XP and Radeon 9700 - issues?

[frostmeister]

I have looked briefly at posts here on the 9700 and knew there were problems before I bought one. Like many other people, I suspect, I was seduced by promises of framerates and features.
So, now I have a Hercules Radeon 9700pro. Installed the drivers off the driver disk under windows XP, rebooted, yada yada. Ran 3Dmark2001 (not SE) to see what it could do. It shut my computer down. Ok, so i thought, driver issues, went over to the ATI site, got catalyst 2.3 drivers and re-installed. No joy. It will run some tests ok, but nature for example, locks up and shuts down my pc in the first scene. I've just got catalyst 2.4 and RE-INSTALLED windowsXP, put the drivers on, and still no joy.
My system specs are:
dual athlonMP 2000's
Asus A7M266-D
1GB ECC DDR ram
2 IBM 40GB HDD's
soundblaster live
usb2.0 card
530watt PSU.
There's nothing else I can think of that could be having this problem. Is it a dual CPU thing? I know some software doesn't like it, but they've been alot better generally under XP - not so "clunky" as W2K. The last thing I'm going to do is go back to windows2000 and see if that fixes it. Any ideas you chaps/chap-esses have would be smashing :) Thanks.

[funnyperson1]

when you reinstalled XP did you reformat? reformatting is a good idea for any new hardware, also try flashing the newest mobo bios and getting newest mobo drivers and welcome to the forums :)

[frostmeister]

Make that one IBM hard drive. Aint that just the icing on the cake? I re-installed tonight, and the hard drive I re-installed on just messed up. It seems to flake out and spin down after an hour or so, and reset the system. Dang. So, make that the radeon I can't play games on, the hard drive that doesn't like to spin, and an audigy sitting in it's box that has XP issues. Am I Mr problem tonight or what? :mad: :beer:

PS - didn't re-format, but it was a clean install.(deleted stuff of the second drive) I take your point though.

[xbiker321]

Im sorry i cant answer your question but i noticed you bought a Hercules Radeon 9700pro. I have been looking for these buut cant seem to find any for sale so if you could tell me where you bought this card i sure would be happy :) :) :)

[Ghost68]

try 3dmark2001se that might fix your problem....

[frostmeister]

I'll try 3Dmark2001SE. I don't think it'll fix the problem though, as it's happening in all my games. It tends to lock up and then shut down much quicker in 3Dmark though. It's a thought - I'll try it and let you know. As for more fault diags on my system, I've just flashed the M/B bios from version 1004 to 1009. That didn't fix it. The notes on the update were that it fixed a problem with new athlons re-booting the system as well... *Dang*

[xbiker321]

eh um...i repeat myslf :rolleyes:

Where did you buy the Hercules Radeon 9700 pro :eh?:

[HWF]

I had a simular problem. My system was over clocked and the pci/agp was locked to 33/66. My Geforce card worked fine and the Ati 9700 Pro gave it up on every benchmark or game. I later checked my bios settings and found I had to manually select a divider for pci/agp in order for the Ati to work. My Ati will not work even if I raise my fsb to 134 with pci/agp set to auto to maintain the 33/66 specs.. You may consider this it may be helpful.

By the way once you get it going you will love the card. Its as stable as any card I've had. It has a 3dfx feel to in games. I really do like it.

[frostmeister]

Sorry xbiker - I did PM you, have you checked? The reason is that I didn't know if it was advertising to say how good my supplier is and go giving you details on here. Anyway, You can find the company I got my hercules 9700pro at Lightspeed-computers (http://www.lightspeed-computers.co.uk). If anyone objects to this, PM me or ask me to take the link down. An update on the 9700 situation; I've installed catalyst 2.4 on my old installation of XP after my new installation flaked out due to a dodgy hard drive (I get all the luck don't I?) and it seems ok in games. I've been playing quake3 and wolfenstein for the last hour or so. Apart from the fact both these games use the same openGL engine, I think it's fixed and there's just an issue with 3Dmark. Maybe not though - it still locks up and then shuts down my machine running the nature demo in 3Dmark. I haven't tried any other demos in 3Dmark. Maybe it's a directX thing? I'll try some UT2K3. Oh yeah, and it is a nice card too when it's working. Just a pity I can't bench it at the mo... What is the usual bench mark average for an XP/MP2000 and a radeon9700pro by the way?

edit - I'm running a mild overclock - 140FSB - and my radeon seems fine so far - in wolfenstein that is.

