Radeon 9500 Pro causing Desktop Lock Ups

[MarkVBur]

Heyo. I recently switched from a Geforce 2 MX to a Radeon 9500 Pro (Sapphire Atlantis, 128MB VRAM). Now my system (Win98SE) tends to lock up quite often. Sometimes it simply completely freezes (A), sometimes the monitor gets turned out and switches to energy safe mode (complete lock up inclusive) (B).

I thought it might be related to my power supply (300W), but I tried various games and 3D apps for about two hours and the system was absolutely stable while I was testing them. The problem seems to be related to desktop apps. I noticed that, for instance, ICQ (2000b) seems to trigger the lock ups. Sometimes the attempt to install a program results in aforementioned B. Apart from that it appears to freeze randomly while I'm surfing the web.

I started with Catalyst 3.6, but after noticing the problem I switched to Catalyst 3.7. The lock-ups still occure. Other system specs: Athlon 800MHz, Via KX-133 MB (4in1 v4.48), 256 MB RAM. Any suggestions on what might be the source of this? My system was stable before and the gfx card is the only component I changed. Thanks in advance.

 

[amdskip]

Did you uninstall the drivers for the Geforce 2 MX? Isn't this "A Lot" of video card for your system too?

 

[MarkVBur]

Yeah, uninstalled the nVidia drivers. Meanwhile even completely reinstalled Windows to make sure there's nothing left (partition format inclusive). And still there seem to be occasional lock-ups. And yep, I'm aware that the Radeon 9500 Pro will underperform in my current setup. However, I plan to get a new CPU/mobo some time in the near future (3-4 months) and simply got the gfx card ahead because some friend of mine got rid of his.

 

[KGB]

Mark,

Try disbling FASTWRITES in your ATI Control Panel (and BIOS if applicable).

OH! Welcome to the forums!

 

[MarkVBur]

Thanks for the welcome. And a bigger thanks for the hint, which apparently solved the problem. Haven't encountered any lock-ups so far after disabling said feature.