Radeon 7500 and ECS K7S5A

[Mockmaw]

Ugh.. this is getting to be a pain.. was working FINE two days ago.. now everytime I get to windows it locks up about 1-15 minutes.. but it doesn't really lock up, the video display just shuts off. I think the system's still working fine in the background. I have:

Duron 600 (not overclocked)
ECS K7S5A
Radeon 7500 Retail
Crucial 256mb PC2100
onboard NIC
30gb maxtor
4x IDE DVD drive
Floppy
Power supply is fine

That's all that's currently in the system. Everything onboard except LAN has been turned off, and I'm still having issues. Anyone know if there's a fix for this? I've tried about 3 different driver packs for the 7500 to no avail. Maybe I should just trade this card away (which pisses me off since the 2d is spectacular, as is the gaming performance.. I'd really rather not downgrade from this product.. I'm loving the hydravision.. but I can't use my system if the display shuts off after about 5 or 10 minutes.

Any ideas? The only thing that's changed in my system between two days ago (when it worked absolutely fine, same components) was that since then my net access has come back on.

 

[Killrose]

Well first off I wouldn't trade a bad card to anyone. You want real trouble? Secondly you need to get another vid card of any sorts to put into the AGP slot and see what happens. Sounds like a component heat isssue to me. Maybe remove the case cover from your system so it runs cooler and see if the problem goes away, or takes longer to occur.

And you don't have some goofy power saving monitor shutoff thing enabled by accident do you?

 

[Mockmaw]

Well..

1. I always make good on my trades.. if someone were to receive the card and the card was found to be dysfunctional (NOT due to driver issues) then I'd clearly take the card back and issue them a refund/trade back the card I got from them.

2. I've used a PCI Banshee in the system, it works fine.

3. Heat isn't an issue. The CPU's running very cool.. never more than 30C. I have two fans in the case with nice airflow.. and I've tried taking the case off. The vid card is slightly warm. Doesn't seem like heat to me since heat generally causes blue screens.

4. No power saving crap at all =o)

I really think it's a windows driver issue or a hardware incompatibility. When I boot the system to windows, if I start up Quake3, I can play for a couple hours without any issues. It's a function of the machine sitting in windows for 5 or 10 minutes.. very strange.

Any ideas?

 

[Mockmaw]

Well, I've found that it's indeed locking up after a few minutes (I originally thought it was just shutting off the display, but it's actually locking up the whole system).

It's got to be a hardware or driver conflict.

Has anyone ever run this combo before (7500 and k7s5a) ?

 

[Killrose]

Sorry, did'nt mean to even imply that you would consider trading something that was bad or not backing it up.

yeah, a hard lock like that is usually a hardware conflict.

 

[Mockmaw]

Got it. Needed to install the latest AGP driver (1.07 I think) for the motherboard. Kickass!

With 60fps at 1600x1200x32bit I'm kicking arse in Q3..

 

[RSG2]

Alright, then can someone help me with mine? I've got a 32 mb AIW Radeon (PCI version) with this motherboard. Mine locks up as well - sometimes reboots also. It works fine in vga modes, but as soon as I installed the drivers - the crashes started. I can run it with the drivers if I turn off hardware acceleration completely, but that doesn't get me much. I'm running Win98SE, and whatever the latest drivers I downloaded along with DirectX 8.1. Also, the DVD Player won't run for me - gives me a multiple choice error (failed due to one of the following...). I tried the Interactual player on the Phantom Menace cd, but that doesn't work either due to a video subsystem error. Also, with hardware acceleration turned off on the video card, the sound coming out of my SBLive Mp3+ 5.1 card gets crackly. Is there a conflict I should be looking for, or did I just get a bad card? :disgust:

 

[AA0]

you need to know the motherboard you have, it must be a premade computer for it not to have a AGP slot. Chances are your soundcard if your soundcard is crackling you have a VIA chipset, but make sure before you install the newest drivers. Also see if there is a bios update for your board.

 

[Jerboy]

<< Ugh.. this is getting to be a pain.. was working FINE two days ago.. now everytime I get to windows it locks up about 1-15 minutes.. but it doesn't really lock up, the video display just shuts off. I think the system's still working fine in the background. I have:

Duron 600 (not overclocked)
ECS K7S5A
Radeon 7500 Retail
Crucial 256mb PC2100
onboard NIC
30gb maxtor
4x IDE DVD drive
Floppy
Power supply is fine >>



Oh man... you cheaped out on motherboard when you could afford a Radeon7500??

