the no cd crack. Now I have to insert the cd when I want to play. Next is to try and reinstall Q3 to see if that will fix the gamma problem. Jezzz, I've never had so much problem installing a video card before!

 

[filmore crashcart]

jiffylube 1024 - yeah, I made sure I did that right off the bat as I heard that was the first mistake people make when installing this card. Thanks for your response.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Reinstalled Q3.... gamma fixed but now it freezes as soon as I enter the game. Bout to give up on this hardware!

 

[sandorski]

Re-install DX9 and Cat 3.0.

 

[filmore crashcart]

<FONT size=1>Re-install DX9 and Cat 3.0.

After my initial experience with that combination, I don't think I'd want to relive that nightmare unless someone has a sure-fire solution to the problems it caused.

Things I'm finding out about this card:
1. It doesn't like a fsb overclock (for my system).
2. games stutter on the 2.4 cats (again, my system).
So far, after reading numerous posts at Rage 3D on possible fixes for the hard locks I've encountered, disabling fastwrites in the display pannel and lowering hardware acceleration a notch may have helped the hard locks. Going back to stock settings on the fsb may also have helped.
I wish I could get more enthusiastic about this card but I was up till 3:30 am trying to get it stable on a fresh install of Win xp and no card for that amount of money should cause that amount of problems. I know some people are running dx9 and 3.0 cats with no problems whatsoever and I envy them. I feel like I'm not being able to experience what this card is capable of because of these annoying problems that I can't figure out or find solutions for. I thought power supply but I have a Antec TruePower 380w and that should be fine for this card. </FONT>

 

[Tates]

I had a similiar experience with my Sapphire "built by ATi" 9700 Pro.

Found out , through trial and error, that 9700's don't care for a tweaked AGP above 74MHz. Now that I have the AGP/PCI locked at 66/33, it runs beautifully.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Now another problem. I changed the 2.4 cats to the 2.5 which knocked out the display pannel. Dl'd display pannel and installed. tried to enable trueform and immediately it tells me that there is an incompatibility wth the system bus and graphics acceleration cannot be enabled. The display pannel refuses to repair or uninstall and I can't even run agp 1x.
This suxx. I guess I'll have to reformat and install again.

 

[lung]

I would definitely say to format and reinstall. It is the safest, most sure way to make sure that no nVidia stuff is left. Definitely do not let your AGP get out of spec either. Like it was said before, the 9700 Pro does not like to have the AGP out of spec.

 

[Glitchny]

make sure that you have "ATI Smart" enabled, fixed alot of problems that i was having.

 

[filmore crashcart]

Glitchny, On this 2nd format and reinstall, I have it enabled. Another thing I did was disable the onboard sound - Relteck AC'97 - and installed my TB Santa Cruz. So far, everything is stable and I've run Q3 with no freeze. I even did dx9 and 3.0 cats since I figured I had nothing to lose. Hopefully, fingers crossed, the onboard sound was causing all the grief.

 

[bikinistud]

Sorry so many probs with 9700 but it may be how you install the drivers.

Make sure you install the driver and restart BEFORE you install the control panel.
Also, when uninstalling, do the control panel uninstall first, restart, then uninstall the old drivers.

Any other way makes my system crash. Screwy Ain't it?

Hope this helps a little.

 

[filmore crashcart]

It is running well now after my last format/reinstall of xp. I used the automatic driver/display pannel intstall after first installing 9xd. So far, no stuttering or freezing and the demos look great.
I have to admit, I was pretty spoiled with the simplicity of Nividia driver installations....... what a nightmare this has been. I think ditching the onboard audio and going back to my Santa Cruz is what really helped.