New vid card installation causes out of memory errors?

[Godfodda]

I killed my Voodoo5 today (I think) while removing the stock HSFs. This was in the 866 machine in my sig. I pulled the GF2 MX400 out of the machine at 1.5 to replace it. Ever since then, I get out of memory errors. Note that this machine has 768M installed (currently showing 556M free, per Maxmem). This wasn't happening like this before the vid card change.

I have downclocked to 150 and 133 trying to resolve the problem, but with no luck. I disabled 4x in the BIOS (since the Voodoo didn't have it) with no luck. I removed the listings for the card and the monitors (it shows 2 ?) in the Device Manager and allowed it to reinstall them upon restart. No luck.

I'm not 100% sure it's a video card related problem, but it wasn't there before I stuck the GF2 in. It's killing SETI, not allowing a clean shutdown/restart of my DSL software, and screwing with my internet. Anyone know what I might've done to create this problem?

BTW, I did remove the 3DFX Tools, but only after the new card was installed. Is it a driver conflict or what? I'm lost.

[funnyperson1]

try a fresh install of windows, i bet there are some voodoo drivers left causing you trouble...

[rogerdugans]

Cleaning the registry has helped me with similar problems: I swear by Ontrack's Fix It Utilities ( or whatever its called now) but there are other programs which do the same- I think win9x, 2k and XP all have a crude app. that does it as well, but I'm not certain.

The old last resort of a reinstall comes to mind also, but then you definitely don't locate the problem.

[Godfodda]

I'll avoid a re-install at all costs... even if it means shelling out another $125 for a new card. :)

I manually removed some of the registry entries for the card (after backup) but that didn't help. Found a device uninstaller on the driver CD, so I restored the registry to a couple of days ago and used that. Waiting to see how it works, but it's good for about 5 minutes so far.

Any other ideas?

[rogerdugans]

What does it do when you go back to the generic video drivers? Any different?

If it stops the error maybe you have a bad driver....
Could it be an irq conflict?

[Godfodda]

Originally posted by rogerdugans
What does it do when you go back to the generic video drivers? Any different?

If it stops the error maybe you have a bad driver....
Could it be an irq conflict?

Something is still eating the memory. Now Norton is giving BSODs for out of memory errors.

Haven't tried using the generic drivers. If I can figure out how to do it, I'll try it.

According to the device manager, there's no IRQ conflict. In the resources section for the card, it shows 6 different memory ranges, 2 IO ranges, and IRQ12.

I'll give it another shot and then I'm calling it a night.

[Godfodda]

Bingo! Switching to the standard PCI display driver did it. (Have you ever seen 640x480x16 colors on a 19" monitor? Ugh. :)) So far everything is running correctly, anyway.

Now, can someone tell me if it was a bad driver or some sort of driver conflict maybe? Now that I think of it, the 1.33@1.5 crashed a week ago (just after I left town) and I didn't know why. Maybe the same problem there? It was running the same driver (downloaded from somewhere out here).

Will do a little searching tomorrow night if I don't have to leave again.

[rogerdugans]

COOL!

Keep it crunchin'!

640x480 does kinda suck, huh?

One of my linux boxes has something weird with the video too: horrible res. when using it directly, but if I use VNC (from another pc, or even from itself!) it looks fine!

[CrystalMethod]

What OS are you running? I had "issues" of the same nature, when I was using WinME. 98SE, no problem. Win2K, no problem. I'm wondering if the they aren't related somehow.

[Godfodda]

Originally posted by CrystalMethod
What OS are you running? I had "issues" of the same nature, when I was using WinME. 98SE, no problem. Win2K, no problem. I'm wondering if the they aren't related somehow.

Yep, ME here, too. Looks like I might not be leaving today, so I'll try to find a specific ME driver. Hopefully that will take care of it until I can find a replacement card.

[TranceBear]

Have you done the Vcache mod to have that much memory in WinME?

[Godfodda]

Originally posted by TranceBear
Have you done the Vcache mod to have that much memory in WinME?

Great minds think alike. :D

I just did that. Found the link in our own Drivers forum to the geforcefaq (http://www.geforcefaq.com) (thanks Kent) which pointed to this MSKB article (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q253/9/12.asp) telling me about the problem. (Recommended reading :))

For those (like me) that didn't know, it seems that the inherrent Windows problem with "large" amounts of RAM can ocaasionally screw with the AGP port, among other things. Something to do with virtual addressing and the vcache setting in the system.ini file. Mine (in ME) had nothing set, so I entered "MaxFileCache=524288" (for 512M) under the vcache label. Seems to be working so far. My DOS prompt goodies (SETI CLC, and SETIDriver transfers) perked up after restart. Still have a few things to check.

BTW, I ran almost the whole gamut of drivers before doing this, so I'm reasonably sure now (that it's working) that those weren't the problem. Got the same results from 2311, 2183, 1410, and 1290. Will be trying a reinstall of 2311 shortly.

I *almost* pulled a stick of RAM out last night to see what would happen... damn myself for not doing it. :rolleyes:

[TranceBear]

If you do a search you will see an article I did on this same problem. Glad to hear you fixed it.