Soyo Dragon K7V and Radeon 8500 - Problems!!! Help!!!

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Hey guys, I'm having a problem specifically with my mobo and video card. Here are my specs to get you familiar with the system:

Athlon 1700+ @ 1800+
512 DDR Mushkin High Performance Rev 2 - 1 stick
Soyo SY-K7V Dragon Mobo
2 - Seagate Barracuda Series IV 7200RPM 40GB
Radeon 8500 64MB Retail
Win XP Professional

*Just as a note, this 8500 worked fine in my Duron 700 system.*

Just got in my Radeon 8500, and I put it in, installed the drivers, and everything seemed fine. Within about 5 minutes of browsing the internet or downloading some files, it completely locks up. By this, I mean either I'm loading a page or watching a file download, and sometimes the screen will go slightly blurry or just stop completely. Most of the time, it will reboot, although a couple of times I have had to reboot myself.

Here are a couple of things I've tried. First went into BIOS, and set back to default processor speed, but heat has never been an issue in my Lian-Li PC-65. CPU was at 42C and case temp was at 34C. Nothing wrong there. Still locked up with this config. Then underclocked the processor in BIOS to the 'Fail-Safe Bootup' option, which knocked it down to 1.1Ghz. Still locked up with this config.

After realizing it wasn't the processor or heat issue, (because everything in the case is cool to the touch), I turned to the ATI drivers. The problems with the drivers is why I almost didn't go with ATI in the first place, but I chanced it anyways. I have deleted drivers in safe mode, and reinstalled almost any drivers I could get my hands on, including the March 20th release from ATI. NOTHING works, still locks up with any and all drivers I try.

Third thing I looked into was the BIOS drivers, but Soyo has pretty much no updates to it's BIOS on it's update besides a 2100+ support BIOS update.

Is anyone else having this problem? What else can I check? I hope I don't have to take it back and get a GeForce4, but I will if I have to. Thanks for any suggestions or comments.

 

[Atrail]

Awe great. My 8500 will be here tomorrow and I am running a Dragon Plus, hope I don't have your problems. I would check out These drivers (if you haven't already: there are also some tweak utilites with these drivers). You updated to lastest VIA drivers? Get a clean unistall of your old card? Make sure it is seated well in AGP slot and all that.. Don't know what else to say at the moment. Good luck!

 

[nRollo]

Try underclocking the Radeon to 250/250. If that works you have your answer. I took mine back and got a Ti4400.

BTW- how much wood can a woodchuck chuck?

 

[amiel]

HEEELLLLLPPPP!!!!

got my 8500 two weeks ago and had been testing it for stability and compatibility. works fine except for a few artifacts in legacy games (battlezone, heavy gear) with certain drivers. Everything seems ok although i had to do some experimentation with which drivers to install to play ghost recon without seeing artifacts in the team member selection screen before eventually freezing. However, no matter which drivers i install (ATI's official releases and third party betas)I can't play operation flashpoint without it freezing everytime a mission begins. I've tried re-installing operation flashpoint and directx 8.1 (even 8.0a) but op flash still locks-up my system. Just two weeks ago i was using an OEM GF2 ti200 from MSI which worked fine with ALL my games and that was the only piece of hardware that I replaced before experiencing problems. My CPU temp remains at 44 degrees and case temp is at 29 with 100% CPU load so i know that it's not an overheating issue. The video card doesn't seem like it's even close to overheating either. I don't have anything overclocked on my system. no funny system optimizations and utilities or TSRs in the background either. WHAT IS WRONG?

cpu: AXP 1700+
mem: 256MB corsair PC 2100 CAS2 latency
mobo: FIC AD11 (AMD 760)
3D card: retail ATI Radeon 8500
HDD: 30GB Western Digital

 

[amiel]

sorry, i posted this on the wrong thread

 

[Mitzi]

WoodchuckCharlie : Would you be kind enough to let me know if you resolve this problem? I was just about to buy a Soyo Dragon K7V board to replace my aging ECS K7AMA board but I also have a Radeon 8500. I really want to buy this board because I've heard many good things about it.

Many thanks.

 

[Atrail]

Woodchuck took his 8500 back, so he doesn't have a problem anymore.
I got my 8500 hundred today and installed it. I am running a Dragon Plus not the regular board. Everything is running great.

 

[AnMig]

I have a soyo dragon plus and 8500 retail and have been running this setup past 4 months.
I have had no problems so far and I like to use and experiment with beta drivers.

RTCW-no problem

Operation flashpoint-no problem

Ghost recon- looks great with everything maxed out 1600x1200. The only minor problem I have is occasional choppiness when its raining and there are tanks moving around. I have tried official and unofficial(6053) and it still does this on this particular mission. I also ran it in windows 98 and xp still present . Might be the high polygon bug everyone is talking about.

Anybody find a solution to this occasional stuttering?

 

[kd2777]

woodchuckcharlie was helping me install this card with my board, We never got it to work. I went the next day and got a geforce4 and it worked perfect. I dodn't understand it!!! The Redeon worked in my old system, but not my newer one. I'm wondering if it was a problem with the older kt266 chipset aposed to the kt226a that is in the dragon plus? guess I should have forked out the extra 20 bucks for the newer model.