MSI Geforce 4 Ti 4400 broken?

Brimg87

Junior Member
Jun 1, 2002
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I just got a brand new MSI Geforce 4 Ti 4400 friday, I was very excited when I got it. When I put it in though thats when everything changed. No matter what game I played it would freeze up within the first few seconds. I was mostly trying Jedi Knight II. This was using the 28.32 drivers too by the way. Later I found this thread on MSIs forums here. I beleive all these people have VIA chipsets like I do on their motherboard and this card doesn't seem to want to work with them and MSI hasn't done anything about it. Here are my specs:

Athlon XP 1700+
512 DDR Ram
Sound Blaster Audigy
Gigabyte Mobo w/ VIA chipset
Windows XP Home Edition

Can anyone shed some light on this?
 

filmore crashcart

Senior member
Dec 18, 1999
684
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Mine did the same thing until I went into the bios and disabled fastwrites.... try that. Mine frozeup same as yours and it works fine now - stable as a rock. Check my system sig.... I have a via board.
 

5489

Platinum Member
Aug 12, 2001
2,163
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what video card did you have before it?

did you uninstall the previous drivers? maybe a format would fix it?
 

onelin

Senior member
Dec 11, 2001
874
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if you aren't using the Via 4-in-1's, try em. Yes, I see you're using Windows XP (I am too). Just install the AGP thing...I'm on an Asus P3V4X (PIII 1GHz) till next week and it's a Via chipset... I saw no need to install them before this card, but it's one of the first things I tried, and it improved stability very significantly and made 3dmark, JKII, etc work fine. However, some games were fussy (No One Lives Forever) still so I turned off fast writes (which is also turning off agp 4x for some reason, despite 4x being enabled in the BIOS still) Your problem sounds like mine so I think it's more of a driver/setting issue than card stability (it shouldn't be a heat issue, check if quake 3 arena runs timedemos fine in HQ @1024x768 or higher)

no stability probs whatsoever now... I'm going to experiment next week...

edit: could just be the Gigabyte board like you say... main prob is when people have these chipsets and don't even consider that it 'might' be the problem...shouldn't be a chipset issue if they're using it as intended (w/ them)
 

spwango

Senior member
Mar 7, 2001
419
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So, I just ordered one of these things on Friday, before I found all the problematic threads about them...however, rather than VIA, I seem to notice that most the people complaining have that Gigabyte board. I'm crossing my fingers it will work OK with Epox KT333 board, or that the bad batch has been worked through. We shall see. I was going to Leadtek, but after reading so many glowing reviews on the MSI and being very happy with my current MSI GeForce2 Pro, I decided to go for it.
 

5489

Platinum Member
Aug 12, 2001
2,163
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Originally posted by: spwango
So, I just ordered one of these things on Friday, before I found all the problematic threads about them...however, rather than VIA, I seem to notice that most the people complaining have that Gigabyte board. I'm crossing my fingers it will work OK with Epox KT333 board, or that the bad batch has been worked through. We shall see. I was going to Leadtek, but after reading so many glowing reviews on the MSI and being very happy with my current MSI GeForce2 Pro, I decided to go for it.

wow, ur in the exact same situation as me! except i ordered mine on thursday. i hope it works

 

filmore crashcart

Senior member
Dec 18, 1999
684
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As I had posted before, I have had no problems with this card after I disabled fastwrites in the bios. The 2d is fine and the speed is great. Disabling fastwrites had no effect on the perfromance at all. I have the card overclocked to 300/620 so far and I get 10564 in 3dmark 2000, which is more than enough for me. It plays all my current games well and I'm pleased with it. Maybe I got one of the "good" batches from NewEgg but having a via board hasn't hurt me.
 

5489

Platinum Member
Aug 12, 2001
2,163
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Originally posted by: filmore crashcart
As I had posted before, I have had no problems with this card after I disabled fastwrites in the bios. The 2d is fine and the speed is great. Disabling fastwrites had no effect on the perfromance at all. I have the card overclocked to 300/620 so far and I get 10564 in 3dmark 2000, which is more than enough for me. It plays all my current games well and I'm pleased with it. Maybe I got one of the "good" batches from NewEgg but having a via board hasn't hurt me.

wait, wait, 3dmark2000?

have you tried 2k1 yet?

 

filmore crashcart

Senior member
Dec 18, 1999
684
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On another note, I'm not big using 3dmark to judge a cards worth, but that is what seems to be the measuring stick for this forum. If you wanted to tweak this card further, I'm sure you'd get more than what I'm currently getting. For all intent and purpose, this card is what it was claimed to be and I'm happy with it. I need to find a good home for my old Visiontek g3 now. I had read all those posts about faulty Gaiwards and MSI cards and I can only assume it was a bad batch. If my card is representative of the current batch, then they must have corrected the problem.
 

onelin

Senior member
Dec 11, 2001
874
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I can't wait to get my board!
should have an Athlon XP 1900+ w/ an Asus A7V333 (Via KT333 chipset) by wed or thurs... not worried at all :) I don't think the fastwrites really matter either, it seems like more trouble than it's worth.