random computer restarts/screen goes black

[Rickyohead]

I just replaced (RMA Warranty) my 9800pro 128mb with ATI and I'm still having random restarts in Windows, and screen goes black or computer restarts when trying to load Half Life 2.

Could my motherboard AGP slot be bad? I don't overclock my CPU, have a 480w TT PSU, and have good airflow.

Could a crappy old CRT monitor cause a restart? It always shows a yellow light (instead of green) before the computer restarts, as if it was not recieving any signal from the computer. Is that just because my video card failed?

EVEREST shows 36 C for my motherboard, 44 C for my CPU. Please help. Any ideas? I'm nervous typing because I don't know when my computer will restart. Thanks.

 

[montag451]

Are there any events in event viewer?
If not, disable auto restart on errors through control panes/system/advanced

See what comes up afterwards.
Is the monitor powered through the computer?

 

[aGreenAgent]

Your video card might be overheating.

Make sure you don't put any PCI cards right next to the video card.

Also, after this happens, touch the heatsink of the video card. If you burn yourself, then your vid card is overheating.

 

[Rickyohead]

Event Viewer:

"The driver ati2dvag for the display device \Device\Video0 got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your hardware device vendor for any driver updates."

I have Cataylst 5.4 driver installed. Could my motherboard driver be causing this?

My monitor is powered through a 1000va (600w) Back-UPS along with the computer. Even when my monitor is powered seperately, it still goes black (no signal) when the computer hangs or restarts.

 

[Rickyohead]

Originally posted by: aGreenAgent
Your video card might be overheating.

Make sure you don't put any PCI cards right next to the video card.

Also, after this happens, touch the heatsink of the video card. If you burn yourself, then your vid card is overheating.

I don't have any PCI cards below my video card. Like I said, there is good airflow and when I touch the heatsink after a crash/restart, it feels slightly warm, not hot at all.

I am beginning to think this is completely software related and the display driver is causing my problems.

 

[Rickyohead]

update:

I found lots of forum threads about this problem with ATI cards when used with the Via AGP chipset (which my mobo uses). Some fixes have been setting AGP to 4x, disabling fast-write, changing the aperture...

Another suggestion was to increase AGP slot in BIOS to 1.6V, which is what I did, and so far it has fixed my problem. I still don't completely understand, but it works.

Does this increase the chance of overheating or killing my card?