Radeon 9800 Pro...Some issues

[DaZednConFuZeD]

Hey Dudes n Dudettes,

I recently built my computer using my old processor. I'm running Asus p4p800. a Northwood P4 1.8 OC'ed to 2.4 @ 533 FSB at 1.6V. 1 stick of Spectek 512 and 2 sticks of Spectek 256 PC2700 at 3:4 ratio 2.7V and a Radeon 9800 Pro 128 at AGP 4x and 1.5V. I have it running at 380/345 or something around there with OCZ ramsinks and Arctic Cooling VGA cooler thingy.

When playing Warcraft III TFT I get random crashes to the desktop with an error message reading something along the lines of ... "couldn't access a memory file" or some sort...some type of read type error. I was wondering if anyone had any insight to this problem since I'm not really OCing the vid card....yet. I'm currently running Omega Drivers 2.5.36b and use Radlinker to OC the card when I run 3dMark2001se(14,047 @ 445/376). I originally had the AGP speed setting at 8x but heard that turning it down to 4x would be more stable. I would like to hear any thoughts and/or insights as to WUT THE HELL IS GOIN ON...thanks much in advance. :beer:

 

[akshayt]

Use some forms of catalyst drivers,the latest may not be the best,reinstall a error-free and non-currupt version of windows and insure you have no viruses etc.

 

[Megatomic]

I agree, first thing to do is to revert to standard Catalyst drivers. If you want to do a top rate job, run Driver Cleaner before installed the new Cats.

1. Download and install Driver Cleaner
2. Uninstall the Omegas
3. Reboot into safe mode and run driver cleaner and cab cleaner (included in driver cleaner)
4. Unplug your network cable if you have a broadband connection
5. Reboot as normal and install the new Cats
6. Reboot when prompted
7. Test with your game
8. Fixed?
a. Yes - :beer:
b. No - Look for other problems (memory settings in BIOS, etc...)

Good luck.

 

[DaZednConFuZeD]

I've actually run the driver cleaner before i reinstalled the latest Omegas which was weird. Do you guys believe that the Cats are more stable than Omegas, and that this is causing the problem?

 

[BFG10K]

Start by running everything at stock speeds. Until you do that you are wasting your time.

 

[DaZednConFuZeD]

yup yup,

I ran everything at stock and it was fine the way it was. But I guess that would just be undermining my whole effort of getting the most bang for my buck by just leaving it alone... I couldn't really do that to my sweet baby now could I? hehe.
Ne how, ran cab cleaner and driver cleaner, reinstalled Cat4.4s, ran for a few days no prob, then just this afternoon got on again to WCIII and crashed with that same read error "fatal error" something was read at "0x0000000000" or something along those lines...AARRRGH gonna rip hairs out soon!

 

[BFG10K]

I ran everything at stock and it was fine the way it was

Problem solved then.

couldn't really do that to my sweet baby now could I?

Now you're just being silly. Overclocking is never guaranteed. If you want it to be guaranteed then you should've payed for the more expensive parts that can run that high.

 

[Pete]

Try running memtest(.org) on your OC'ed system. If it passes, then start looking into the video card. But I suspect you're just OC'ing something too far (namely, your RAM).

 

[DaZednConFuZeD]

Yeah, I ran Memtest86 looked good for about 3hrs of running, so i'm pretty sure it's not my ram...hrmm thanks for the great input guys and helpful hints.
Dude BFG....I'm not being silly, I paid for the best parts i could afford. Not everyone can afford to be super rich, and besides, i'm not looking for a guarantee, i'm just looking for the best i can do with what i got. Stock is pretty boring for me. OCing is the poor man's way of gettin somethin better than just "normal". And besides...i'm not asking for much, I don't even OC my card except when running benchmarks.............While playing games and normal operation my card is at 380 core 345 ram. :roll:

 

[Jeff7181]

Well you have to have some sort of method to test. You can't just say "it's fine at stock speed, it's not fine at overclocked speed."

Overclock ONE thing at a time and test for stability. I'd start with the video card. Put your CPU back at it's stock speed, then keep the video card at your overclocked speed and play your game and see if it crashes, if it doesn't after a week or so of normal use, start overclocking your CPU again little by little... when you start seeing crashes, back the speed down a little.

 

[DaZednConFuZeD]

Well, I'm currently running my Vid Card at stocks speeds. Everything was cool for a few weeks again, but if anyone was interested, here's the whole error message that I got:

"This application has encountered a critical error:

FATAL ERROR!

Program:c:\program files\warcraft iii\war3.exe
Exception: 0xC000005(ACCESS_VIOLATION) at 001B:6F0378B7

The instruction at '0x6F0378B7' referenced memory at '0x00004998'.
The memory could not be 'read'.

Press OK to terminate the application. "

Thanks again for any help you guys can offer. I'd really appreciate resolving this irking issue hehe. :beer: *CHEERS*

 

[Matthias99]

I'm really not convinced this is your video card's fault -- I get plenty of graphical corruption when I overclock my 9800Pro too much, but it's never crashed a program. Anything is possible, but I think that if it was your video card that was doing it, you'd see issues in any stressful game or 3D application, not just WC3.

You're pushing that P4/motherboard pretty hard... did you run a full set of stability tests on it? Let memtest86 loop overnight doing the *full* tests (you have to go into the menu and enable them when you start it up), and try running Prime95's "Blend" torture test for a few hours (you can loop 3DMark01 at the same time if you want to stress the video card as well).