system:serious problem with my 9500 pro

[mindfire]

ok.. here it comes..
i bought a brand new built by ati radeon 9500 pro.. now here's the thing..
i put in the card, formatted my hdd, did a frsh install of xp, put on dx9, then installed the catalyst 3.2 drivers..
now when i start up windows everything is fine.. the refresh rate is good, there are no conflicts with anything.. but when i start up a 3d application my system (or the card - i honestly do not know!) freezes and occasionally restarts. like for example fifa 2003, freelancer or 3dmark 2001SE. i have the latest agp drivers from sis too. it gets in the game but when the loading proccess is over and the real 3d needs to start, thats when it happens.
now here's the interesting part:
i went to my friend who has a pentium 3 system and checked the card there. installed the drivers on the existing windows he had with dx9.
after the restart no game worked because in windows it said that the agp transfer rate was set on 'off' instead of the regular 2x,4x or 8x.
ok, that was strange but i continued trying to set the card right. i removed all the other programs installed with the driver like hydravision and all those. restarted, still nothing, then i went into the device manager and clicked 'update driver' and updated to the same driver i installed earlier.. restarted.. and vwalla.. all the games started.. freelancer.. c&c generals.. everything worked. no restarts.. no freezes.. no nothing. so i was really happy to see that and ran straight home to try the same procedure on my system. did exacly what i did on my friend's system but still no luck! i get the same crashes when i open up games and 3d apps in general.
what could possibly be wrong as i am sure that if the card works on a pentium 3 system it should have no problems running on a pentium 4 system (which i have).
any help would be gladly appreciated!

my system:

pentium 4 2.0 ghz
motherboard: MSI-6547 supports agp 4x - not 8x
256 mb ddr 333
sis 645 ultra-c chipset
win xp pro
SB audigy 2
80 gb seagate 7200 rpm

 

[selfbuilt]

You didn't post details of your power supply ... what maker and rated output? One obviously possibility is that card is not getting enough power on your system (I presume you've plugged in the power cable after installing in the AGP socket, right?).

Assuming you have a high enough PSU (e.g. 350W or higher), then I would suggest increasing the AGP voltage in your BIOS to 1.6 or 1.7V from the current 1.5V.

 

[Zanfib]

Yes check the power supply. I have a Dell system with a 250w power supply, which is below spec for the Radeon 9500 Pro, I thought with only one optical drive, one harddrive and minimal PCI cards I'd be ok. WRONG! My Radeon behaves weirdly; it runs slower than on other equal systems (and by slow I mean enough that you can't blame minor software differences), and I get funny oscilations on my screen, and I think it must be the power supply at fault. Post back if you have a lack of power 'cause it will help me figure out if the ps makes that big a difference.

 

[mindfire]

ok, my power supply is 400W
about the agp voltage.. thats probably the only thing i cannot change in my bios, i dunno why. i have ami bios 3.3 - its the latest one for my chipset. now when u say that u presume i've plugged in the power cable after installing in the AGP socket, then i presume u mean the power cable on the radeon, right? if thats what u mean, then yes, i connected the power cable on the radeon to the power supply. so what is the conclusion? i have no idea! i think 400W of power is enough to keep a computer running fine with 3 hard disks, 1 cdr/w drive, 1 agp card, and 2 pci cards.

 

[Mem]

There`re a few things you can try, like slower ram timings in BIOS,also try the older 3.1 drivers until the 3.4s are available ,some owners have had better luck with them in some systems.

Try Driver Cleaner 1.4 ,it`s good for removing driver files.Also lastest Bios update might help.

 

[selfbuilt]

The Cat 3.2 drivers are known to be somewhat buggy .... I'm running the 3.1s without incident, so you could try that. Also, make sure that FastWrites are disabled in your BIOS.

I also agree with mem about looking at your memory. Next to increasing the AGP voltage, playing with the memory (i.e. lowering the timings, or increasing the voltage) has also been known to resolve issues for many. These newer cards interact a lot with the system memory, so any problems with the RAM can show up after the graphics card upgrade.

Good luck with it!

 

[Viper96720]

Did you install the new agp drivers? It's version 1.14 sis agp driver. You can get it from www.msi.com.tw

 

[mindfire]

ok, as for the ram starting to not work properly after installing the card, that didnt happen, everything is fine when im in 2d mode and the ram does not give me any problems what so ever.
i dloaded the latest drivers for the agp (there is actually 1.15).
i also formatted my hdd like 3 times already, so the driver cleaner is not needed in this case, anyways i had an ati card before i upgraded to the 9500 pro. i went yesterday to my friend who has a gigabyte sis 645 based motherboard, just like my chipset, but a different m/b. i have an msi m/b. i installed the standart 2.4 drivers that came with the cd on a used windows xp (when i say used i mean not new ) and everything worked.. now how is that possible?
and he also has 256 mb ram.

 

[Mem]

ok, as for the ram starting to not work properly after installing the card, that didnt happen, everything is fine when im in 2d mode and the ram does not give me any problems what so ever.

I had a similar problem to you quite awhile back with my video card, at destop it would work fine for general use ,however when I played any 3D game it would crash,freeeze or restart,going into my BIOS (also a MSI board then) and selecting a slower memory timings for my ram fixed the problem for me so that`s why I suggested it,at least it`s worth trying.

You say it`s a 400w but is it a generic type or a well known good quality brand like Antec,Sparkle ,Enermax etc,remember quality of generic PSUs do vary quite a lot from very bad to good and the so called "400w" rating doesn`t really mean a lot with them,the power quality of the +3 and +5 volt rails and total combined power output of these rails is more important.

 

[mindfire]

i never said it wasnt woth suggesting, and i really appreciate the help. right now any piece of help is useful for me.
i want to understand something, when u say to lower the memmory timings u mean to lower the mhz? like from 333 mhz to something like 300 mhz?
i am now looking at my power supply and here's what it says:

MI-ATX400

+3.3v - 28A
+5v - 40A
+12v - 18A

is that any good (or at least normal?) because i have no idea when it comes to the voltage of the power supply.

 

[Mem]

i want to understand something, when u say to lower the memmory timings u mean to lower the mhz? like from 333 mhz to something like 300 mhz?

I mean the speed timings ,on most boards it`s normally "normal,fast,fastest,turbo" settings for ram speed .Your PSU should be ok from the info you`ve given me.


It should be in BIOS under "Avanced chipset features" then something like "DRAM clock/Drive Control" note some boards have different names/features etc so you may need to look for it.

Reducing the cycle length to CAS3 (CAS3 is slower speed then CAS2)from CAS2 may help as well.There`s normally auto settings for ram like "detect by SPD" but using manual settings can sometimes improve on the default settings for stability.

 

[mindfire]

man.. i gotta tell ya, i lowered my mhz to 266 instead of 333 and guess what??
everything is fine now! all games work, 3dmark 03 went smooth, its all good.
thanx man, if i didnt run in to u i think i would of replaced my motherboard or something. so i guess lowering the frequencies has a positive
effect on the 9500 pro. i'll play with the timing settings a bit later. i o/ced my cpu from 2.0 to 2.6 with 260 mhz ram.. should be fine i suppose. again, thanx for your help as it was very useful indeed. now im going to play!

 

[Viper96720]

Either your memory isn't actually ddr333 memory or no agp/pci lock. The r300 don't like the buses out of spec.

 

[mindfire]

"or no agp/pci lock" - what does this mean?