[frostmeister]

Ok, no UT2K3 for me then. Is the demo opengl or directX? it did the usual - lock up and shut down after 3 - 5 sceonds or so. Oh well. I'd like to think that this is a DirectX issue that might be fixed with microsofts next release; Maybe going back to Win2K will sort things out though. I'll have to update this post when that's sorted out...

[Kingslayer]

One of your problems is that your using the Catalyst drivers. You shouldn't be using retail card drivers on an OEM card. Go to www.ati.com and look on the lower right side. You will see "Find Drivers" and below it you should see "Find "Built by ATI" Drivers". You need to be getting your drivers from the "Built by ATI" section or from Hercules.

[Rotary-Motion]

Originally posted by Kingslayer
One of your problems is that your using the Catalyst drivers. You shouldn't be using retail card drivers on an OEM card. Go to www.ati.com and look on the lower right side. You will see "Find Drivers" and below it you should see "Find "Built by ATI" Drivers". You need to be getting your drivers from the "Built by ATI" section or from Hercules.

BOTTOM LEFT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[frostmeister]

Thanks chaps - I'll go and see :)

[frostmeister]

Tried the drivers for the "powered by ATI" but still no luck. My bench scores at the start of the nature demo are up from 85-87 frames a sec to 92 though. Must be the overclock - nice to see some result from it... I'll try again when I get Win2k back on - and post when I do :)

[OC Noob]

Doesn't DX control sound too. Maybe that is why your Audigy won't work. There is the DX 9 that you can get with the ATI DX9 Demos. Give that a try.

[frostmeister]

Cheers OC Noob; I'm going to try rolling back to win2k though. I think that's the problem - at least, I know it is with the audigy as I've checked the flood of posts from people trying to get the audigy to work under XP at the soundblaster forums. As a sidenote, It does still lock up under wolfenstein and quake3, it just takes longer - like 10minutes/half an hour or so...

[kamilkluczewski]

Guy use a better powersupply, even if you have a 500W PS it might be a "Fake" PS. Try borowing a buddies or getting a 430True PS. With dual MPs your sucking the life out of any powersupply add a R9700Pro to that and i guarantee your spinning your fans back there like nuts too cool the rails. My suggestion is to run just the card and the basics in the system. I bet you money on it, it works.

Kam

[frostmeister]

NOW I remember - :beer: I saw posts a while back that dealt with the power supply issue. Cheers chap - It'll have to wait though, I think, as I can re-install windows for free, but have to wait for my next paycheck for a real 500w psu. Thanks for jolting my memory kamilkluczewski :)

[kamilkluczewski]

Solved half the problems on the forums using a new power supply, good luck, hope everything turns out ok.

[frostmeister]

Well, hot diggity deputy daaaawwwwwg - I think I fixed it. A re-install of windows2000 did the trick. I posted earlier up the thread about having problems with my hard drive & soundblaster audigy as well - the soundblaster is fixed too. Installed first time and no problems yet (severe touching wood going on here - not in the beavis and butthead sense of the phrase...) OK, so here's the beef. XP was causing the problems with installing a soundblaster audigy platinum, and with causing lock-up and shut downs on OpenGL and DirextX applications. I've yet to run 3Dmark through on this, which I'll post when I do, but the reason I'm so sure is that I've run several demos which used to lock it up within 5 seconds, which have all passed. No blue screening after the audigy install either, although it is a bit of a given that they don't work with XP. Can't say with the audigy 2's coming out whether they'll bother to fix the audigy problem. As a point to note, I did hang a voltmeter on the 5volt rail to monitor the voltage during normal load and when the Radeon locked up. It sat at around 5.06Volts during normal use and with a radeon screensaver that seemed to work for quite a while without problems, and the same voltage on wolfenstein / Quake3. When the card froze and the computer shut down however, the voltage rose to 5.12 which made me think that the power supply isn't being over-stressed or you'd see a sag before it cut out, not a peak. There were also a few recoverable errors in wolfenstein that I couldn't duplicate that pointed to a program /code glitch. Windows 2000 sorted it anyway. Whew - long post! :)

[Top Hat Theater]

So the resolution to the problem was not using XP but instead going back to 2000? I'm going to give XP a go with my 9700 this evening and I'll report if I have any problems with the latest Catalyst drivers and 3DMark 2001SE.

