Infinite loop - ever been a fix to this?

[jamie2833]

hey guys, i know i know there has bound to be many people posting threads about this issue but i can seem to find any solutions to my problem.

i just got my new radeon 8500 and basically when i am running games and 3dmark etc etc my system locks up after a few minutes of playing an i get the blue screen come up telling me there has been a problem with the driver 'ati2dvag.dll' and metions something about the infinite loop error.

i never got this before when using my old geforce 2 64mb GTS Pro but as soon as i popped this card in i wanted to see what kinda score i would be looking at in 3dmark but halfway through i got that message.

i am using the 6094 drivers at the moment, and i tried the drivers that came with the card, not sure which ones they are though. i am thinking it may have something to do with hardware incompatibilities or something, here are my specs anyhow:

athlon 1400@1200 (underclocked due to heat problems!)
epox 8KHA+
256MB DDR2100 Crucial RAM
soundblaster live platinum with live drive (not sure if it is the 5.1 or not though)
IBM 30GB 75GXP HDD
and of course radeon 8500

could someone please tell me if there is some kind of patch or good drivers for this problem? i would really hate to have to sell this card as i got it pretty cheap from a member of these forums

 

[Killrose]

Unfortunately this seems to be a problem with the 8500 and the 8KHA+. It affects 8500's with the Blue or Green marks on all the small caps. I have an 8500/green marks with an 8KHA+ running the latest Ati beta drivers, and the Epox with the newest bios, and the only thing i've had to do was back-off on my overclocking of the 8500 from 300/300 to 290/290, but that seems due more to the fact that i've got 2xAA/4xansio set.

I'm not sure which Ati bios i've got but I will check it, as I bought it used and hacked the bios to run 275/275 default. The Epox I also just bought used, but I play hours of RTCW online, and have run 3DMark2001se several times with no crashes, and supposedly, with the infinite loop I should'nt be able to do either.

I'm running Win98se with an AMD 1600+@1800+

 

[Willoughbyva]

I think MS is going to include a fix in the first service pack. There are some work arounds than seem to help. I don't remember what they are now, but you can do a search in google and it will probably give good results. Also do a google groups search for "infinate loop" and it might turn up good stuff. The work arounds were certain bios settings and perhaps gfx settings. Make sure that you have the latest via 4in1s and ati drivers. Also make sure that ou remove all traces of the Nvidia drivers because they really are a pain with ati cards.

Check out www.rage3d.com. they have good forums and search features.

Will

 

[jamie2833]

oh yeah, i also am using windows XP pro

i have looked at some googles searches, there are a few sites that tell you to change some bios settings which when i did, nothing happened at all

 

[AnAndAustin]

My take on Infinite Loop (found mostly with VIA mobos and nVidia cards BUT not exclusively).

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).

Check your BIOS settings, disabling 'PCI Master Read Cache' is VERY wise as it kills your L2 cache to give the PCI a 1% boost! Esp bad for Celerons and Durons. Enabling IRQ for VGA/AGP and setting AGP Aperture to 64MB can also help. Setting AGP1x (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 instead of 266mhz, not too bad in the short term.

If you're running an older OS ensure you have DX8.1, good idea to reinstall it anyway. You may need to run DXDIAG, Diplay Tab, DISABLE Direct3D Accel & CLOSE the app. RERUN DXDIAG & ENABLE Direct3D Accel. A click of the TEST button will show if this solves your partic prob.

Leave the PCI slot next to the AGP empty, maybe try swapping your PCI devices through different slots, 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 setting PnP manually (reserving some resources) or resetting the PnP may also help. If you do change any BIOS settings, do make a note so they can be changed back if it doesn't help.

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

Try different driver versions, with some cards 21.83, 23.11, 27.xx, 29.xx can help.

 

[jamie2833]

thanks anandaustin but i still cant seem to get it working properly, i have changed many settings in BIOS that many websites have suggested and many other things that has been suggested but still about 5 minutes into the game it just seems to either go into the infinite loop or (now i tried the omega 1180 drivers) the game just exits on it's own and wont let me play it again.

will there ever be some kind of fix for radeon's? like the NVMax fixes the infinite loop for nvidia cards? or can i use the NVMax program on the radeon card at all?
it seems to me if they can fix it for nvidia cards then they can fix it for ATI cards.

or will i have to just buy a new motherboard that doesn't have the via chipset? or worse, sell my radeon to get another geforce card?
i would really hate to do that cause i really like the radeon ATM, just not when it crashes

 

[AnAndAustin]

Are you certain you are experiencing the infinite loop bug? I would strongly suggest checking that your CPU HSF is seated properly and you only have the thinnest layer of thermal grease on top of the CPU, this opften gives the symptons associated to the infinite loop bug. Otherwise it could be a hw or sw defect. Checking BIOS settings and then perhaps installing a fresh copy of Windows MAY help to isolate if it is a sw fault, flashing the latest mobo BIOS is always a good idea, as using the latest official drivers for all of your hw (esp mobo, in all cases check both chipset and manu websites).

For hw probs it is best to reset any o/c's back to the default settings, even if they appeared to run stably in the past. Other than that it leaves you either putting your components one at a time into a known working and good PC or else replacing each of your components one at a time with a known working and good component. A friend's PC, if not a local friendly PC shop should make this relatively easy.

