GF3 - abitkt133a problem :(

[Devious]

I'm having a problem with my system.
When I have had my pc on say for a few minutes, and then do a shutdown - then power on I get get a long beep and 3 smaller beeps and the Pc starts with no display.
I have to leave the PC for about 5-10 mins before It will boot normally.
It is also prone to crashing/freezing when running 3d games and therefore I have to power off/on and I get the beeps again.

I've looked up the beep code and it is a vga error.

I have tried it on my older P2400 machine and pushed it for a while and tried shuting down - powering on as I did above and I have never had a problem/freeze.

I really want to take the card back but I am afraid I will not get it replaced because I can see it working on there test systems.

I'm not sure what to do , but Its driving me crazy as I just cant play games for more than an hour at a time. :(

Anyone any thougths

cheers

p.s the card I have looks nothing like the one on the box . i.e No meaty fan - just a small generic one and it has smaller heatsinks.

[Pinky]

Are you sure the card's well seated in the AGP slot?

It doesn't sound good otherwise. If you have nothing to lose, return it or try it in another system (like a friend's, etc).

[Sonny]

There is an issue with VIA+GF3+W98SE. Change one variable & the problem goes away. You do need to tell us how your system is set up as the problem could be something else.

*EDIT* I didnt notice you had W2K :o so please tell us how you set up your system. BIOS settings, Drivers & other related areas.

[Devious]

I have tried various detonator drivers , 10.80 ,12.41 , 21.88 ,22.50 , 22.80 & at the moment official ELSA 23.11's

I have tinkered with a couple of bits in the bios , AGP 4x - 2X & fast writes there wasn't much else regarding the video card.
Any tips ?

The cpu isnt overclocked and I havent raised cpu drive strength or lowered ram latency times.

At the moment I have even underclocked the card from 200/460 to 185/425 and it is the same.

I'm swapping my card for a night with a workmate tommoro with his creative GF3 ti200 , so I can see if his works on mine & he will know whether mine works on his.

I'll let you know what happens.

[Devious]

Hello again ,

Today me and a friend swapped out video cards to see if the problems were the same.

I have just installed his Creative GF3 ti200 and I have exacly the same problem.
I turned on the machine installed the card , rebooted , ran 3Dmark2001 (got 5850 ) then shutdown the machine. when I tried to power on I got the same beep code ( one long - 3 short ).
I had to wait 10 mins before It would start up again.

Does this mean I have a motherboard problem ?

Just for your information I had a Creative Geforce 1 DDR before my GF3 and I had no problems like this ever, though it did pack in about a month ago and had strange shadows accross the screen for a couple of days before it just packed in and wouldn't get detected by windows whatsoever.

Could this be linked ??

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks in advance

[Sonny]

.....uh..... Maybe Paul (http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kt7/kt7faq.htm) can help with your AGP (http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kt7/faqagp.html)/VCard (http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kt7/faqgraphics.html) quirks.

I know this is probably not connected to your problem but it just mught be. Did you install that 3D patch for W2K when you use a AMD CPU?

[Devious]

where is that 3d patch ?

I'm not sure that will help though with the beeps at post.

[Sonny]

Originally posted by Devious
where is that 3d patch ?I can't seem to find it right now but you should be able to find it at AMDs site. I'll attach it but SCAN IT just like everything you d/l.Originally posted by Devious
I'm not sure that will help though with the beeps at post. I know I know:o but..... oh well:beer:

What is the AGP DRIVING VALUE? It's usually set to AUTO but try & read the greyed out value. It's in HEX.

[Devious]

The driving value is on auto, I'm not sure which hex value would be best.

Thanks for the file.

I'm looking into a bios flash , but I'm not even sure which update to get from that paul link you gave me.

[Sonny]

I am thinking that you do have a KT7A right? It's the only MoBo of ABIT that has the KT133A chipset. Well if it's a rev. 1.0-1.2 then go for the 3R & if it's a rev. 1.3 then I guess the newest one will be OK. The newer BIOS update do not have the Halt-On-Idle activated but that can be done easily.

Originally posted by Devious
The driving value is on auto, I'm not sure which hex value would be best.But what is the value? EA or DA?

[Devious]

quote:
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Originally posted by Sonny
But what is the value? EA or DA?
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I'm not too sure what you mean, I'm not really sure what this does. At the moment it is set to auto in the bios. and this doesnt show what value it is.