 

[RSG2]

Ok, let me try this again. I have a ECS K7S5A Rev 1.4 motherboard (no VIA chipset), an AMD Athlon XP 1600+, a SoundBlaster Live MP3 5.1+, and an All-In-Wonder Radeon 32mb PCI board. I'm also running Windows 98SE, a Diamond Fireport 40 SCSI card and a Pioneer 305S DVD-Rom. I can't use my computer for more than a few minutes with the latest Radeon drivers installed and DirectX 8.1 before it crashes, reboots, or whatever. It will work if I turn of hardware acceleration, but I can't get any of my applications to work (DVD Player, TV). I have tried the Interactual Player that comes on the Phantom Menace dvd, but that won't work either. And I noticed that when I had hardware accelation set to full, that the sound was good (motherboard sound is of course disabled). With hardware acceleration turned off the sound seems to crackle. Wouldn't work under XP either - do I have a bad vid card, or is there a conflict I should be trying to look for? I believe that both cards are sharing IRQ 5, but I can't change either one of them. Flashed with latest BIOS as well.

 

[Tsuru]

RSG2: I have an AIW Radeon and the K7S5A and am running without any problems...now. I had problems getting started though. From the sounds of things first make sure that you're running the the SiS 1.07 AGP drivers, anything older will give you problems.

Next, if you get cards sharing IRQ's at the BIOS startup screen you need to yank out one of the conflicting cards and put it in a different slot. The SB live! series is infamous for IRQ sharing problems. If worse comes to worse, put the SB live in slot one and turn off "Assign IRQ to VGA" in your BIOS. This should clear up your IRQ sharing problems.

Last, your TV, DVD and other ATI programs not working is caused by a glitch in DirectX 8.1a. You need to go to the Microsoft's DirectX site and download something called a "Digital Video Update" or "DirectX BDA" your DVD and TV should now work.

Hope this helps!

Athlon T-Bird 750
ECS K7S5A
ATI AIW Radeon
Micron 256Mb PC2100
IBM 75GXP 20GB
Adaptec AHA-2940
Yamaha 8824SZ Burner
Pioneer 104S DVD

 

[RSG2]

Tried it...still not working. Maybe I'll try reformatting and installing Windows for the millionth time...:disgust:

Thanks for the help though. Any other ideas?

 

[vlieps]

Well I have heard something like this. Have You tried to leave PCI slot 1 empty (the one closest to AGP slot).
I had problems with sound whatever...do not remember and moving my card whatever it was there from PCI slot 1 to another. Everything worked after that. So, remove card from PCI 1 to somewhere else and see what happens.

 

[RSG2]

Just lost the lengthy reply I was posting here - now I'm really steamed...:disgust:

Anyway - I tried yet another install of WIN98Se without the Soundblaster at all (leaving Slot 1 empty) - same results.

Here's some of the details of my system:

ECS K7S5A (Rev 1.4 FSB 133/133)
POWMax 500W PS
AMD Athlon XP 1600+
512MB Mushkin DDR Ram
Creative Labs Soundblaster Live Mp3+ 5.1 (Slot 1)
3Com 2976 OEM Hardware PCI Voice Faxmodem (Slot 2)
Diamond Fireport 40 SCSI card (Slot 3)
AIW Radeon 32MB PCI (Slot 5 - latest drivers, DirectX 8.1, 1.07 AGP Driver (figured it couldn't hurt)
Windows 98SE
Pioneer 305S SCSI Dvd-Rom
Pioneer 32X SCSI CD-Rom
Pinnacle Micro SCSI RCD-4x4
Plextor Ultraplex 40X CD-Rom (SCSI)
Plextor Plexwriter 1610 (Atapi)
Zip Drive (Atapi)

I have had all sorts of troubles with the video card - The TV application says that the video drivers failed to initalize, the DVD player gives a multiple choice error (Audio not installed, graphic overlay not available, or not enough video memory). System crashes with hardware acceleration turned up to full, seems to run forever with it turned off (haven't tried the in between stuff on advice from ATI tech support). Tried the Interactual Player from the Phantom Menace Disc - gives a video subsystem error. Board also wouldn't work under Windows XP - some sort of write/draw error that I don't remember now. Also noticed that turning hardware acceleration off on the video made the EAX startup sound crackle (making me think soundcard conflict, until not having it installed didn't work either). Anyone else got any other ideas? An Older STB Velocity 4400 board seemed to run fine in this system, so there's got to be either a conflict or just a bad board. I can't really test it out, because I don't have anything else powerful enough to run the stuff that comes with it (Gave it a shot anyway in another system - it seemed to work alright). Can't seem to make everything stop sharing IRQ's either. Any help would be appreciated...