 

[jamie2833]

well it is definetly the infinite loop bug, comes up in BSOD and tells me there is a problem with driver device, ati2dvag or something.

i tried installing different drivers, like i said before some of which produced different results, but inevitabely ended up crashing, or locking up when playing games, also like i said before changing a lot of bios setting didn't really help either, in fact i am pretty sure it did nothing at all but slow my system down!

i wouldn't really like to flash the bios of my motherboard, mainly cause i am feeling very sick/lazy at the moment and it mean getting the floppy drive out of my mothers computer and a lot of messing around!.

i just installed windows 2000PRO thinking it may halp solve the problem, but nothing changed.

i just still can believe that NVMAX has the infinite loop bug fix and no radeon tweak progam does, however if i put my old geforce 2 pro back in my system, install NVMAX and try using the infinite loop bug fix it will save it somehow? or will it just affect the certain driver .dll that originally caused the problem in the first place?

 

[AnAndAustin]

I'm afraid I am unaware of precisely how NVmax resolves the infinit loop bug, it is certainly worth trying what you suggest. If you use any VIA mobo it is certainly worth installing the PCI Latency Patch, it is unlikely to help you with the prob in hand but couldn't hurt. I'm afraid I posted all of the tweaks and info I have on the Infinite Loop Bug, it is usually VIA and nVidia cards which cause the prob, although the blame has to aimed elsewhere too (eg M$), in any case it seems you just got unlucky.

 

[BFG10K]

There is no official fix for the problem because nobody really knows what causes it. I still say it's specific motherboards that are causing the problem and not the video card vendors or Microsoft. If you put any other true AGP card into your system (eg nVidia) it's highly likely that you'll have the same problem with it.

The general advice I give to everyone is to absolutely make sure that you have the latest drivers for everything in your system, have the latest chipset drivers and BIOS for your motherboard, have an adequate power supply and don't overclock anything in your system. Also disabling advanced AGP functions such as fastwrites, side band addressing and x4 speeds can help too. In addition, use the safe presets in your BIOS for everything else.

I'm afraid I am unaware of precisely how NVmax resolves the infinit loop bug,

I'd say it disables most AGP functions and forces the system into AGP x1 mode. There'll be a performance hit but it can cure the problem in a lot of cases, especially with non-Intel chipsets that have flaky AGP implementations.

 

[jamie2833]

goddamn it, the amount of time i spent waiting to get a radeon 8500, months and months, the time i finally get one, a decent retail card at a nice price and this happens to me, something totally unfixable, damn crap life eh?

ah well, guess i'll just have to sell it on and get a geforce 4 *sigh*

i sure as well hope they dont have this kind of problem with the radeon 9700 cause i am gonna get one of those babies when they come out

 

[incallisto]

Originally posted by: K9jamie2833
goddamn it, the amount of time i spent waiting to get a radeon 8500, months and months, the time i finally get one, a decent retail card at a nice price and this happens to me, something totally unfixable, damn crap life eh?

ah well, guess i'll just have to sell it on and get a geforce 4 *sigh*

i sure as well hope they dont have this kind of problem with the radeon 9700 cause i am gonna get one of those babies when they come out

Buying a Geforce4 might not solve your problem. Getting a new motherboard and power supply are likely to be of more help. I had this problem in a $600 workstation board running dual 1Ghz PIIIs, so I purchased a pair of 550W PSUs (Antex TruePower) and the problem was solved (the board supports dual PSUs, so I bought two).

 

[jamie2833]

well the BSOD states that it is something to do with that specific driver 'ati2dvag.dll' and the recommend either changing the device itself, or looking for up-to-date drivers to possibly sovle the problem.

i dont think it really matters what i change, but would be safe enough to go with what i know, i know i get the BSOD's when using the radeon and their drivers, never before have i, and my system was 100% stable before i changed the graphics card (my old card was a geforce 2 pro).
i upgraded my PSU recently because of my new motherboard, and i am not gonna get a new motherboard because i really love the one i have now and i KNOW there are no problems with this board, it is in a word 'FLAWLESS'

anyway i have a sale for the radeon pending at the moment, the money is in my account and i have made profit on it, which will help towards the purchase of my new radeon 9700 or geforce 4 TI

 

[BFG10K]

and my system was 100% stable before i changed the graphics card (my old card was a geforce 2 pro).

Did you correctly remove all traces of your GF2 Pro? Leftover drivers and registry entries can cause the BSOD as well.

 

[jamie2833]

well i did un-install them from the control panel, that's pretty much it, i am not sure if there might have been some traces of drivers left in but at the time i couldn't find any 'driver deleters' or whatever they are called, mind you i didn't search for 'that' long

 

[AnAndAustin]

Well if you'd read almost any of the other posts on this matter you'd realise that the switch between nVidia and ATI is always very problematic (consiracy anyone?), as I said earlier, are you sure it is the Infinite Loop Bug? You should also have found reference to 'Detonator Destroyer' which is a free and useful little program for removing all traces of nVidia drivers and reg entries from your PC. Double check the other threads ... that always helps to prevent many good willed people repeating themselves over and over again!

 

[BFG10K]

well i did un-install them from the control panel, that's pretty much it

That should be fine but just to be safe you should still go into the registry and search for any keys like "nVidia" and "GeForce" and delete anything you find.

Also delete any files starting with "nv" in the Windows directory that have an nVidia copyright notice on them.

 

[jamie2833]

ah well nevermind now, this could be some good advice to someone else because i have reverted back to my geforce 2 pro and re-installed windows XP pro everything is as sweet as it used to be and just as stable

thanks ever so much for trying to help me out guys, i really appreciate it