Radeon 8500 problems

[mvandam]

I just dumped my GF2MX200 for a new retail Radeon 8500 128MB. Unfortunaley I can not get it stable enough to run through 3DMark2001. I have tried the drivers that came in the box, the Catalyst 2.2 and 2.3 as well. I have gone throught the registry thoroughly to remove all traces of the nVidia drivers multiple reinstalls of drivers, etc. I have not don a reinstall of WinX yet but may as a last resort. Everything was perfectly stable before the switch. Any other ideas? Specs below.

ECS K7S5A
AMD Athlon XP1600+
2 X 128MB Kingston PC133
Radeon 8500
Hercule GTXP Sound
40G Maxtor min drive
40G Quantum Media drive
DVD ROM
CDRW, etc
300W HEC PSU

 

[sechs]

The operating system is very finicky about video drivers...

Have you tried ripping everything back to a standard VGA driver and then installing?

What drivers are you installing and in what order?

 

[mvandam]

I have tried all manners of removing the drivers and then reinstaling them. I have followed the order of installing video drivers then rebooting, then installing the ATI control panel and rebooting finally installin MMC and other ATi software as teh directions state. In WinXP, how do you get to a standard VGA controller? Everytime I uninstall the 8500 when I reboot it reinstalls the default drivers.

 

[kurt454]

Is it crashing back to desktop or rebooting? If it is rebooting, you might want to consider a stronger psu. I have the same board. It is very power hungry. Got an Antec 480W on mine.

"Everytime I uninstall the 8500 when I reboot it reinstalls the default drivers"

When it reboots, a message pops up saying 'Found New Hardware'. Close it right then to keep XP from reloading drivers.

 

[mvandam]

It causes a hard lock where I have to push the reset button to reboot. I have tried to close the New Hardware Found balloon but it still seems to install the drivers.

 

[43st]

You'd consider reinstalling the OS just to run a benchmark program? Seems a bit drastic.

From my experiance with the earlier Radeon 8500 drivers the card didn't like changing resolutions for some reason. If you set your desktop to the lowest res. (640x480) before starting 3dmark you should be fine. I didn't know the drivers still had that issue. Did you maybe install the CD drivers when you got the card?

Also be aware that Rage Tweak also offers a setting to automatically change the res before launching an app.

Hope this helps.

 

[mvandam]

It's not just the benchmark as it also crashes games occasionaly as well. I did initially install the drivers on the CD but completely removed them to try the newer drivers.

 

[Killrose]

I know the K7sem has problems with anything other than an Nvidia card and it's in the manual. Have you made sure the K7S5A does'nt as well?

 

[sechs]

To get back to vga drivers, uninstall all of the software for the card via the Add/Remove control panel, and delete the hardware from the device manager. After rebooting, Windows should default to the standard VGA drivers.

Try installing the software like this:
1. Catalyst drivers. No reboot.
2. Control panels. No reboot.
3. a. WDM drivers, if necessary. No reboot.
b. Hydravision, if necessary. No reboot.
c. Reboot.
4. ATi DVD player 7.6.
5. ATi MMC 7.7.

 

[mvandam]

Thanks for the tips sechs, I will try that tonight.

 

[43st]

Did you try Rage3d Tweak? What OS are you using also?

 

[mvandam]

Have not tried Rage 3D tweak. Haven't ried anything new in a couple of days. Running WinXP PRO SP1.

 

[AnMig]

Sounds extremely familiar

I had similar problems with ECS K7S5A before 1600xp,256 ddr,radeon le. The problem started when I upgraded from a 750 duron.
Symptoms where reboots and hangs particularly in 3dmark. It was on a 300watt enlight.

The problem disappeared when I upgraded to a 400 watt ps.

PS is the first thing I would check when problems arise with this board.

To check try underclocking go to 100 fsb instead of 133, remove extra peripherals.

is heat an issue, is the 8500 overclocked?

good luck, its a very good stable board once the PS issue is resolved

 

[mvandam]

I tried undercloccking the processor and 3DMark2001 ran through with no problems. I think I may have a PSU problem. Guess it's time for a new one. Thanks for all of the help.

 

[mvandam]

Thanks for all of tips guys. It appears that I had a power problem. I swapped my 2 sticks of 128MB PC133 for a new stick 256MB DDR and everything has been perfect since. So problem solved for now but I know that I am right at the verge on my power supply, any more upgrades and I need a new PSU. Thanks again everyone.

Matt