Author Topic: Another Radeon 9600Pro in problems (Read 795 times)

Pepe · « **on:** January 13, 2005, 06:03:38 AM »

Board: Asus A7N8X-Deluxe (Nvidia Chipset)
Card: Radeon 9600Pro 256 Mb.
Power Source: 400 Watt
WinXP SP2

When I go down low, my computer hangs. Not even CTD. Just freezes and have to make a hard reset.

This happens anytime I try to dogfite under aprox 1.000 ft. AGL.

It is not a regular behaviour, sometimes it hangs right up when I go lower than that, sometimes I can tangle for around 5 minutes, and then bye bye goes my puter.

It must be Card-related, because I changed from a fried Nvidia card to this and then problems began.

I tried everything, from changing drivers to the now sadly familiar format c:, to no avail.

Any clue (besides the obvious "change card"

would be highly appreciated.

Cheers,

Ohio43 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 13, 2005, 07:23:02 AM »

This probably won't help, but its worth a try. Nvidia chipset..does this have onboard video card? If so, try disabling the onboard video in the BIOS.

Pepe · « **Reply #2 on:** January 13, 2005, 10:56:03 AM »

Thanks for the help, but no inboard graphics.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 13, 2005, 11:06:19 AM »

Could be many things causing what you describe, and it could be merely a coincidence that it happened after installing the video card. Just because that was the last major change you made before noticing the problem, dont focus on it entirely or it could make you overlook something simple. Best way to figure it out is to send Skuzzy a copy of your DxDiagnostic report, or post it here. I would definitely check the drivers, make sure all old ones were properly uninstalled, etc.

One of the toughest things going from an Nvidia card to an ATI card if you have a MOBO with the Nvidia chipset is making sure you completely uninstall the Nvidia card drivers without messing up the MOBO drivers. Best way I have found to do it is to uninstall EVERYTHING Nvidia, and then after installing the ATI video card, install your drivers for your Nvidia chipset on your MOBO. Also, make sure if you are using a separate sound card that you have the onboard sound disabled so there are no conflicts and its not eating up resources. Dont forget to make sure you have the latest drivers from Nvidia for your Nforce board.

Once you have done all that, reinstall DX9 to make sure everything is where it should be and is looking for the things it should be looking for and in the right places (i.e. make sure its not confused and still looking for the Nvidia card). This sounds silly, but I've had it happen more than once where an uninstall and new install werent picked up by Direct X. Run the Diagnostic utility and run all the tests. Make sure your video and sound pass all the DX tests.

Now that the system is cleaned up and ready to go, go into your AHII folder and delete the video8.cfg file to make sure it doesnt have any old settings from the last card. Start the game, setup your video, and you should be good to go.

If it still doesnt work, shoot Skuzzy a copy of your new DxDiagnostic and he can help you with any problems on the new setup.

Good Luck!

Roscoroo · « **Reply #4 on:** January 13, 2005, 11:36:54 AM »

you may have a weak 400 watt power supply .... if its a generic type ps ... that may be the problem

if your running 98se .. put the 4.27 nvidia international drivers on the mother board

or the latest nvidia xp drivers

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_udp_win9x_4.27

http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

for video im using the 4.7 cats still

-------------------------
Asus a7n8x-e deluxe
2500+ MB at 2.4ghz
crucial radeon 9600 pro
enermax 420 watt power supply
win 98se , dx 9.0b

FOGOLD · « **Reply #5 on:** January 13, 2005, 12:39:59 PM »

Check for overheating.

Ohio43 · « **Reply #6 on:** January 13, 2005, 01:26:50 PM »

Ya the advice about disabling onboard sound is a good one. Before I upgraded to the 9600 Pro and reinstalled win xp I had disabled the onboard sound and got about 5-10 FPS faster frame rates. I forgot to disable it after the reinstall, thanks for the reminder. Oh, also, I have read posts here in the past that Creative Live sound cards are resource hogs as well, so ditch that if you have one.
Not to hijack the post, but one thing i havent tried is lowering the sound card output quality. Has anyone tried this..if so, did it make any performance increases?
My best guess is one of two things are happening with your system:
1. Overheating.
2. CPU resources are maxing out.
Im guessing its number 2. Sounds like when your diving toward the ground the computer has to make faster graphic re-writes and you end up hitting your maximum CPU resources causing a lock up. So check % of resources used. If it is high, might wanna try using FSAUTOSTART (do a net search with that name and you will find it) its a program that you select what background services to shut off prior to launching a game.
Also, take any devices out that you dont use (dial-up modem etc.) to lower the demand on your power supply.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #7 on:** January 13, 2005, 02:15:01 PM »