~THT

[Rotary-Motion]

hi

on my card the driver disc that came with my new 9700 gigabyte yeild the best 3dmark2001 score i tried the cat 2.4 and it took just over 1000 pionts off and the latest drivers from gigabyte did the same !!!

well there you go cant work this out? :eh?:

[frostmeister]

Top hat theater - Windows2000 has made my system more stable than XP, yes. But, I still have issues and have yet to post a 3Dmark score, most probably due to the amount of stuff in my system. Dual CPU's, two hard drives and dvd and a CDRW all take their toll, and I think I spoke too soon. The audigy has as stated above, a number of issues with XP as far as I know, and I ended up having to take the card out and roll back to my SB Live to stop XP blue screening every time I booted. The install was basically tainted from thn on as I couldn't go through the registry and remove the hundreds of registry keys that related to the audigy manually. So the clean install has helped there, and probably with my radeon, but not cleared things up completely. Also, be carefull with what catalyst drivers you're using. Use the "powered by ATI" not the "built by ATI" drivers if your card isn't a genuine ATI card. This did seem to make a slight stability difference under the shaky XP install I ended up with.
Rotary motion - It take it you removed the old drivers before putting on the new drivers? Silly suggestion I know, but that seemed to make a difference for me. Maybe it's an issue with the control panel version switching on a feature by default on the new features, that wasn't there before?... Food for thought maybe. I'm now waiting for an enermax 550W PSU to try and eliminate the shutting down problem. It doesn't seem to be a temperature problem for me, as I can't even run through a 3Dmark bench straight after boot, and have stuck several fans blowing on the Northbridge, graphics card and PSU area to try and eliminate this. I'll post the results of changing the PSU when it arrives... Good luck to both of you with sorting out the XP install and 1000 point drop :)

[Rotary-Motion]

Originally posted by frostmeister
Also, be carefull with what catalyst drivers you're using. Use the "powered by ATI" not the "built by ATI" drivers if your card isn't a genuine ATI card. This did seem to make a slight stability difference under the shaky XP install I ended up with.
Rotary motion - It take it you removed the old drivers before putting on the new drivers? Silly suggestion I know, but that seemed to make a difference for me. Maybe it's an issue with the control panel version switching on a feature by default on the new features, that wasn't there before?... Food for thought maybe. I'm now waiting for an enermax 550W PSU to try and eliminate the shutting down problem. It doesn't seem to be a temperature problem for me, as I can't even run through a 3Dmark bench straight after boot, and have stuck several fans blowing on the Northbridge, graphics card and PSU area to try and eliminate this. I'll post the results of changing the PSU when it arrives... Good luck to both of you with sorting out the XP install and 1000 point drop :)

hi i did use powered by ATI drivers and uninstall others first too!

read this i just wrote VERY INTERESTING THREAD ON THIS !!!

other thread... (http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=133148)

[Top Hat Theater]

Okay, after BSODing with XP, I went back to 2K...I'm not even going to give it a chance. I dropped the OS like a bad habit when it came out and I'm dropping it again like a....really bad habit...or something. ;)

~THT

[Mandragoran]

Hello, have the same problem with my computer shutting down when running 3DMark SE on some of the test´s! The 4 first test! Also when i´m playing CS! Have Hercules Radeon 9700 PRO card with KT400 chipset! Have updatred my bios to 1010 and the latest power by ATI drivers and VIA Hyperion 4.45 drivers! The problem doesn´t appear if i don´t install AGP 3.0 rhen the card works perfectly! And have a separat power suply to my graphic bord, so that´s not the problem!

[frostmeister]

Mandragoran, I think as you say, your problm is related to using AGP3.0 - or AGP 8X. I heard there were problems with the VIA and SIS chipsets, when used with the radeon. My card is the hercules 9700pro as well. I've given up trying to fix it, and haven't played any games in ages :-( I'm going to get a power supply, and now upgrade to an Asus A7N8X, with an XP2700 / 2800 and dual ddr ram. I think that'll sort out any issues. Dual CPU's are fun, but more hassle than they're worth, unless you really have an application that needs them. I did by the way, 3Dsmax, and it did make a difference, but the negatives outwieghed the positives in the end.