 

[Mockmaw]

Ugh.. back in the same boat.. THOUGHT it was working.. but nooo..

Game crashes in Sacrifice after about 10 or 15 minutes..

System also crashes after sitting for a couple hours.

And forget the hydravision, turning that on will crash the system after about 20 minutes.. ie in the middle of my term paper. (needless to say I save often so not much was lost.. but this card really does seem to be a joke.)

And to whoever said it, I don't consider this board (the K7S5A) as a 'skimp.'

I'd heard great things about it, recommendations from friends, etc... and $35 was a great price. Methinks I'm just gonna sell this board and go with a Geforce2 Ti or a Geforce3 ti200.. the image quality and speed of this board are absolutely fantastic.. but the issues are getting to be more than I really want to bear.

 

[Killrose]

$35.00? you paid $35.00 for your Radeon 7500? Still, even though it's "broken" i'll give you $45.00 shipped for it.

 

[ProviaFan]

Let me add mine to the mix here...

Duron 800mhz (soon to be Athlon XP, hopefully 1900+)
Gigabyte GA-7ZXE
Generic PC/133 128 and 256 MB DIMMS
Radeon SDR PCI
Dlink DFE-530TX+ nic
SBLive Value
Lucent chipset modem
20GB and 4.3GB Western digital hd
52X creative labs CDROM
100MB Zip
floppy, of course

Mine exhibits quite the same symptoms as the other systems here, and I know it's not a bad card (sent my old one in and got a new one back from ATI). Case temps are relatively normal. I'm using Windows XP's drivers for it (also tried ATI's), and with the acceleration disabled it works fine. No IRQ conflicts, btw. I've also tried moving the slot that the card is in, and taking out my SBLive and nic with no success.

 

[ProviaFan]

Well, I checked to make sure I have the latest 4in1s (I do have the latest). Also I tried a Rage Pro Turbo PCI in this system, and it works fine.
What's really bugging me, though, is that I can not see a single common factor between all of our systems here except the Radeon video card. Earlier I had thought that it might be incompatible with a chipset (Via), but it turns out not all of us have Via chipsets.
P.s. A little more detail on my system's problem... It will sit overnight just fine running ECCp-109, but if I actually use it, it will lock up in a short while (driver getting stuck in endless loop in atidvag or something like that). But if I disable the acceleration on the video card it will work fine.

 

[RSG2]

I'm beginning to believe very strongly that there is something physically wrong with some of these boards. I finally got some of my applications to work, after yet another couple of clean installs of Windows (XP sandwiched by 98SE). But it still locks up if you do anything for more than a few minutes (if even that long). I think mine comes up as a revision 0 board - what about everyone else? I even tried an install with nothing in but the video card, so there were no IRQ conflicts - same results.

And why isn't Guide+ downloading any data? It just sits there waiting for a response...

 

[Hawk]

Hey Mockmaw, I actually had a display shuts off/ computer keeps running program in Win2k with my 7500 (others on rage3d.com had it too) right when it gets into Windows. Win98 and WinXP work fine though, so now I am in WinXP, haven't had a problem yet. Did you try different drivers (not newest)?

Oh, and also, I thought no patches were needed for your mobo?

 

[ProviaFan]

Ok guys, I think I may have found something. Have you tried updating your BIOS? Also, if you have a VIA chipset, you might try the beta patch found in this thread on Viaarena.

 

[rogue1979]

OK, now if you really want to have some fun: 1) flash to the overclockers bios 2) pencil in the L7 bridges for 1.85v. 3) a 133MHz fsb will get you 800, the 138 will get you 830, and the 150Mhz fsb will get you 900Mhz. You might have to lower your memory timings a little to hit the 150MHz fsb speed, but if you hit this mark your system will be like twice as fast overall.

 

[lotust]

<< OK, now if you really want to have some fun: 1) flash to the overclockers bios 2) pencil in the L7 bridges for 1.85v. 3) a 133MHz fsb will get you 800, the 138 will get you 830, and the 150Mhz fsb will get you 900Mhz. You might have to lower your memory timings a little to hit the 150MHz fsb speed, but if you hit this mark your system will be like twice as fast overall. >>



ok but how does this help the man ?

 

[rogue1979]

I missed his last post, I thought he had it fixed!

 

[lotust]

hehe