pc hangs ... think its my graphics card

W

w(o_O)t?

New Member
hi,

i bought a powercolor ati radeon x800 gt 256 mb pci express and for a while it worked very good ... i finished doom 3 with ultra quality at 1024 * 768 and 4x antialisansing ... also i played need for speed most wanted with all graphics options at high in 1024*768 ... after a while (i bought the card in winter .. problems statred in summer) when i played nfs mw the pc hung up ... the sound frooze and there were all sorts of odd looking lines on my screen ... if i was lucky the pc defroze automatically and ati catalyst was saying that the graphics driver has been reset (vpu recover) ... most of the times i was not lucky and i had to restart the pc ... i thaught the problem is the driver ... ati catalyst .. so i kept upgrading it ... i tried all the version from 6.5 to 6.8 ... no luck

my config:

p4 @ 2.93 ghz
1024 mb ddr400 dual channel
ati radeon x800 gt 256 mb pci express
motherboard intel d915 gav
western digital caviar 160 gb at 7200 rpm

As you can see ... the config is far from being the best thing but ... its not that bad right?

what do you think the problem is?

Thank you!
 
Running ATI models here I've run into that on occasions. The Catalyst Control Center has been known to cause problems when gaming. I see a few a system locks at times running Steam's Half Life 2 where most of the game runs smooth until a sudden lock. On older cards the recommendation received from ATI was to go back a few Catalyst versions to correct problems seen with it.

The latest updates are geared more for the newer models. On the AGP cards upto the Catalyst 5.11 the option there was to remove the Cat and install the Control Panel available. You can uninstall everything and simply reinstall the basic drivers alone to see if that sees improvement.
 
shoot, or you could check all your connections, when mine is out a little bit, my second screen does that, then it freezes and turns yellow. :)
 
That does sound like your graphics card. How's your power supply? Is it pretty powerful(~30A on the 12v line) Do you have the power connection to the video card?
 
I was going to add one other note that surprises many to find out that problems that seem like video cards when gaming turn out to be a need to remove the current sound drivers and go with an update if not a fresh reinstall with the current. That's been known to cause a number of things.
 
thank you all for answering,

1. i think i will try to install some older version of ati catalyst because like i said it worked just fine for a while ... then i think i updated my driver and the problems started ... but i cant remember which version of the driver i was running before ...

2.i have a turbo link power supply

AC input 115/230 V, 7A/4A, 50 - 60 Hz
DC output 350 W

3.the graphics card has no other source of current that that from the pci express

4.at the beggining i thought too that it was the card was over heating and i opened my pc case and i installed a very large fan (you know those office fans that you install in summer) ... the cpu temp and the other temps dropped ... for a while i was playing nfs mw like this but but the pc frooze again .... now the temp in my room is 21 degrees celsius and the pc case is opened ... if i play nfs mw for not even a minute it hangs... so i dont think anymore the problem is the temp
 
If you don't find the Catalyst 5.11 or 5.14 go with the basic drivers. The 5.11 was the last with the control panel.
 
hi,

i think i found the problem or the problems ... lol

i went with the graphics card at my friend and we opened the radiator and put some thermal paste on it.

then when i got home i ve changed something in the bios about pci express configuration ... something with retrain link

mw does not seem to cause problems anymore ...

ill test it for a while .. if it really works ill let you know ... if it doesn't work ... ill let you know also ..

thank you
 
You were probably at the default PCI not PCI-E setting seen as default in the bios when first installing a board or clearing the cmos. That can see a few problems on the default setting. People running AGP cards have to remember to change the PCI/AGP to AGP as well.
 
hmmmmm ... the game still hangs lol

but

its very weird ... when i play with all the graphics at high at 1024 * 768 it hangs ... i can not even play a minute in the game ... but when i change the resolution to 1280*1024 with all the graphics at high its ok ... the pc wont freeze ... the problem is that at 1280*1024 all at high the game starts to lag...

so i made a compromise lol ... i play at 800*600 al at high execept for antialiansing and filter method ... for now it seems to work
 
If you are running a 17" or larger lcd XP will by default set the resolution to the 1280x1024 setting. In most games you set it to run the same as the desktop to avoid problems with the higher res. You can disable the Catalyst in the msconfig utility to see if that helps you run a little higher then 800x600.
 
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