Actually, at least with the nForce boards, I have found the opposite to be true. The SB Live board I have absolutely rocks on my nForce2 board. I have seen where onboard sound can eat up resources from the CPU, and some incompatibility issues with the SB Audigy cards in certain MOBO's.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #8 on:** January 13, 2005, 05:26:33 PM »

Star nailed it when he talked about switching from NVidia to ATI or vice-versa. If you did not clean out the NVidia drivers, you can expect rather random and bizarre results.

Pepe · « **Reply #9 on:** January 14, 2005, 03:46:06 AM »

Thanks all for the help!

I have made a fresh install of everything:

1) format c: (sigh!)
2) WinXP
3) MOBO (nforce) drivers
4) ATI drivers / DNA drivers
5) DirectX

Still no solution. I've send ATI a report generated by the Graphics Recovery Utility.

I hade to activate this utility, because when I disactivate it, instead of a graphics failure and CTD what I got was a total hangup, and needed to permorm a hard reset to have my PC working again.

On the other side, I'm fairly convinced that it's got to be something graphics-related.

I've been lurching around yesterday with everything going fine, engaging (ouch!) sometimes 4+ bandits with no problems between 10-20k.

My puter stayed OK during the whole fight (aprox 30 mins.) no matter how many planes i had in sight but froze when i tried to land, approximately 300 ft. off rnwy, while performing a hard break to the rnwy, both to bleed speed and to shake off the inevitable lala vulcher...

Again, thanks a bunch for the help.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #10 on:** January 14, 2005, 05:25:15 AM »

try turning your sound excelleration down a notch in windows .. thats what ive had to do on all my asus deluxe mb's

the sound has sort of always been picky

also open the nvmixer /sound setup in the asus utility and be shure there isnt anything looping (you'll see sound levels on the meters w/ the sound off)

I have a feeling its sound related .. as for all the asus mb's ive used have always had to be tweeked and drivers updated in this dept.. AH2 would freeze ingame after 10-40 mins

Schutt · « **Reply #11 on:** January 14, 2005, 06:26:54 AM »

I think that is agp right? Try lowering to agp 4x or disable the fancy agp stuff... not sure what its called fast write or so? ill check at home. Maybe your agp port is overclocked, overvoltage or something like that... check in the bios settings.

My guess would be when you get closer to ground it loads up all the ground textures and somehow the high bandwidth causes it to crash.

Try if you lower the detail/view distance sliders to min or set them to max if it crashes at diffrent agls.

What texture size you running? my ati card crashes with 1024 texture size and 512 is fine.
When you use shift-f3 are there less crashes than with shift-f4?
Do you have the crashes with 128 textures, low detail low res also?

Since you did a fresh install i would think it is bios related or a hardware problem. What date is the bios on your motherboard and is that the newest available? When not read on the newer bios what has changed. Dont install the new one if it doesnt say it solves the problem.

Did you install ah2 new or only xp? Maybe one of the ground texture files in ah2 directory is corrupt, try a filecheck... is there a way to take over all the skins already downloaded to a new ah2 install? If so might try to reinstall ah2... copy old settings to the new one and see if it works.

Maybe you try other stuff first before downloading/reinstalling ah2, just that these problems are all i could think of at the moment.

Pepe · « **Reply #12 on:** January 14, 2005, 12:22:11 PM »

Hmmm....

Thks for the BIOS tip regarding board voltage.

I'll try to disable Fastwrite and turn down AGP to 4x or less, too, and see results.

With regards to AH2 installation, all fresh and from complete download.

Besides that, I have the same problems in WWIIOL. I don't think my problem is AH2 related.

Will update.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #13 on:** January 14, 2005, 10:45:48 PM »

mines set at 8x agp
fast write is enabled .

i wonder if its a driver issue on the mainboard ... sound drivers exspecially

Pepe · « **Reply #14 on:** January 17, 2005, 04:34:13 AM »

No way Jose.

What's more preplexing, when I set down the "hardware accelleration" in the XP card settings, I get a crash right when I click AH2, as if the problem were worse the lower the settings are.

On the plus side, with a slight overclock in the card voltage settings, I was able to land 4 kills....only to have the usual system crash on the take-off with the new plane.

I'm clueless.